Post Christmas sew up.

I didn't do much in the way of sewing or beading in the run up to Christmas what with moving and everything else going on but on boxing day I pulled out the machine and since then it has had a little use. Finishing up some odd bits, a bit of fixing and some new makes.

This skirt was the last remnant of a top I made dd a long time ago, she must have only just been pulling herself up in those days. She saw this in my fabric box and brought it to me. 'Please Mummy skirt'. How could I refuse such a nice request. Luckily there was just enough left for this pretty little number. She was so excited to watch me sew it. I shall have to let her start pressing the buttons soon. As it's a remnant and the elastic was bought so long ago it was from the euro shop before we moved back I am considering this a free sew. We like free sews. ;)

These trousers are made of a soft fleecy fabric I was gifted earlier this year, I used the Dana Made It kids pants pattern and extended it slightly for her height as she is 2 in a size 4. I added elastic in the cuffs as a jogging bottom feel. The fabric is so soft I want a pair too. I have a bit left and am hoping there is enough for me to make up a pattern for a top to go with them. Ideal for this miserable weather. Another free sew!

Trousers from the Made by Rae new born pattern. These are for my friend whose daughter is due end of Jan. I love this fabric, I bought it a couple of years ago with dd in mind but never came up with a plan. I am glad to use it or it would have been a money sucker. I hope they fit the new arrival.

These are also for my friends baby. A reversible bib and burp cloth. Both from a me made pattern, well the burp cloth was just made up as I went. It has towelling on the back for a bit of resilience to any burp residue that may occur. The fabric was from a bundle I bought a while ago now and have used for a dress for dd and also her dolls cot bumper. I think it stretched to a pen roll too. But this seems to be the last of it. Satisfying when you can use something up completely.

PJ bottoms for me. My first pair for me. Another free make, the fabric was left from the dress hubby made from his challenge in Germany. He bought a lot as he hadn't chosen a pattern when he found the fabric and it became a summer dress so lots for me to play with. The pattern was from Lauren's book but I just made casing for 1" elastic as couldn't be faffed with the adding ties. The elastic is doing me well I bought a huge roll in Germany from ebay and have loads left still. It has more than paid for itself over time. I have yet to wear them but they do fit. I tested before completing.

Trousers. I can't remember the pattern, I cut them in the summer as long shorts for dd but I made them too small and never finished them. Now there is a new baby on the way I finished them off. I know looking at them it's blue and boyish but my dd loved the second pair I made her that fitted. I admit initially I bought it for my son but he grew out of trains too fast unlike his older brother and indeed his sister. Still it came in handy in the end so no loss there.

I made this dress after our trip in the summer for dd. She choose the Minnie fabric in the US and I added the black from left overs in the scrap bag. Buttons were from a card making kit just for show and the pattern is the Good Deed dress. I finally got around to adding the red ribbon to finish it off. Needless to say she was over the moon.

My final make was this skirt. Father Christmas bought some 'Halloween Skellington' hair bands. She has developed a real thing for this film and the squeal when she opened them was incredible. It made Christmas. So when I saw this last remnant in my box, originally for hubby's pj bottoms from our American trip, I knew I had to create something for her. Again a bit of black from the scraps bag and voila her very own 'Nightmare' inspired skirt. I love this and so does hubby and dd.

I also fixed a few odd bits and made plans in my head for other bits but all in all I was happy with my little stash and UFO buster.

In other news hubby has laid the matting for the tiles in the bathroom. We hopefully will have a tiled floor before he goes back to work on Monday. I will show you a picture when it's done.

Merry Christmas

The weather is cold, damp and windy. It rains and rains and rains, though we are lucky and are too far south for the floods that are affecting so many right now.

But we had our first Christmas in our own home with our crazy excited children. Small girl squealed when she found Nightmare Before Christmas hairbands in her stocking and after two presents on my lap suddenly realised there were lots of presents and had to be held back a few times for fear of the tree getting knocked over and her brothers loosing out on gifts.

It was an incredible day. Luckily our huge oven did the perfect job and we managed to all squeeze in around the table despite the lack of a proper kitchen. The food was delicious, the children were happy. What more can we ask for.

I hope you all had a wonderful day too.

