Swaps and Things

Shown here are some swaps I received for a sewing container swap and the square box and two jars are what I made. This sewing container swap was great fun and my fellow swappers sent me some lovely things. I've got them displayed in my bedroom and enjoy just looking at them each day. Oh, and the floss ring tag at the front left was from another exchange I was in but it goes nicely with the other things shown here. I won't be doing any more swaps for a while, my DH is still in hospital recovering from surgery and being a bad patient as I predicted. I hope he will be home by the middle of this week and I expect most of my time will be taken up for a while. I'm still doing some crafting but it will be stuff that doesn't take a lot of concentration. Here's another hanging bag I made, this one is from flannel fabric.

Sewing Rolls

I was looking at someone's blog the other day, unfortunately I forget which one, I look at so many, and I saw a variation on the sewing roll I usually make. I decided to see if I could come up with a pattern that would look something like the one I saw. This one is so easy, I might even do a tutorial but that will have to wait until I'm a bit less stressed. Anyway, this sewing roll probably takes about half an hour to do and is just two pieces of fabric 6 inches by 12 inches, two pieces of fabric 6 inches by 8 inches for the pockets (they are folded double so you end up with two pieces 6 inches by 4 inches), I'll be better showing how to do the rest with some pictures but I'm sure anyone could work it out for themselves from just these measurements.

As for the stress, I don't handle stress well and at the moment I'm having to catch two buses to visit my husband in hospital, then two buses home again. I don't know if I'm just using the buses as an excuse instead of worrying about my husband or if I've just got out of the habit of using public transport. Also, if I do use the bus you can just about guarantee that I'll catch a cold, there always seems to be someone sitting behind me coughing all over me, disgusting!!!

A Short Break

I don't appear to have done anything lately do I!!! But I have been busy making lots of the little sewing sets so nothing different to show a picture of. I wanted to get a few of these sets made plus cover the lids of jars for use as storage because I'm sharing a stall at a school fair on Saturday and wanted the stall to look pretty. Will I make any profit, will I even make enough to cover the expense of the stall? I doubt it!!! But who cares - it's fun making things and fun having a couple of hours at the fair. The items I've made will come in very useful as gifts or for swaps. I've put away my sewing machine for a while and I've cleared my crafting table. This is all in readiness for doing a bit of 'mini-ing' . I've started making an outside WC and shed. It will be a bit of a challenge because apart from the miniature lavatory, that I had already got in my mini stash, I'm trying to come up with a building and interior from 'trash'. So far I've got a cardboard box that is just the right size and I've put a layer of polyfiller on the roof. That's as far as I've got and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

Another Tin

Here is yet another covered tin - and I managed to cover it with fabric other than the one with little roses. Instead of felt to pad the lid I used some quilt wadding, it has given it a more domed look than the felt does. Also I ironed vilene to the back of the fabric for the sides, as I was using glue to stick this on I thought it needed a bit of thickness to stop the glue seeping through. Unfortunately you can still see the writing that is on the tin through the vilene backed fabric, it doesn't really matter, it's for me anyway!

Pochette à ouvrage

Just lately I've been getting a lot of inspiration from French blogs - I love their style. We used to get a French cross-stitch magazine here in the UK but I haven't seen it for a couple of years. I find that the cross-stitch magazines we get here aren't very sophisticated in the designs they contain. Anyway, knowing how I love this French look my dear husband has ordered a cross-stitch book for me, it's called Made in France (of course!). Hope it arrives soon.

I'm up to date now with all my swap commitments and I'm wondering what to make next. I bought a bargain length of fabric a couple of months ago, it was only £3.75 for 3 yards, and I want to make something, anything really, with it. I can see me making another set like the one above. I saw a little pouch containing soap (pochette de savon) told you I was going all French! So perhaps I could make some of these pouches to put soap in and give them as gifts.

Gift Tags

I made these gift tags using my Greeting Card Factory software. I got a sudden urge to make some tags and once I get this sort of urge I have to act on it! These are the garden themed ones, I've also made cat themed and have printed off some pictures ready to make some with a bird theme.

Sewing Sets continued

I can't stop making these little sets (as you've probably guessed!). This one was for Berit and was for the floss ring tag exchange on the Tiny Treasures blog. I stitched the tag first then luckily I found some fabric in my stash that matched the colours I'd chosen.

I'm having a little break from sewing and I'm making some gift tags, the first lot I made where absolutely horrible so I scrapped those and went for my usual style. I just can't seem to get the hang of doing arty stuff with paint etc, so I went back to my standard look, photos to follow!