A Quick Flash

I thought yesterday was Friday 13th but it has seemed more like today was! 

I tried to type this post this morning but, for some reason, the page would not load. I also encountered problems when I was attempting to upload some photographs. Consequently I could not prepare this post until now (8.45pm) so I’m afraid, through necessity, this post will be just a quick flash of what I have been doing recently.

There isn’t even a photograph of my first two creative projects! My two grandsons put in a special request for soft, snuggly, bobbly scarves for each of them. They were playing with my soft, snuggly, bobbly scarf one day which was what prompted the request. This week the yarn arrived so I knitted a red one for my Treasure and a jade green one for my Precious.

Bunting decorating the bed

For my Sweetie Pie I made something for her bedroom in my son’s new house. She has always loved pink so I decided to make some pink bunting to drape along her new bed.

Bunting brightening the bedroom

As you can see, her bedroom is plainly decorated at the moment. However, I think the bunting adds brightness to the room.

Bunny, bear and bunting

I could have made the bunting slightly longer but I think if it had been it would irritate her head if it happened to brush it during the night.

Fabric and free machine embroidery

I have also been having fun making some cards using fabric and free machine embroidery. The card above is the one I gave to my son and his family wishing them happiness in their new home.

One fat heffalump

I am a member of a sewing group and we have all been making stuffed elephants. The one in the photograph is my effort – ‘effort’ being the operative word! It was not a pleasurable project to make.

Nellie the Patchwork Elephant

The design was in a recent Woman’s Weekly craft magazine. The instructions didn’t give any indication of the completed size. I think we were all surprised by how large it ended up!

Here’s lookin’ at you!

Not only that, but it just seemed to eat stuffing! I used more than a complete cushion pad of stuffing to fill Nellie! That’s an awful lot of stuffing – and an incredible amount of pushing and prodding to get it evenly distributed.

Never again!

In The True Spirit Of This Blog…

When I first began writing my blog one of my main reasons for doing so was that I wanted to show other stitchers that other people make mistakes.

I had been reading several sewing blogs for a while but had found myself a little intimidated by the ability of the people writing the blogs. As I have admitted on here previously, I am pretty much a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ girl. I am very impatient and that leads me to rush and to cut corners (sorry for the unintended pun!). I know that I should have learned my lesson by now but I haven’t – and I’m not convinced that I ever will!

A few weeks ago, when I was at my Thursday morning sewing group, I decided to make a Christmas stocking for each of my three grandchildren. Louise of Sew Scrumptious Fabrics had issued a free pattern for a Christmas stocking a little while earlier but, in true Bossymamma style, I did not have it with me and I didn’t want to wait until I was home! Cue me designing my own stocking. (Sorry, Louise, I didn’t use your template in the end.)

Oh! I was so organised! I sketched out some stockings until I had a shape I was happy with. Then I drafted larger sizes until I achieved what I thought was a good size. Next, I cut out a paper template which I used to make a plastic template. (Are you impressed, so far?) Finally, I began to cut my fabric. Oh dear! I had forgotten to add a seam allowance. Pretty stupid, huh?

I ploughed on and stitched the stockings. When all three were assembled I decided that I wanted to line them. (This is like a comedy of errors, isn’t it?) After much thinking and fiddling, I worked out how I was going to attach the linings and set about doing so.

Oh dear! The linings were quite a bit larger than the stockings, even though I had used the same templates. That was because this time I had remembered to add the seam allowances. (I really hope you have realised that this is not a ‘How To’ but most definitely a ‘How NOT To’!)

The final stage was to add the white cuff but I didn’t have any suitable fabric. I decided to use some wadding – this was not the cleverest idea I could have come up with as wadding is a real pain to sew by hand. Yesterday I attached the cuff to each of the stockings so they are sort of ‘finished’ – I just need to attach something to show which stocking belongs to which grandchild.

So here we have three Christmas stockings, each of which has an enormous foot topped by an ultra skinny leg. They’re not very good, are they? The fabric is sweet, though. So, instead of my grandchildren being able to leave them out on Christmas Eve for Santa Claus to fill, Nana will put a few bits and pieces in them just so they they are actually used!

How not to make Christmas stockings.

Feel free to laugh and scoff!

My Latest Make

A couple of weeks ago we had a new member join us at our Thursday morning sewing group. Her name is Janet and I got to know her through the Shortcuts to Sewing forum.

At the first meeting Janet attended, I offered to show her how to make an origami folded fabric pouch. Other members of the group enjoyed making these pouches and regularly use theirs. In fact, Jacqui had brought one with her to the group and was able to show Janet exactly what it looked like.

I first saw this design of pouch at a craft session on a cruise. Mary, the tutor of the session, very kindly showed me how to fold and make the pouch and I enjoy passing on that knowledge to others. Having said that, I have not done a written tutorial to put on here as I have been busy creating another tutorial – watch this space!

Janet began a pouch during her first morning’s session and took it home to finish it. The following week she brought a completed pouch for us all to see. 

Janet’s completed pouch

I like the way Janet matched the small buttons for securing both flaps.

Below is a picture of the pouch I began making to demonstrate the process to Janet. At last I have managed to finish it – after completing a top secret project (more news on that project very soon!).

My sunny pouch on an autumnal day

One Way To Stay (sort of) Sane

My Little Sis is coming here this evening and will be staying for a few days. Don’t get confused – she’s not my little sis(ter), she’s my Little Sis. In fact, she’s the reason why Donata is my ‘mini’ sister, rather than my ‘little’ sister. My best friend, Janet, is my Little Sis and I’m her Big Sis – and she’s hundreds of years older than me. The nicknames came about because of an incident that occurred when we went to a craft show at Shepton Mallett in about 1996.