A new project

I have been a bit quiet recently as we have a new project on the go. When we bought it you had to go up the grass and under the bush to the door, we have since found the path that was hidden by bushes. Inside needed a lot of work and we are slowly but surely getting there. I have a half cupboard and a broken cupboard in my kitchen but running water and a Rangemaster 110 ceramic hob in cream. I love my oven. I can cook more than one thing at a time and grill too! It's the simple things. The tins are piled up on the floor between the oven and the fridge and I have to empty the cupboard every time I want to cook but we are kitchen shopping in the January sales. The bathroom had to be ripped out and we have had the new suite plumbed in but that is all for now. Again, it's a work in progress!

When we bought the house you couldn't get into the back garden very easily at all. It was completely overgrown, we found a bay tree in a pot that was taller then the house and my sons could open their window and pick blackberries. However we had left it as we had more pressing things to be getting on with, (mould removal, painting and papering, choosing bedroom carpets. . . ), but then next door were having some tree work done so I had a word with their contractors.

And this happened! My garden it turns out is pretty big when you clear out all the brambles and overgrown shrubs! 

SO that's why I haven't been around much but I hope to get back into the swing of things again very soon.

Sewing up a storm.

So we are back. The holidays are over though the memories are still fresh in everyone's minds. We have 100's of pictures to sort through and a rather amazing stash of new fabric to sew through!

I felt it would be rude to travel across the ocean and not bring home a bit of American fabric with me.

Unfortunately the picture of the stash was deleted after sending it to a friend. But there was a lot of lovely stuff, starting for $1 a yd in the sales. Amazing!

My first project was for hubby, Jack Skellington PJ or lounge bottoms. I used the GBSB pattern in a small size and they are perfect, I had to use a ribbon rather than a tape for the tie as our hobby craft had no tape in stock. But I was happy and so was he. Next up was the same pattern but in this fantastic $1 a yd fabric.

I then used the CKC pj bottoms pattern to make two pairs of Iron Man bottoms for the boys. The pattern comes up huge in case anyone is thinking of using it. But we fiddled around and they are both very happy, they were on before I could get a picture.

Finally I made madam something last night. It's the Good Deeds pattern. I had the black off cut already left over, and the buttons were in the button jar. Mini Mouse was an American purchase. Pleased to say she loved it this morning when she saw it. I just need some red ribbon to trim the waist with and it's done. A little big so good with a top in winter and will still fit in the summer we hope.

 

My last make was using up an off cut from Mr Skellington. It's a Christmas gift so ssshhh.

 

It's a tablet stand for hubby. Modelled by my tablet. I am pleased with the result but were I to make another I would add more stuffing. It was fun and easy to do. Using an idea from Half Yard Home. I may make more as presents for others as I found it very stress free and I have lots of odd off cuts that I refuse to part with. I have lots more projects to be getting on with but for now I will enjoy a quiet afternoon with my little one after her first busy morning at preschool. Before we have to collect the boys from school later.

Have a Tiggeriffic day!

 

 

 

Trip across the globe.

I have been a little quiet recently as we were planning a holiday to see family of my husband over in America. We have been planning this trip for a while and now we have less than a week left of our holidays. It has passed really quickly but it has been amazing with some completely priceless moments. Meeting characters at Disney, seeing animals at Seaworld and meeting with their American cousin. I am writing from my kindle and don't have any pictures on here to show you but I will share when we are back. We are just having a storm which is upsetting the smallest  person. But hopefully it will pass quite quickly. They are all currently looking for somewhere to hide. I hope the weather for you is a little better. ;)

Anyone for cake.

Anyone who knows me knows that we always make birthday cakes in this house. You don't buy a birthday cake you create it with love. That's what my mother always did and that's what we do too. My husband was new to the idea of homemade cake when we had our first 1st birthday, (actually he was in Afghanistan but that's by the by), but now he has come to relish the idea of cake time. He even made the figures for our second's Christening cake himself. We have often been found the night before a birthday or party up in the small hours trying to get the cake finished in time, there was a memorable occasion when he went to the 24hr ASDA at around 2 am for more fondant as we had run out and Thomas the Tank Engine was half bare. We have never been quite that bad since we did run out of green food colouring but I remembered a stash of fondant pre coloured which we bought for a minion in Germany, the boxes of pre coloured were new on the shelve and only came in a box of three colours red, yellow and green. The yellow was all used up but we had about 4 packs of green still. I think that must have been for Mike Radowski (?) not sure on the spelling the small green guy from Monsters Inc. There have been a number of cake tales and I am sure there will be many more. But I thought I would share my two most recent makes with you.

