Spoonflower. Not really about spoons. Or flowers.

I am trying to sort out my cupboard under the stairs sewing storage room as it will shortly be moving to the...wait for it...UTILITY ROOM!!!1! Yes, I know, How lucky am I. Because of the recent neverending loft conversion project we have a bit more storage space, which means I can have an actual real room to sew in, as opposed to putting my sewing machine on the dining room table and then leaving it there for three months whilst fabric and pattern pieces gather round it in some sort of modern art installation styley, until someone comes for dinner and I have to stuff it all back under the stairs again.

Birdies Galore by cabinpressstudio

If all goes according to plan I will have a workbench, a fold up chair, shelving and drawers. I will still have to share the space with the tumble dryer and washing machine, but at least I'll have a permanent space for my machine and the accoutrement's that come with it. Happy days :)

Love Fiesta by sammyk

I'm a long way off from that yet. First we have to finish the decorating. I am on the third coat of paint in the hall. The third coat, people. Which means there will need to be three coats on the stairs, and the landing. *cries*

Medium Elephants by katharinahirsch

But I have made a start on my new sewing nest by having a little bit of a de-stash. As we have officially run out of neverending loft fund loan money, and the electrician's bill came in £700 more than expected, we are slowly putting the entire contents of our house on eBay. This way we get to pay bills and really make the most of all that new storage space, as there won't be any crap left to fill it with. I'll list some of my fabric next week, and will be running a de-stash celebratory giveaway to mark the occasion. It's nice fabric, not just manky bits that I want to throw away :)

Monsieur Wonder Kat by malien00

Which leads me to the pictures that illustrate this post. How can a girl possibly keep on top of her fabric stash when there are beauties such as these available to buy from Spoonflower? The design talent out there just blows me away. Just a shame all the monies in my paypal account will be paying for sockets and switches :(

Are you feeling lucky, Punk?

Are ya? I am :)

I watched that programme about how we're fecked if we carry on overfishing, and I thought about how lucky I am to have a roof over my head, food in my tummy, a wonderful mr pickledweasel, a beautiful munchkin, and a fantastic mom 10 minutes drive away.

I'm feeling even luckier today -the sun shone, me and munchkin had a lovely day outside, and I've nearly finished another bag. Yes another bag, but this one hasn't involved any hair pulling and hopefully won't run in the rain. I just need to work out what length strap to make, and then it'll be done.

AND I have a whole new load of fabric and stitchy related stuff to drool over. I had to go to the magic fabric shop (no, really, I had to, I had no choice) to get something to make a skirt from - I am sort of doing Kitschy Coo's Sew-Along, but I don't have the Cal Patch book she's using. I'm a bit strapped for cash this month and my library doesn't have it, so I'm using Sew U, which I bought with some Christmas money. It has basic patterns that you can adapt, like the Cal Patch book, so I thought I could use Kitschy Coos deadlines as motivation. A skirt by the 20th of March? I'll need some fabric then :)

And there were just too many nice prints, I couldn't resist... and I had to buy some florally things to compensate for the tres boring grey fabric I bought to make my skirt from. The heart print is for munchkin, and the pink rose and blue flower print is for me. The stripyesque tribal type stuff is for me - I'm thinking halterneck summer dress.

And (I promise this is the last sentence I'll start with 'And') I am now the proud owner of an adjustable dress maker's dummy. A friend very kindly gave it to me - she's 94 and although she used to sew a lot her eyesight is quite bad, so she said she'd like to see someone get some use out of it. I need to fiddle around with the screwy bits so it's my measurements, but isn't it fab? I'm so pleased. It has pride of place in the dining room, next to the stuffed insects.

Life is good :)

Abakhan, how I love thee.

Let me count the ways.

1. You have a shiny new shop in Preston which is twice the size of the old one.

2. Your shiny new shop currently has a shedload of Indian-ish cotton prints which are just beeeautiful.

3. You stocked the perfect ribbon for the ties on Munchkin's new hoodie.

4. You also had a multitude of shiny satin fabrics to make nighties out of, including this kerrazy print that grandma pickledweasel chose for her belated Christmas Making present. (scissors included in picture to illustrate ridiculously loud scale of pattern).

5. You sell plain fleece in a squillion different colours.

6. You currently have a sale on, including this very lightweight babycord at half price.

7. Even if things aren't in the sale there's 10% off everything.

8. You make me want to buy fabric just for the sake of it, even if I have no clue whatsoever what to do with it. (although mr pickledweasel did suggest cutting out 2 of each doll, sewing them and stuffing them, which is a blimmin brilliant idea)

9. You are ridiculously cheap, despite your amazingness - total shopping bill was £20.53, including all the fabrics in the photos above (apart from Munchkin's hoodie), 2m of ribbon, 2m of 5mm button elastic and 2m of cream fleece.

10. All of your shop assistants were nice to Munchkin, even though she was in a bit of a strop because I wouldn't let her out of her pushchair.

