New Alphabet Photography

This last year or so there's been 2 reasons to make some more alphabet photography presents... a baby and a wedding!

My best friend got married this August so of course I made her an alphabet photography of her new surname to commemorate the day. All photos taken by me on my travels, from the village next to us to New York for these images. Her and her husband are total plane geeks like us so I had to include an aircraft letter somewhere in their surname, a propellor Y was the perfect choice.

Seeing as we moved before I got this black frame made I had to search out a new framer. After a false start I found a cracking local, little framers a few villages over who managed to get this made up for me super fast and at a reasonable price.

Another friend had a little girl last November so I made her an alphabet photography for her bedroom. Managed to sneak in another aircraft letter using an exhaust for an O. The Y is from a propellor at USS Intrepid, New York.

Can't wait for the next opportunity to make some more as these are such cool gifts to give and so far everyone has totally loved them. 

Another Knitting Bag

Making Mothers Day presents is not easy when your Mother is also a bit of crafter...but she's not really one for making things with a sewing machine so making her a bag is a good choice. She's into her knitting at the moment and apparently stashes her knitting in a carrier bag when she's done for the day...can't have her doing that.

For Mothers Day I made her a knitting bag to stash her unfinished projects in, using the tutorial over at Emmaline. I've used this tutorial previously to make my Nan a knitting bag for her christmas present, here's the post if you want to see it again.

This time I used a pair of circle handles rather than twisted rope effect, just means the bag will look totally different to my Nan's bag. The fabric is different too but I wanted to experiment and see how it would look using different handles as it changes the shape of the top of the bag.

Once again there's a pocket inside with one of my handmade labels sewn to it.

Hopefully Mum likes her new knitting bag and it shall keep her knitting safe in a more stylish manner than a plastic carrier bag.

 

Crocodile Soft Toy

 So what do you make your young nephew for christmas when he is under the age of 1?

That was the dilemma we had this year so I took to looking through my Pinterest boards, scouring through patterns I had saved and finally I found a pattern in the new Cath Kidston Sewing Book.

The pattern for the crocodile toy jumped out at me, seemed the perfect gift for a little boy. A few tweaks to the instructions and substituting bead filling for soft toy fluff to make it more suitable for a baby.

Here's the finished crocodile in all his glory.

  A large amount of ricrac, a few fiddly bits of sewing, a long time stuffing fluff in and the crocodile was finished.

Love the lazy eye look and the big cheeky grin made by the whit ricrac but I can't understand why the pattern only gave the croc 2 legs...strange.

Alphabet Photography Presents

My alphabet photography came out again for presents this christmas as well..

I did our nephew's name for my boyfriend's sister and her husband. I changed the white pegs that came with the frame as it looked a little lacklustre, even after I picked the red pegs he decided to change them just as we were wrapping the frame so in the end it was given with blue pegs.

For my dad and his wife I did their surname. Once again I swapped the pegs but this time just for larger plain wooden pegs as the original ones just looked too small.

On the back of each photo I've written where and what year I took the photo so the recipients can see where we've been... I think it adds a nice personal touch to the photos rather than the shop selected alphabet photography letter sthat tell you nothing about them at all.

'Phoebe' Handbags

Once again this christmas I have tried to make more presents than we have had to go out and buy. I prefer to give people something handmade as it just makes it a little more special and personal to that person.

Seeing as I seem to have become good friends with my sewing machine this year I decided to venture into making the women in the family handbags for christmas. My mum knew I was going to be making handbags so she had the luxury of picking the fabric she wanted at a craft show...but she didn't know what design of bag she would be getting as I hadn't even decided when she chose her fabric.

In the end I decided to use Rebeka's design for the Phoebe Bag from her blog ArtsyCraftyBabe.

Here's the finished 3 handbags to be given as presents.

For my boyfriend's Stepmum I chose a dark blue floral print, a little like a Cath Kidston print

For his Mum I chose a pale yellow floral print, once again very similar to a Cath Kidston style of fabric...after all who doesn't like a CK print?