Following on from his Minion theme last year, (Minion bowling), we had a request for Minions on a bouncy castle. I cheated and ordered the figures. He loved it.

Top shot of all the Minions. The party cake went down well. It was banana and chocolate with vanilla pillars. There was a slice left that ended up going to the birds as it had gone a bit hard.

The second cake was for the husband. The people were an added after thought so the size is completely off to the crabs but the original idea was for a rock pool and crabs, we then spent the day out by the coast with friends and had a ball. So I decided to add us.

Three crabs as caught by our sons on the day out and our daughter in a nappy which is how she decided to spend most of the afternoon. She only fell in the sea twice I think. And our boys on the edge of the pool. We were too big to stand on the cake so are propped up next to it.

I made a third cake today because two in two weeks isn't enough. . . As our son's birthday is in the holidays his party was before his birthday which is the first time it's been so far from his birthday so we have made a cake for birthday tea tomorrow too. I will try and remember to add pictures at a later date.

I must say one thing I learnt this time around was if you are going to make figures do them in advance not on the day. ;)

Real Tomato Sauce.

So we were recently sent a bottle of Hellman's Tomato Ketchup to try for free courtesy of Hellman's.  I insisted our small people and the big one come to that finished the old bottle of supermarket's own before we opened the new one amidst rather a lot of grumbling, but it was almost out.

The bottle we were sent is a different shape to the usual squeezy bottles we get and actually this seemed to work as each of our children, 2, 4 and 6 were able to squeeze a reasonable sized amount without making a mess.

There was a slightly out of the ordinary element of excitement perhaps as we had received it for free but after the initial taste test I received verdicts of 'more Mummy', 'yummy' and 'absolutely yummy'. The large person said, 'I like it it tastes more tomatoey than the other one'.

We had burgers and buns for tea tonight and as I was putting sauce in the buns I realised we had run out already. There was just enough for four buns but the other two had to make do with some garlic herb dip I scavenged from the fridge door. I also noticed that the lid was sauce free. None of the usual build of of sticky gunk around the edges.

The final verdict - We would definitely recommend this new ketchup and we will be buying our own bottle now the free one is finished.

Farewell Suffolk.

So I haven't been around much recently as we have been busy selling our property in Suffolk. Today the solicitor called to say it's official we have completed and the keys have been handed over. It's a strange feeling, on the one hand I am incredibly excited about the future and what the next chapter holds, on the other it's quite emotional. We are both from Suffolk and our roots will always be there even though we are not. That was our first house, bought early on in our relationship as the opportunity arose, we had only been seeing each other 3 months when we made the decision to buy, we had known each other a lot longer but that's not quite the same. We were married when we lived there and I fell pregnant with our eldest while we still lived there. Lots of lovely happy memories.

However we are moving on and into another part of the country where my husbands work has taken us. Perhaps we shall put down new roots for our children here or perhaps we shall wait a while and see what the future holds. Either way it's an exciting time.

What's no so exciting is the rain, and the fact that it's the school summer bonanza later this afternoon and we are going to get very wet if it doesn't let off soon. In fact it has precisely two hours to clear up and give us all a reprieve and then if it can hold off for another two we shall all be very happy.

What's new on your street?

Is it or isn't it. . .

Summer that is. Cold one day 26+ the next. Hot in the morning, jumpers at lunch time and 25 by school run time. I do wish it would make up it's mind. Yesterday I wore a bright summery outfit in an attempt to encourage the nice weather and I received some lovely compliments.

The skirt is a new look pattern, the fabric was from a shop in one of our local villages. It was on sale so I thought it would be rude not to take any home with me.

In other news I have been clearing out the cupboards in an attempt to de clutter our space, I have been putting a lot aside for one of our preschool Mums who collects and fills boxes for Skoolz4kids. Preschool has been sponsoring a child since we have been there and we have provided a few bits for the child but this Mum fills boxes to be distributed to other people in the village as well as the sponsored family. I took a look at the website and some of the pictures are very humbling.