So, anyway, my Little Sis is coming to stay so this week I have been doing housework – and I don’t like it! (Can you hear me stamping my feet as I say that?) When I first moved in with Peter I offered to pay for “a woman wot does” to come and “do”, but he did not want one. I said that was OK as long as he did the cleaning, as I had stopped doing it when I employed my cleaner in Somerset.

Generally the system works well but occasionally there is a glitch. And this week has been one of those occasions. That has meant that I have needed something to keep me sane. I didn’t want to get my sewing machine out and knitting wasn’t doing it for me so I have been doing some hand stitching.

I posted this picture of my first biscornu pin cushion earlier this week. I was quite pleased with how it turned out so I decided to make another.

This one is larger than the previous one. Again, I used some of the prepared squares that I bought when Elizabeth and I went to a quilt show a while ago. However, these are four inch squares, rather than two inches.

I shall be putting both of the pin cushions into a sale that the craft group and sewing group will be holding. We are aiming to buy a cutting machine which can be used on fabric, as well as paper and card.

If you have experience of using any of the cutting machines, for example this one:

Weird Words But Not Weird Things

Some things have really weird names, don’t they? Words and names are borrowed from other languages so are almost pre-destined to sound peculiar. I wonder who decides which foreign words will be used in the english language? Is there someone closeted away in some far-off dusty garret, trawling through foreign language dictionaries, deciding which words are worthy of assimilation into english? Hmmm, I wonder…

Sorry, I got sidetracked there for a moment. Back to the main thrust of today’s post, which is my latest makes.

Last evening I was surfing the net when I came across a video on YouTube showing how to make a biscornu pin cushion. (“Biscornu” is an odd word, isn’t it? I have just looked in three dictionaries to find the meaning but it wasn’t in any of them.) I decided to have a go at making one. I had some precut squares which I thought would be ideal so I immediately   went upstairs and grabbed a couple. It is fiddly to stitch it together but you do end up with an interesting 3D shape. This is how mine turned out:

I have taken the photograph with the biscornu leaning on my brother’s old fireman’s helmet to give an indication of its size.

Having started the pin cushion last evening, I took it to the sewing group this morning to show them how to make one and completed it there.

Also at sewing group this morning, we completed our origami folded pouches that we had begun last week. And there we have our second strange word: origami. I know we are used to it but that doesn’t stop it being weird!

The pattern we used for the pouch was that which we used in the workshop I attended at the Adelaide sewing show. Here is the one I completed today:

I’m Not The Only One Making Bags

As you know, I’ve made quite a few bags during the past week. Today I got more people making bags. The sewing group that I began has had a break for various reasons but last week Jacqui and I were talking and decided it was time to revitalise it. So, today we had a meeting in our new venue – Coronation Road Library in Radcliffe. The library is closed on Thursdays so we are able to spread out around the building.

We started the morning with a cup of coffee and a look at the group’s stash and then began working on making bags. The bag we are making will be familiar to some of you as it is the same design that I made at the sewing show in Adelaide recently.

I particularly like the design as it is based on origami. I have a couple of other bag designs that are made in a similar way, one of which I have made several times whereas I haven’t actually made one in the second design – another one for my To Do List!

I haven’t forgotten that I said I would do a tutorial – I will prepare it shortly. In the meantime, here’s the same photo again so that you may enjoy looking at it while you wait!

Christmas is coming…

Today I have been at the Dumers Lane Sewing Group this morning and the Coronation Road Adult Craft Group this afternoon.

At the sewing group we were working together to produce items for the sale of work at Bury Art Gallery on Saturday 03 November 2012 in aid of the Young Oncology Unit at The Christie Hospital. We spent our first hour looking through the fabrics that we had and then planning what we were going to make. In the second hour we began sewing bags finto which gifts could be placed for children. We set up a production line cutting, pressing and stitching. All of the bags have had a picture panel appliqued onto the outside and the handles for the bags have been cut, folded, pressed and stitched in readiness for next week.

The group wanted to make bags that were similar to some I made recently for the local women’s refuge and so they were following my lead. Unfortunately my lead got lost – oops! – and I made a mistake when we were beginning to sew them together. Sorry, everyone! I soon realised what I had done and we agreed to start afresh next week doing them correctly. Next week we are also planning to make some bunting. We have designed it so that it can be used at Christmas or at other times of the year.

We all agreed that we had thoroughly enjoyed working on a group project and have decided to have a repeat of group working occasionally. We also arranged a timetable for our first group challenge and drew lots to see who would set the ‘rules’. We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Jacquie!

At the craft group this afternoon we talked about what we would like to make in the run-up to Christmas – ideas included ribbon decorations like those in the photographs below,

wet-felted beads, prick and stitch cards, braiding, felt tree decorations, felt gift boxes, handmade books and freestanding paper Christmas trees. I think that’s probably enough to keep us going for a while!

Happy crafting and have a lovely weekend.

Bossymamma dips a toe

Who am I? My name is Dina. I’m known to some people as Bossymamma. Bossymamma is a good descriptive name for me. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am definitely bossy!

I love to sew, knit and crochet. Actually I enjoy trying all sorts of crafts. A couple of years ago I set up an adults craft group at my nearest community library, Coronation Road, Radcliffe. I also started the Coronation Clickers Knit and Natter Group which meets at the same place. More recently I began a sewing group at Dumers Lane Library in Radcliffe. I am also a member of the Friendly Elks Loving Hands group which meets in Rawtenstall.

Today I’ve decided to dip a toe into the world of blogging by setting up this blog. I expect my posts will be about sewing and crafts, what’s right or wrong in my world and anything else that takes my fancy.

I hope someone will be interested in reading this – you never know, it might be worth it!