Christmas Baking....

Felt Sugar Cookie and Gingerbread Tutorial

At the moment it seems as though much of the UK has become obsessed with all things cuisine due to the enormous popularity of 'The Great British Bake Off'.  Mr Larkin and the children have succumbed to the lure and can be found glued to the television screen whenever it's on. I thought I had managed to resist but even I have found my thoughts turning to baking, but for me it's baking with felt!

At the moment I am thinking about my Christmas sewing as I like to stitch gifts for our family and closest friends.  Last year it was appliqued bunting and patchwork stockings, but this year I thought I might create little ornaments to hang on the tree.  However, my inspiration is lacking as this year's theme seems to be......Baking.....and I don't do that!  

Still even I can appreciate the fantastic skill needed to produce delights such as these;

 And then I had my theme - Felt Gingerbread! So I had a little nose around Pinterest to get me started and found these super examples;

But I wouldn't be happy making direct copies of other people's work, so I spent much of today designing my first felt Christmas gingerbread biscuit.......

There are a couple of things I'm not happy with but hopefully by the time I've designed a snowman, bell, stocking, tree, star and elf I'll have ironed out my faults!

The process was actually pretty simple and whilst there are still elements which need 'tweeking' the basic design  worked, so I thought I would share it with you.

The first step is to cut your felt shapes and using a dab of white glue fix them in place

I then machine stitched around each element (one line of red still to do in the picture!)

I then added a few sparkling beads and sequins to represent sugar crystals  

 The eyes are french knots, although seed beads would also be cute

I stitched a thin strip of matching ginger felt between the top and bottom layers to give the cookie a nice 3-D effect before stuffing them but I actually think I could miss this step out and just sew the top and bottom together.  I'm also going to oversew the seams on the next one rather than blanket stitching them.

The cookies would also benefit from having their design nearer the edge of the gingerbread so that it looks more like 'flood icing'.  This is obviously a simple change to make, I'll just cut a smaller brown felt circle.

Cushion Love

I'm back in 'Style at Home' magazine!

This month's Style at Home magazine is all about cushion love and it's available in store now...

....and I designed and stitched one of the cushions featured in its pages!

 Jennifer, the editor, had asked me back in the summer if I might be interested in being involved with the issue and my answer was, of course, a resounding "Yes, Yes, Yes!" .  Well, the very next day, I received an exciting package in the post;

It contained a plain faux silk cushion cover, return postage and some very lovely and extremely generous 'Hobbycraft' vouchers.

I immediately got busy designing and making my cushion cover.  The woodland theme remains very popular this season and so keeping this in mind, I came up with a Stag's head silhouette but added a modern twist with a "Hello Deer" pun on the reverse.  

Style at Home have also featured my design on their Facebook page, so do pop over and have a look;

https://www.facebook.com/StyleAtHomeMag

The design brief took me out of my usual comfort zone as I don't normally work with faux silk as I really prefer linen, cotton and wool.  However, conveniently enough, the pair of linen curtains which I recently bought from the local car-boot sale to upcycle for my tea cosies and journal covers had wide faux silk pin-tucked borders in various colours which proved perfect for this project.  In fact, I have now been converted to the pleasures of 'silk' especially with Christmas coming up and I have a couple of projects in the pipeline which I will be blogging in the form of tutorials over the next few weeks.  Keep coming back as they'll be fairly straight forward to sew and perfect for seasonal gifts!

Finally, don't forget to treat yourself to this month's Style at Home, it's perfect value at just £1.99

What a guy!

Appliqued Music Journal

George is part of a production of 'Guys and Dolls' this week.  It is a school performance and they're famous for the fabulous quality of their shows.  It's been a very demanding rehearsal schedule, with after school sessions for the last year, as well as all day Sunday for the past three weeks.  Now if this sounds a lot for the children, just think what it must be like for the teachers - No wonder they only put on a show once every three years!   We therefore really wanted to show our appreciation to the main staff involved and so I've been stitching a couple of personalised journals.  