Ruby or not to Ruby?

So last night I finally got around to sewing the much talked about Ruby dress. It's a Simple Sew pattern that was free with a magazine. I was gifted a copy of the pattern and I have been meaning to try it for a long time. I even bought some nice fabric to try it out on. However I ended up using fabric from the bundle I was gifted recently the zip was in that bundle too so all in all it was a 'free' sew except for my time of course. I think this is probably a good thing. It's not going to be a regular feature in my WIP pile. It's wearable and I did receive a compliment earlier today but for some reason I just can't place I'm not feeling the love for it as I have with other projects.

I don't have amazing pictures to share but here is one of the back/side.

It will be worn this summer and then we shall see.

I shall have to try and get some better photos later. On a plus side it's another day to add to my Me Made May attempt. ;)

What's on your sewing table/work bench today?

Me Made More. . .

I had a bit of a lull in Me Made. Life kind of took over and suddenly it was almost the end of May but I did wear this outfit again at the weekend for a 1st birthday party with close friends of ours.

The quick make green skirt and the grey floral Lauren top with an H and M cardi to keep off the chill.

And today the sun looks like it might be out so I am giving this skirt it's first outing. It's the Anna hack. It goes great with another of my H and M cardi's. And a cheap vest underneath. So far I am liking it. We will see how it behaves when we are out and about shortly! 

What have you been up to recently?

Keeping the mind busy.

We are currently in the middle of selling our house back in Suffolk and while this is going on and we are over the other side of the country in Somerset I have been trying to keep myself busy to keep my mind off the sale. My latest 'project' has been to use up bits of fabric. The green skirt I made was one of those makes and the blue and green shorts I made for madam's summer.

I can't remember if I showed you those so just in case I didn't here is a quick picture.

This fabric was in a bundle my aunt sent me of her off cuts. The button is from a torn pair of hubby's work trousers and the ribbon was in a huge bundle I bought years ago to make some ribbon blankets. All in all a good use of left overs and very frugal. I have enough of the fabric left to make a Suffolk puff or two to embellish a t.shirt to match. Perfect for our summer travels.

My next using up the odd bits project was a Good Deed dress. Also for madam. I am absolutely in love with this dress. The fabric combinations just worked perfectly. 

The bodice was from a bundle a Mum from school recently gave me when she downsized her house. It complimented the skirt fabric perfectly. The skirt was a half yd that I bought in a bundle last year and loved but couldn't decide quite what to do with. The bias is just off white from a roll I bought on Ebay for a few pounds which has lasted so many projects and it's finished off with some lace trimming that was free with a magazine last year or maybe even the year before that. I am really happy with the result. 

So now to find another project to keep me going a bit longer. I am not quite sure how long a sale takes but I could get a lot of sewing done at this rate. ;)

What's keeping you busy right now?

Nap Time Creations

Well it seems madam has taken to having a self imposed nap in the afternoons again. This is great news for me it means I can clean and prepare tea for when the boys and hubby are home or not.

It means that yesterday I took an idea I had been playing with in my mind and turned it into a reality. I hacked the ANNA dress by BHL into a skirt. It was as easy as I imagined it to be.

I took 2 " from the top of the skirt pieces and sewed it together as normal, I replaced the zip with a 7" zip and hook and eye and then used bias tape to create the waistband. I hemmed it as usual. I am really pleased with this one. Looking forward to the end of the rain so it can get an airing.

Then in the evening I challenged myself to use one scrap/remnant. This fabric came from my aunt and there was just enough for these cute shorts for my daughter, shame about the rain, good job we have a summer holiday planned! There is just enough of the fabric left to create a puff or a flower to embellish a plain top to match.

The weather here today is dull and wet so I am not sure much will get done around entertaining the small people. But I might try and find a use for another remnant later. 

MMM - 3, 4 and 5!

I have found this is becoming quite fun. On the 3rd attempt I forgot to take a picture, however as it was undies and a top I had made from a dress rather than made from scratch it wouldn't have shown as much MMM as the other pictures do.