Sorry for the crumpled photos - if I get the iron out I might have to do some of the pre-christmas clothes ironing pile, and I'm in denial :)

Knitting and Stitching Show Part One

I am not feeling well - you know when you get that cotton wool head feeling just before a cold / flu? I was going to write up a report of my visit to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate yesterday, but I'm tired and my legs feel like they're going to fall off and it wouldn't make much sense, so you'll have to make do with pretty pictures of all the things I bought instead...

Too many magazines and patterns :)

This for my sister-in-law for Christmas - she loved the Bimble I made for Juliet, and said she might use the idea with her GCSE textiles students, so I thought she might like the book.

Two vintage knitting / stitching magazines, one for the fantastic 'evening jumper' pattern, and one for a lovely 'Noah's Ark Workbox' which apparently is perfect to 'hold all the nursery mending things' :)

One fat quarter and a little bundle of scraps, which included some Beatrix Potter bits. And a little pack of vintage bits and bobs that made me think of the forties - I might try and do a collage with it.

And I went to a workshop where I made this jazzy hand print applique bag and got a load of gubbins free! The jewel bits aren't stuck to the bag, they were part of the goodies. Although I might stick down one of the big cabachons so it looks like a ring.

Hopefully when I'm feeling a bit better I'll post about the wonderful textile art I saw, which was amaaaaazing. Til then, back to bed...

What I are Lerning - weeks 3 & 4

I've combined this week and last week for a couple of reasons - because I was ill I missed my class on Monday and went along on Wednesday instead, so I haven't really had time to do a post about it, and it was a bit of a boring (but necessarily so) class.

My excitement about buttonholes and pockets was short lived, as our tutor has slowed things down a bit and we did seams. Yawn. We have been promised buttonholes next week. I think because there's 15 of us it's taking a lot longer to cover topics, and some people are complete beginners, so the pace has been adjusted accordingly.

I did learn things about seams though. The first thing was if you don't have an overlocker and you want to neaten seams but you're a bit lazy and don't want to zigzag everything, use pinking shears. The second thing was I need to buy some pinking shears. The third thing was I really want an overlocker.

This week was far more exciting. We made a dress! From jersey!! Which up til now has been my most feared fabric. Yet I have conquered it :) It's a very simple dress - rectangular boob tube up top, rectangle skirt below. Mine is all shiny because my theme is around Ndidi Ekubia's work, and she works in metal. You can wear it loads of different ways - I've decided to fold the boob tube bit double, so the skirt is shorter and more tunicy. Here's the dress with the boob tube at its full length:

I don't think it looks as nice this way, it's a bit too eighties, although that may just be the fabric (£1 a metre from the old magic fabric shop). Plus it makes me look short :) Here it is with the top doubled over. See, much taller!

I managed to get the whole thing sewn in class, although when I got home I looked at it closely and really wasn't happy with the gathers along the skirt, so I unpicked it all and redid it. We'd loosely pinned the skirt on to the top at 8 different points, and our tutor suggested we make the gathers up as we go along, pulling the top tight and runckling the skirt fabric as we sewed. My runckles weren't small enough and so looked very patchy. Instead I pinned little rough pleats and then sewed so it's a bit more uniform.

It's not quite finished, as I want to make a belt to go under the bust line with some of the leftover fabric. Grandma pickledweasel's given me some interfacing, so I think I'll do a broad shaped band with some sort of stitching on the front, but I need to give it a bit more thought. This dress is our first assignment, so we have to reflect and evaluate the whole process, as well as provide sketches. Eeeek. Drawing. Help! Our homework for next week is to do four still life sketches. I won't embarrass either you or myself by sharing my feeble efforts.

I'm not planning on wearing this sparkly affair by the way, it's just for my assignment. And apologies for the 'I don't know what to do with my hands' modelling poses :)

Breaking News: New Magic Fabric Shop.

*Beepitty beep beep beepitty beep bing bing* (news jingly music)

We are bringing you breaking news from East Lancashire. Earlier today it was discovered that a brand new magic fabric shop has opened its doors in Rossendale. Pickledweasel, mother of one, spoke to us earlier today with her account of its discovery:

'It's amaaaaazing. Just like the original magic fabric shop, but a lot more orderly and with less stuff, and it's only 5 minutes drive from me rather than a trek halfway across the county. I bought all this fabric and it only cost £9.40!'

Eyewitnesses reported dress fabrics being sold for as little as £1.00 per yard, Irish linens for £3.00 a yard, and remnants for as little as 50p.

It's feared that the presence of a new magic fabric shop in the area will increase rates of fabric hoarding by up to 73%. Rossendale Council have already received a strongly worded letter of protest about the opening of the shop from a Mr Pickledweasel.

And now, the weather.....

Cardigan flowerification

Our local Ethel Austin relocated to the empty Woolies recently (eee, it's all go in our neck of the woods), and they had a closing down sale. I picked up a couple of boys chunky ribbed zip-up cardigans for Munchkin for 75p each, one for now and one a bit bigger for later.