Our children attend a Catholic school and as we also go to Mass in the same parish there is an overlap between school, home and church.  We are blessed with a beautiful church family, they have teachers who are their god-parents and we've shared so many holidays and wonderful times together in a large group since they were babies.  The upshot of this is that I was not reliant on George attempting to describe what the Head of Music looked like for this journal cover.  However, I'm still not actually convinced that I have captured Mr GB's likeness as, whilst he is perhaps a 'little thinning' on top, in real life he has quite a boyish charm going on!  Just think Matthew, you only have to wait ten or fifteen years before you grow into your journal cover!

The design was hand-drawn and all the pieces individually cut before being attached to the main fabric with fusible web.  I then used a pencil to gently mark the facial features before 'free-style' machine stitching the whole design with black thread.

  

The design was completed with the recipient's name and a very obvious pun based on the name of the show!

****

The second gift was a little more difficult as it was for a teacher I haven't yet met, so I therefore decided against attempting another likeness and instead stitched a cute teacher owl.  

The multi-coloured fabric was cut from a little girl's dress by British designer Jasper Conran. It was a car-boot sale buy last weekend and was just 50p, it's also going to be perfect for Easter egg appliques.  The dress featured a very full skirt so offered up yards of gorgeous material.

The little shape you can see in the top right corner is a matching mirror compact.  I was sewing late into the night to get this second journal finished so the photos were taken in very poor light, the colours and weave look much nicer in real life - Honest!

A little bird told me.....

Upcycled Fabric Journal Cover

My niece has just started her first term at Nottingham University, so I thought I would mark the occasion by stitching her a journal cover.  I altered the original design a little, so that it included both her university and field of study as well as her name.  The birds were created using raw-edge applique and freestyle machine embroidery.  The writing is also freestyle (freehand) machine stitched.  It's such a great technique, no wonder Kirstie Allsopp has described it as 'the crack cocaine of the crafting world'! 

 

Yes, Ellie is off to study Politics at Nottingham and we're all very proud of her. Although, I can't believe that she is old enough to be going!  I can still remember how excited I was when I first went off to university and how much I valued getting letters and parcels.  I'm not sure that people send so many letters these days and today's youngsters could easily miss out on the thrill that comes from checking the post each day.  With this in mind it was lovely to stitch a little gift to package and send.  I purchased an academic diary to pop inside the cover, but ensured that it was not such a snug fit that she couldn't swap it for a notebook or journal if she preferred. 

The lining was cut from this adorable piece of soft vintage cotton lawn in muted tones of pink and blue,

as you can see it's a 'Laura Ashley' classic from 1977.  I'm sure that to Ellie this will seem absolutely ancient!

  

The cute design I used is extremely versatile and is both easy to sew and very effective when finished.   

Well done Ellie xxx

Appliqued Fabric Tag Tutorial

Personalised Linen Tag

As our warm weather gradually fades, my thoughts have been turning to Christmas.  However, I can't yet bear to completely give up on summer, so today's sewing project would work equally well for either a luggage tag or a Christmas gift tag.

Personalised linen tag

Beady eyed UK readers will have noticed that I have used a clothing label from a British supermarket called 'Asda', as they have a clothing line named 'George'.  The name comes from the designer George Davies who was also the original designer for 'Next' and luckily enough my son is also called George!  

Tutorial

The first step is to cut a tag shape of your choice from a piece of iron-on interfacing.  I used my Sizzix machine for this, but if you don't have a die-cutting machine simply cut one by hand.

Next, using a warm iron, fuse the cut shape onto the wrong side of your fabric.  I then held the fabric up to a window so that I could trace around the outline onto the right side using a Frixion pen.  These pens are sold in most supermarkets and when used on paper the ink disappears with the slight friction caused by rubbing.  On fabric the marks disappear when pressed with a warm iron, genuis! (...and much cheaper than pens sold specifically for quilting)

Having the outline of the tag on the right side of the fabric makes the correct placement of the applique shapes much easier.

