An English Tea

What a lovely afternoon I had today!  To celebrate a friend's birthday she took us out for an Afternoon Tea at one of our local restaurants.  The table was all set and we waited in anticipation for the others to arrive.

Once everyone was settled Tea was served....

It was absolutely lovely I must tell you.  Nothing is better than a proper English Tea and a great afternoon spent chatting with friends.  And with this in mind, I must share with you my latest creation....a crocheted tea cosy!

One of my first crochet patterns from scratch!  I must say I am quite proud of it!  My husband thinks its great - well he is a bit biased I suppose.  Let me know what you think.

Bye for now

Von x

Heart Hanging Decoration - Tutorial

The rain here today was awful but I am not complaining too much because it was a perfect excuse to use some time in the house to do a bit of sewing!!

Decorative hearts are always popular.  They are a lovely to have hanging in a room to compliment the décor or more practically, to fill them with scent and have them in drawers or hanging in wardrobes to scent clothes.   They are so easy to make.

What you will need:Patterned Fabric (3 different patterns)
Button
Ribbon
Stuffing or lavender to fill heart
Pinking shears (optional)

 

Using 3 different types of patterned or plain material cut them into small squares, as shown above, and position them in a pattern that you like and then sew together, on the reverse side of the material, to make one larger piece of material.

 

Once all squares are sewn together use a heart template to cut out two fabric heart shapes

 

I used pinking shears to cut out the hearts but you can use normal scissors if you prefer

 

Sew around the edge of the heart, leaving a small gap to insert either the stuffing or the lavender.  Once you have inserted the stuffing or lavender into the heart template sew up the small gap.

Attach a ribbon on the outside of the heart and a button for decoration (as shown below)

 

 

Julie
x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Bracelet Tutorial

I decided to make a bracelet out of the beads I bought today in Hobbycraft, this was the finished item:

The beads used are as shown below along with two long pieces of clear elastic string. 

I started by tying a knot on one end of the string on both pieces and threading the first bead on.

After doing this I added two clear beads to each piece of string. 

Continue as follows until the bracelet is the wanted length, finish on the clear beads and tie the bracelet off. 

the bracelet should look as above but when wearing twist the bigger beads so they sit properly on the wrist like below:

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, bye for now, 

Heather :) 

Loom Bands

The latest craze that is sweeping the schools is loom bands.  For anyone that hasn't heard of these they are basically coloured elastic bands all cleverly manipulated using either a loom (supplied with the kits) or , as most of the children are doing, using their fingers to create beautiful colourful bracelets.       The end result is this....

 

We initially tried to use the loom supplied with the kit but soon abandoned that in favour of creating them using our fingers.   We struggled to find any tutorials that would explain how to achieve this so we have posted a short tutorial below, hopefully this will help for any of you that do decide to have a go....

1.   Make a figure 8 with one of the elastic bands and place on two of your fingers

 

2.   Place another elastic band above the first band (no need to twist band two at this point it is just placed on the fingers

3.  Place another elastic band above the second band, as shown above, again no need to twist this band - it is just placed on the fingers like band number two!

 

4.  Now take one side of band number one (the blue one in the photo above) and pull away from the fingers and then drop inbetween the two fingers that contain the bands ...like this ...

 

5.  Then do the same with the other side of the blue band so that you end up with bands as shown below ...

That's as complicated as it gets!!     All you then have to do then is add one band as a time to the top of your finger and keep pulling the bottom band up to drop in between the two fingers (on both the right and left hand side),  so on this demo you would then be pulling the bottom pink band on the left and right hand side of your outside fingers and letting them drop in between the two fingers, then the green band etc

 

When you have finished you will end up with a long bracelet as shown below.   It will probably look more like a train track at this stage than anything else but the trick is to then pull it carefully at each end and you will then see it take shape.

 

 

Finish off by securing each end with an "S" clip that is enclosed in the pack of loom bands. 

 

The loom bands  are available on amazon so if you fancy having a go, click on the link on the left hand side of this page and order some....   guaranteed to keep the children quiet for a few hours!!

 

 

Julie
x

 

 

 

Up-cycled Shirt

I decided to up-cycle one of my old shirts, this was the finished design:

I started by unpicking the pocket on the top of the shirt and ironing out any small holes that were left. 

After doing this, I drew a line using a ruler and tailors chalk to mark where I wanted the bottom of my shirt to be.

Making sure that the line I drew was correctly positioned, I cut the material off, leaving some space for the hem.

This was the new length of my wanted shirt:

Next, I cut mid-way up the side of the shirt so that I could tie a knot there later to achieve a gathered effect.

I then double folded the bottom of the shirt before pinning and tacking. I then slip-stitched across the length of the shirt to achieve a neat hem.

After doing this I moved onto the top part of my shirt. I started by measuring out and drawing the outline of where I wanted my altered neckline to rest.

Next, I drew lines down the stretch of the neckline using tailors chalk, leaving 1cm between each line.

I then cut down the lines with scissors, taking care not to cut the back of the shirt in the process.

Next, I cut alternate lines out of the shirt:

I then twisted the lines of material into the criss-cross design I wanted and pinned them in place.

Using 5mm studs, I secured the criss-cross pattern in place. I also inserted some studs around the neckline for decoration.

This was the finished look of my up-cycled shirt, I chose to place a vest under the shirt, although a contrasting colour would look more appealing.

Bye for now, 

Heather :)