Obviously I couldn't leave them plain and bare and boring! I started with the one that fits now, and printed flowers with black fabric paint on to some (Liberty?) cotton scraps, and then appliqued them on to black felt.

I was a bit worried about sewing onto a knitted fabric, but it was surprisingly easy. Even if I had made a hash of it, you wouldn't be able to see the wonky sewing on the black felt.

The other cardigan is a fawny/oatmealy colour, so I thought something in pink would go well. I'm not sure whether to do more flowers or try something different... I'll have to see how the blue cardigan washes, I'm a bit worried about the colour in the felt running.

In other craft news, the pattern I bought to help make my 'copycat but less slutty' dress. has arrived in the post. Unfortunately, in between ordering the pattern and it arriving, I seem to have purchased a purple silk halterneck dress for the bargain price of £75 (reduced from £249) with the intention of wearing it to the wedding. Ooops :)

Magic Fabric Shop expedition

My trip was a success, and I came back with a metre each of 6 different fabrics. This time I borrowed my mum's car, so I didn't have to fork out £5 for the bus!

These lovely blues and yellows are backing fabric for bibs - the 2 plain blues are a really soft babycord, and the patterned ones are just cotton. I'm liking the check, very cowboy shirty :)

I'll use this fabric for appliques - the car or the truck would fit quite nicely on the front of a bib.

This fairy fabric isn't really my kind of thing, but I can see how some people would like it. It's a perfect scale, as I can fit one fairy in the centre of a heart like I did with the bird fabric in my last post.

Grand total? £7. The fairy fabric was £2 a metre, everything else was £1 a metre. And a nice lady even gave Munchkin a lollipop because she was crying. Although being the responsible parent that I am, I didn't actually let her eat it, I just said thank you and that we'd save it for later because she'd make all the rolls of fabric sticky.* Although halfway home I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that she'd managed to chew through the plastic wrapper and was fervently licking it :)

* What do you do when random people give your 1 year old sweets? A neighbour keeps giving her Halls Soothers of all things, and he looked at me very suspiciously the other day when I said thank you but it was nearly lunch time and we'd save it for later.

Bibs a Go-Go

I'm a bib making machine this week. Albeit quite a slow one, but I'm getting there. My aim is to have 8 things listed in a new shop on Coriandr by Sunday.

Here's a sneaky peek at a new bib. I'd forgotten I had this beautiful bird fabric - it was part of a huge stash my mom gave me when she was having a clear out. I've found some lovely Laura Ashley prints to use as well.

This afternoon I'm off to the magic fabric shop to buy some more cotton. Yes, I know I said I was banned from buying fabric until I'd finished some projects, but I need to buy fabric in order to finish a project, so it's justified :) I'm struggling to find 'boy' fabric in my current stash. Why do I find boys so difficult to sew for? So I'm on the lookout for some snazzy car / truck / moon / animal prints. I'll report back later!

Pom poms and pillowcases

We chickened out of camping. Or rather I did, mr pickledweasel was still well up for it despite the rainy weather forecast. I'd had a long couple of days at work and was very tired, and the thought of all that effort just for a weekend in a field was too much. I know, I'm a big old wuss.

Instead we went to Preston for the day on saturday. We went and saw an exhibition called Enchanted Worlds: Art of Fairy Stories and Mermaid Tales which had some beautiful illustrations and is well worth a look. We also popped round the corner to the PAD Gallery, full of pretty things and inspiring stuff. And, obviously, we went to Abakhans because they have a shop in Preston and I've not been to it before :)

I spent just over a fiver and got a load of goodies, including some white tulle to make this pom pom skirt for Munchkin. She refused to stand up in it, so here's a picture of how it should look from Happy Together's blog, where I got the tutorial from.

Other Preston bargains: 2 blue patterned pillowcases from a charity shop for 99p, one of which I'm making into a skirt, half a metre of Liberty tana lawn for £4 from the market (mr pw swears it's knock-off, but I don't care!), and 6 cds for £10. See, not only was it less work than going camping, it was cheaper too!

Although I now have taken a vow not to buy anymore fabric until I complete at least 3 sewing projects...

Another cushion and a potential fabric goldmine

Remember the polar styley fabric I bought a while ago? I finally got round to making a quilt cover for Munchkin with it, although it is just a bog standard plain one rather than a patchwork one. I wanted to do a patchwork one using each of the little scenes on the fabric, and white and mint green strips of cotton as a border. But time and common sense intervened :)

As a compromise I've made this sort of patchwork cushion cover for her room instead. The polar bears were on a bit of waste from when I cut the cover out, so I sewed some beads and little snowflakes on to make them a bit more wintery, and then used some scraps of white to patch round them.

I'm off to a magic fabirc shop later this morning, that's only open 2 days a week and has most fabric at £3 a metre, or so I'm told by trusted sources. It's only a bus ride away, and I have no idea why I've never heard of it before. Maybe it's some sort of secret shop that you only get told about after you've done a certain amount of sewing? I'm off to check my sewing machine for bugs...