After much deliberation and changing her mind from dotty to hearts to butterflies and back round again, mum finally settled on this butterfly print fabric. The only thing any of the fabrics she chose had in common was that they were all purple as she has a bit of a thing for purple still.

As a reward for making everybody else's bags I decided to make myself one with a white and blue floral print fabric. by the time I got round to making my bag I totally had the knack of it and mine only took an hour and half from cutting all the fabric to putting in the last stitches, very impressed!

Each of the bags has a simple plain ivory cotton lining and a large pocket made using the outer fabric, as shown in the photo below. I also stitched in one of my handmade labels as well so everybody knows I made the bags instead of having bought them somewhere. The bags are held shut by a magnetic clasp on the flap that comes over the opening of the bag.

Here's hoping they all liked their handbags and they get some good use out of them. I have masses of each fabric left so there may be some matching items made for future presents too!

I really recommend this handbag design to anyone who wants to start making their own bags, the pdf pattern is great and so are the instructions. A little googling on how to do the darts for the first bag and I was well and truly on my way getting them whipped up in a flash.

Making A Peg Bag

Presents for grandparents are not an easy thing, if they want something they've probably already gone and bought it for themselves by now anyway. So for my Nan's birthday this year I decided to try out a sewing pattern I'd been keeping hold of from a magazine for ages.

The pattern was for a peg bag, not a massively exciting present but handmade and something that she couldn't just nip into the shops and buy.

Here's what the peg bag looks like.

The hardest part of this project was trying to find a curved small wooden hanger to fit into the peg bag, in the end I bought some kids wooden hangers from Ikea and they are perfect for the job. As my hanger is a slightly different shape to the simple curved one used in the pattern the end result of my project is slightly different to the original pattern but that just adds my own personal twist to it.

 

The lining fabric is from a stash I bought at a vintage show a couple years back that I've just never found a good use for until now. Be prepared to see more of the outside fabric in a post I'll be sharing after Christmas as I've used it for someone's Christmas present. The bag is held closed by a chunky vintage deep pink button and a small loop of ribbon.

Here's hoping Nan likes her new peg bag and she doesn't think I've given her a dull birthday present.

Knitting Bag

 At a fabric show earlier in the year my nan found out I was making handbags for the women in the family for christmas so she asked me to make her a knitting bag for christmas...this was my plan all along but at least with her asking I could get her to pick a fabric that she liked.

 So she picked a dark blue dragonfly print fabric and some plastic twist handles that look like they are wooden. I had plenty of lining fabric leftover from the handbags I made so that was nice and easy.

 I always tend to buy more fabric than I need, anyone else have that problem too?

I roughly followed the tutorial over on the Emmaline blog here.

I stitched in a large interior pocket to store smaller bits in. I ever remembered to sew one of my hadmade labels on the pocket as well.

Quite a roomy bag and I'm really impressed by it. Took me longer to whipstitch the fabric around the handles than to cut all the fabric out and make the basic shape of the bag!

My nan has a thing for giraffes and I managed to pick up a few giraffe buttons at the show without her realising so I've sewn them onto the internal pocket, see how long it takes her to notice them.

 Here's hoping the bag lives up to the expectation and it has many happy trips to the local knitting club my nan goes to. 

Elephant Make Up Bag

Been trying to get myself a little organised on the birthday presents front, a few ladies I call friends will be getting fabric goodies for their presents this year....

I started with the smallest fabric make as it can be the most frustrating to get right, pesky zips never sew in quite how I want them the first time...

Saw this elephant fabric as a fat quarter at a craft show and just had to have it, made this make up bag/pouch from it and still have loads left over, think I can squeeze another 2 pouches out of it too :)

 

Love the bright colours of the fabric and the lining fabric inside is a coordinating red flowery patterned fabric...forgot to sew one of my homemade labels in before I sewed the lining together so I shall have to handstitch it in before I give the pouch away as a present...

Next up is a few tote bags for friends and perhaps matching make up pouches too...