So, using a fusible double sided bonding web such as 'SteamASeam' or 'Bondaweb', place your applique pieces onto the right side of your tag.  Once you're happy with your design, iron the pieces into place and then machine applique using a reduced stitch length.  I would also recommend using an open-toed machine foot so that you have a clear view of your work as you sew.

 The ribbon tag is straight, it's just my camera angle, honest!  

Now make a 'sandwich' of the front and back of your tag, placing right sides together.  You don't need to cut the back piece into a tag shape yet, just keep both front and back as simple rectangles.

The next step is to simply stitch both pieces together.  In order to keep the lovely tag shape, use the interfacing outline as your guide, keeping the machine's needle just to its right. Don't forget to leave a gap for turning!

Trim the seams, leaving a little extra on the opening as this makes tucking in the raw edges easier.

Almost there!  Now simply turn your tag right sides out and sew the opening closed.  I added some top-stitching around the edge to give my tag a more finished and professional look, but you can leave this step out if you prefer.

Attach an eyelet or sew a length of ribbon to the top of your tag and that's it...

All done!

More Tea M'Lords?

Personalised Linen Tea Cosy

Today saw the start of the children's first full week back at school after our six week break.  We've had such a wonderful summer, although it already seems like just a distant memory!  I didn't get much sewing done whilst the children were at home, hence the lack of blogging.  However, I did stitch a personalised linen tea cosy which my brother had requested as a wedding present for a couple who were getting married over the summer.  Their surname is 'Lord' which hopefully explains the theme!

My brother had found this picture of a vintage linen tea-towel, featuring an appliqued butler, which he wanted me to use it as a basis for my design.  

Whilst it was great to have a starting point for the tea cosy, I actually felt under a little bit of pressure as I was worried that it might not live up to the original and that he would then be disappointed.

Anyway, I concentrated on the butler and after a couple of attempts this is what I came up with;

A very snooty English butler!

The tea cosy itself was made using the same pair of upcycled linen curtains as the previous couple of posts.  There's still metres of the fabric left, so they weren't bad value considering they only cost £1.50 from the local car boot sale! I free-motion quilted the linen, adding a layer of wadding (batting) for warmth.  As it was for a wedding gift, I also embroidered a little label on the back showing the happy couple's names and the date of their nuptials.

At least this couple might now remember their anniversary each year, unlike Mr Larkin and myself as we have both been guilty of forgetting ours!

My brother sent me some photos from the day and it all looked beautiful

The wedding car showed the cosy off to its best advantage

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Lord!

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly"

Personalised Butterfly Journal

Last week, whilst at a local carboot sale, I found a lovely butterfly duvet cover made by "Their Nibs", an online company similar to Boden and The White Company et al.  I decided that it would be perfect for a journal that my sister had requested for a friend of hers.

 The linen is from the same pair of upcycled curtains that I have been using for my tea cosies.  Once you get used to the dirt and pushing at a car boot sale you'll never find a more economical way to purchase fabric.

The pink polka dot wings look quite pale in some of the photos, but the picture below provides a better representation of just how bright it really is!

I used the butterfly print as a starting point to chose the rest of the fabric, it was then simply a matter of creating a complimentary applique design.

  

I drew in the details to be stitched with a 'Frixion' pen as the marks disappear when a warm iron is run over them.  These pens are now widely available in most supermarkets and stationers and they're much cheaper than those sold specifically as quilting pens.

  

I also use these pens to create a guide when stitching letters as my own handwriting is not all that great.  Just open a font on your computer, place your fabric over the screen and trace directly onto it.

However, when I attempted this method with this project the linen was too thick to see through, so it was back to the tried and tested 'tissue paper' method. 

Trace the font and wording of your choice onto tissue paper, embroider, then tear away the paper.

The back of the cover is decorated with an appliqued butterfly, cut from the duvet, which I then free-motion embroidered in black to really make it 'pop'

The back also features a 'SewforSoul' label!

After I had finished sewing up the cover I remembered that I had intended adding a ribbon border between the two contrasting  fabrics.  So I had to grab my unpicker and have another go!  This one glitch aside it all went pretty smoothly :)