On day 4 of my attempts I received so many compliments it really made my day. The skirt was from a piece of fabric in a large stash I was given recently, I started with a pattern and then changed my mind and winged it. Really please with the result. The top is my Lauren top, having since tried on a Sorbetto I think I might actually make more Lauren's! They fit better. The cardi is a bit big it's H and M last year but the colours went well with the rest of the clothes.

And finally day 5 is a Delphine skirt from Tilly's book which is made from a remnant of fabric left from other projects bought in Germany. The top and cardi are both from shops in Germany, Bessmans and H and M again. I think I bought three cardi's that day in different colours but they are all a little big now. 

How is your Me Made May going?

Me Made May attempt 2

After seeing everyone's posts about Me Made May and the challenges they have all set I decided I would try a bit harder to wear some Me Made. And maybe even make some more to wear. It didn't help that when I opened the drawer I realised all my jeans were in the wash after a not great week so it was skirt or dress day. I went with my favourite Anna. Well there is still one I haven't worn but my favourite so far. It was made a while ago and is now a tad big but as it's too cold to wear it alone I had a cream cardigan on hiding the excess fabric.

I bought this fabric from myfabric online when we were in Germany I also bought some similar in another shade which I might make into a skirt. It's a linen look and I love it.

Excuse the picture, I am not the best self picture taker but it does the job. I shall continue to try and uphold the idea of wearing a bit of Me Made throughout the rest of May.

Me Made May

I didn't actually make an official pledge or sign up to Me Made May but I thought I would try and wear some of my Me Made items and partially join in. I am not doing fantastically well as most of my clothes are summery and the weather here has been far from that but we did get a hot few hours on Monday so I wore my recent London stash top. The Lauren top in grey floral.

It's not the most flattering of pictures but I am not big on being photographed at the best of times so a Me Made selfie is not my strong point. It was the first time I have worn the top since I made it and it actually fits a lot better than it would appear in the photo. It's not my most favourite make in the world but it will definitely get worn again when the weather is warmer.

I am hoping the wind tails off and the sun comes out a bit more this week and I can get out some of my other Me Made items.

Have any of you been trying Me Made May?

So much for sewing up the Sewing trip stash!

In fact the only fabric I have sewn from my trip is the grey floral. I tried out the top from Lauren's Learn to Sew book. I found it slightly more fitted but very similar to a Sorbetto top to sew up. Minus the front pleat. But it's a good quick summer top sew.

I have also finished my fourth Anna dress. Spring has sprung with this pretty fabric from Prettiful Crafts and Fabrics on Facebook and Ebay. They also have their own website www.prettiful-fabrics.co.uk. They are both lovely ladies and the fabric always arrives in very good time.

  The blanket my daughter has been after for a while. I finally sat down and sewed it up for her. The fleece backing was a 2e blanket when we were in Germany. Tinkerbell is old from Rooftop Fabrics who you can visit from the link, they are also on Facebook. Rachel is another lovely lady who sometimes adds a bit of chocolate or a bag of jellies in your order. ;)

The dress was a quick sew in an afternoon nap session, the fabric came in a bundle I bought from a seller destashing on Facebook. It's slightly marked but this was a mock up to see how it came out. She loves it so that was a bonus and being seconds fabric she can get as mucky playing in the garden as she likes. 

 I really liked the way the pattern turned out so I remade it in this beautiful summer Art Gallery fabric which was also in the destash bundle. I made a nappy cover too with the left overs. Now we just need the sun to shine.

I still have the rest of the shopping trip stash to be getting on with and rather a lot of other fabric and beads to keep me busy over Easter while the children are busy with their games.

But it's off to the kitchen now, I have been instructed we NEED to make jam window biscuits. They might be ready for a cup of tea if I hurry.

Until next time.

Knit and Stitch

My friend bought us tickets to Knit and Stitch at Olympia in London. We drove down and my husband took the children for a day out with family while we went for a girls day out.

The show was busy but we had a lovely morning mooching about the stands, potting most of the Sewing Bee contestants and snapping up the odd bargain.

After stopping for a tea break we decided that we would make a slight alteration to the afternoons activities and take a stroll to Goldhawk Rd which we had both heard so much about.

It was only a few minutes walk and was nice to get some fresh air. We found one side of the road was a little samey and not really to our taste but the other side had lots of lovely shops and fabrics.

The feather fabric was from the show and the bias and yellow polka dots from Goldhawk Rd. The blue and white are magazine freebies that were all washed on the same day.

The tape measures I think will be a skirt and the grey floral a top for Summer. The yellow is actually to go with an off cut and make a skirt for dd. I also bought some other feathers for my Mum but for some reason they are not pictured. Neither is the bead stash I picked up at the show.

It was a lovely day out, we followed off the shopping trip with a sandwich in a cafe and an evaluation of our day.

We have plans to go back for a day out sometime, possibly even spend the night and go to see a show.

I will share some of the make from my days haul with you soon.

Craft with kids - the follow up.

So after my last post where we had baked, painted stuck and sewn I was wondering what this morning was going to bring by way of requests from my son. It was actually earlier than I had hoped for but not as complicated as I expected. It was around twenty past nine when I was still trying to catch up with myself when he asked me 'Mummy what are we going to do today like we did sewing and baking and our Easter egg cups?'. My initial response was along the lines of I don't know yet let me finish the job I am doing and we will think of something. Cue frantic brainstorming of something not too complicated yet still lots of fun.

We went for chicks. We have some of the funky foam you can pick up at Hobbycraft among other places and with the addition of some feathers and googly eyes we had two snazzy Easter chicks.

The writing at the top of the page was from Chinese night at Beavers. They wrote their names using a Chinese alphabet someone brought in. The chicks could I think have done with some feet in hindsight but at 2 and 4 we were happy with the results.

Tomorrow preschool is in the morning so I might get a crafting reprieve from my son. Or at least have time to plan something for the afternoon. The sun has been out this morning while there is still a chill in the air the weather is definitely looking up. We spent a happy 10 minutes bouncing on the balcony in the sunshine after having a story and a snack. It's almost like having a playschool in our own living room at times.

Crafts with kids.

On Sunday we were struck down with chicken pox and on searching for pox I also found nits. The nits were firmly evicted. We all had a dose of shampoo to be on the safe side and they were gone. The pox on the other hand were just beginning and are still very much with us.

This meant that we couldn't visit our usual Tuesday morning playgroup in the village up the road and we decided to have a craft session at home. (There is always a craft activity at playgroup, on our last visit it was noisy shakers). We decided to go with an Easter themed activity ad made Easter egg holders. My 4 year old loved it and my 2 year old loves paint and sticking so she had fun too.

It didn't take too long so they were bored and it had a satisfying thing to handle at the end. As we are stuck in at the moment other than school runs with the pox still contagious I thought we could do another craft today. I asked my son what he would like to do and he said 'sewing Mummy on your machine'. I had a little brainstorm and came up with bunting, easy and effective. He only had to do straight lines. He choose the fabric and said it was for his big brother at school. We cut out the letters and I sewed them on for him and then he made the triangles and sewed on the bias tape. Luckily I have a button controlled nachine so it was a case of press the needle down button, press backwards, press the green for go button, stop, stop, quick stop, press the scissors. We had a lot of fun and his brother loves it. 

I am a little wary of offering a craft tomorrow morning. We have had two baking days in the last two weeks. I shall try and think of something over night to offer rather than asking for ideas! ;)

#SEWYOURSTASH - Are you taking part?

I don't know if any of you are on the same children's sewing group page I am on, but if you are you may have heard of the February #SEWYOURSTASH challenge. We have agreed to try and use up bits from our stash in an effort to sew more and clear out the bits. Some people took pictures of their stash and choose which fabrics to use but I have just been using as I came to it. The Izzy I last put on here was one of my pieces, the skirt on if was left from a dress I made dd when she was still tiny and a dress was less than a half metre. The top was from my Aunt, she sent me a box of her off cuts last year to use up. I have also made this tunic.

It started out as a skirt and then I decided to add a bodice as the fabric is left from a dress I made myself, I thought a tunic matching Mummy might be cute. This are a recent purchase I bought for a Sew Serendipity pattern. Then there was the shirt.

This has been in my stash a while waiting to be a shirt for #1 son. #2 son has a Star Wars Angry Birds shirt made last year around the time I bought these fabrics. I also made his little best buddy a shirt with different Star Wars Angry Birds fabric. There is hardly any of this left now. Next was the Hummingbird hack.

I made the bodice from the pattern and then added a skirt to make the tunic. I used a 1/4mtr of this paisley which I think is a pretty cute fabric. It came in a bundle I bought online while we were still in Germany. It makes her paisley collection up to three pieces. The weather need to be a bit warmer but hopefully spring isn't too far off. The bodice is the last of the pink fro my Aunt. My most recent stash buster though is this set.

The material has again been in my stash since last year. I bought it in Tedox in Gutersloh for 4 euro a metre, I had 1.5mtr to play with. My plan was always to make bedding it just needed to be done rather than planned. There is a pillow case with envelope flap, A cover with a piece of sheet for the backing and some free wadding for the filling. The sheet I think may have been one of mine from the days of a single bed and living at home with Mum and Dad. I had enough left to fashion two curtain ties, they are backed with an off cut of white also from Tedox and have ribbons for the hooks. I didn't have any rings but I shall replace them at some point. I am really pleased I have finally done this. I made both the boys a cover and pillow case while we were in Germany, (one with dinosaurs and a coordinating print also from Tedox and one with dragons and a plain backing from MyFabrics), and this has been on the to do list for a long time.

What's been on your worktable this week?

Sew much love - Send a little love Swap - The Great Reveal

Some of you may already be familiar with Mad About Bags blog and her recently organised swap.

If not head over and check out her blog using the link above. I took part in the swap, it's been a long time since I took part in a swap with being in Germany but I thought it would be fun to have a go at this one. I was paired up with the very lovely Pat from Pats Patch. We spent a few weeks sending long emails about our lives and likes and began to get a feel for one another.

My parcel arrived the week before we were opening them and was sitting in the kitchen on the side staring at me asking to be opened all that time but I was good. I don't get that much personal post anymore, it's usually for one or other of the children so this was special.

On Saturday I had three very eager faces watching me when I said I was going to open my parcel. I was very impressed with my oldest when I offered to let him open one of the tempting packets he said "No Mummy it's your present I want you to open it".

My first finds were two postcards with recipes on. And this intriguing box. I left that for later and delved a little deeper. The love hearts were spotted quickly by three keen sets of eyes. The little note book is all handmade with a little tag book marker inside. There was also a set of coasters, red with hearts and three more wrapped gifts. 

As you can see my swap partner had already gone well above the guidelines for the swap. Which were 5 items, something edible, something red, something handmade and a heart. I was feeling very spoiled. I let the two younger children open one of the red packets each saving the white flat packet and the red box for myself. 

 The children found a packet of chocolate hearts and a packet of chocolate lady birds in their parcels and my flat gift was a set of two mats and two coasters of a lovely red thick felt with heart motifs. I left the red box until last. The embellishment was also a brooch. But it was the contents of the box that surprised me most.

I knew Pat had been making fabric lavender hearts for her sisters cafe so I had half expected to receive one as it fitted in so well with the theme. There was also a pin cushion you can see in the box. 

The reverse of the pin cushion was a beautiful cross stitch, not only this but a pair of embroidery scissors with another small needle/pin cushion attached and a pretty felt needle book with an unpicker holder and unpicker and some pretty pins inside, all finished off with the same pretty cross stitch.

There had been so much thought and detail put into the swap I was completely overwhelmed and felt very emotional. A complete stranger in all but a few emails and some blogging had created for me the most amazing package which went far above and beyond the outlines of the swap.

I am sorry to say the package I sent was nowhere near as impressive, I had a little help from my 4 year old when choosing things to put in. He choose the red candle for something red and he also choose the socks which are not pictured here. They were purple thermal socks as Pat does a lot of photography and we thought they would help keep her toes warm when out walking in the cold weather. The heart mat or pot holder was fun to make but the bias binding was not fun to sew on, I unpicked it once and it still looked a little bodged in places. :( 

The chocolate heart looked so pretty when I saw it on the shelf in the shop. 

I made these with some glass beads I had. I thought the colours were lovely. I was pleased with the finished item hearts but not too red and valentines like. 

And the red candle my son choose. Pat said when it arrived the scent of the candle had infused the socks too. So as you can see not quite the literal box of delights I received but a fun swap.

I really enjoyed this swap and look forward to taking part in many more, hopefully at a time when there are no broken legs, sickness bugs or other ailments striking our household.

Happy Half Term Everyone.