Lavender bags

I've done nothing on the crafting front for ages, (so much for the new years resolution of making loads of stuff and holding a table sale around now!!) but have made up my mind that this Yule all of DD's presents will be home made.

This terrifies me and it's a HUGE challenge because me and the needle and thread are still not best of friends!

I decided to start with something I hoped would be simple. DD loves lavender and we have dried some this year from the garden, so I made this set of three small lavender bags. As she was up to 2am reading, perhaps these will help her sleep for longer too!

I've made the following list of ideas and would love some suggestions from you - DD is eight and loves animals (especially cats) reading and fairies. I can do very basic sewing and just about knit plain stitch - I can't crotchet, can't draw or paint and you won't catch me making cross stitch!

Here's my list. Note, I'm not intending on making it all, I'm just brainstorning LOL! Thanks to some of the wonderful ladies over on Green Parent, I have some great suggestions:

• I collected some small flat pebbles on our last holiday and am going to write words on them so she can use them for 'divination' - she loves using my angel cards, so these will be her own version. I'm wondering what to write on a pebble with - any ideas?
• Morsbag with appliqued cat or flowers on it; have got a kit from cloth kits as a standby ;)
  
• Will make some tiny containers from old decorated egg boxes and put organic sweets and chocs in them
• She's started sewing, so was going to make her a pincushion
• MP4 case
• bath bombs
• lip gloss
• couple of fairies to hang from her bedroom ceiling
  
• felt cat
• Some kind of trinket case for her to keep her 'treasures'
• Pen pot from decorated tin can
• clothes for her babies and barbie-type dolls
• She loves the idea of perfume and deodorant, so will make something from essential oils
• Set of juggling balls or bean bags
• Would love, love, love to make a doll - again have a it from cloth kits, but really scared to get started.
  

If you've got any experience of making these and have tutorials, pics or inspiration for me, PLEASE share, I need all the help I can get (although I'm rather proud of my lavender bags and they are all hand sewn!).

Remember I'm a total novice, so nothing too complex.
Would love links to your own blogs too, so I can gather ideas. (I'm good at gathering ideas, not so good at grounding them ;) )

I made a doll's skirt!

How excited am I!? I managed to make a doll's skirt, using a tutorial from my old 1972 ladybird sewing book.

The book is inscribed from Steven Bird; and he gave it to me for my 6th Birthday. Who knew that 31 years later I would be using that book to make one of my daughter's babys a skirt!

The material looks old and faded; that's because it is. This material once belonged to a short summer dress. DD loved that dress and when she first put it on at the age of 18 months, it was below her knees.

Finally, at the beginning of this year, when it barely reached her waist and she couldn't get her arms through the tiny armholes (she's now 8 years old!) I convinced her to part with it. Instead of taking it to the textiles bank I decided to start a fabric stash. I've heard all about how a fabric stash can get very addictive and now I think I know why.

Anyway, the baby has a new skirt and now my daughter wants me to teach her how to make one so that ALL her baby's can have new skirts.

We may be gone some time..

Spring nature table

I Love setting up our nature table at the beginning of each season. Spring and autumn ones are my favourite. I love all the flower children and feeling of potential and new growth in spring and the root children and gnomes are so cute during autumn.

A friend from a forum sent me the three lovely crocus children you can see in the picture and I made the others myself. Someone else crotched us the cute bunny and the chicks I couldn't resist buying from our local PO this week! The spring angel is from Myriad - boy if I could make something as stunning as that one day I would be a happy spring bunny :)

I'm planning on making some more flower children to add throughout the season and would love to have a go at making mother earth too. Nothing like high aspirations!

A rather cute owl!

A friend sent dd an exciting parcel for her birthday. In there were some fabric scraps, buttons, beads and ribbons - the perfect present for little girls everywhere!

DD has has a lot of enjoyment rifling and sorting through her treasures and has been begging me to make her something with all the bits.

I decided to take my inspiration from the felt owl kit I bought from Paper and string. I haven't used the kit yet; far too scared that I would mess him up, so used the idea to create my own owl from the materials my friend sent! It was a way in which I could use a little bit of all the gift - beads for the eyes, material for the body and even a bit of ribbon across his front.

I've stuffed him with carded sheeps wool and he's a firm favourite in our house now. He's called Felix. I love the way he looks at though his head is cocked to the side :)

My first sewing alteration

My life is hectic at the moment, to put it mildly. So all my crafty stuff is on hold until the middle of February when my life should resume its regular pace and I'll be back on the blog.

However, I rather surpassed my self this week. I had to do a kind of alterations job. Alterations and sewing are not my forte but it was an emergency. Dd had been invited to a farm for the afternoon and she needed suitable attire - wellies and waterproofs to be exact.

She tried on her waterproofs and despite being the right age on the label, I think they were made for a midget child. She has a slim waist, but these were ridiculous - I wonder if they were a second.

Anyway, she couldn't get the waistband on. They were elasticated and we had half an hour before we had to leave. The other day she sorted through her wardrobe and found an old swimming costume which had a hole in it. I found my trusty quick-unpick, got into the waistband of the trousers, cut the elastic and cut a piece from the swimming costume (nice stretchy fabric) to sew in as an extension.

I was so nervous! I felt like I was back at school sitting an exam, but you know what? I did it! I was terrified the cut elastic would whip back into the waistband and I would lose it forever!
It wasn't the prettiest of jobs, but it was functional. And Dd had a great time at the farm. She was covered in you-know-what when she came home, so I'm pleased I felt the fear and got on with the sewing job :)

A felt ball

Wahee, I made a ball! I've been wanting to make one of these for about 6 years; can you believe that? But every time I've thought about it, I've never been able to work out how to sew together the six sections.

After a bit of internet browsing and putting my grey matter to work, I finally came up with my first effort. I'm so pleased with it, but am seeing a 'felt 'n' blanket stitch' theme to my work! I have to say I love working with felt. It gets a bit annoying sometimes because it likes to fray if you get the needle too near the edge, but there is something so comforting about felt and of course, I don't need to do all that hemming malarky.

This ball appeals wildly to my inner child. I ended up falling asleep with it in my hand on the day I made it LOL! It's stuffed with carded sheeps wool, so has great tactile and warming appeal. I'm going to continue with some felt projects this month to practise my sewing skills and then perhaps try something completely different during February. This gives me a decent run at trying something before I decide how much I enjoy doing it.

The ball cost a minimal amount again - a bit of felt and around 20gms of wool. It took 2 hours and my inspiration came from "Feltcraft" by Petra Berger

Darling daughter has just seen it and asked me what I'm going to call it. "Call it?" I exclaimed, "but it's a ball!". After a huge berating and 'how would you like it if you were just called 'lady'' style conversation, she has now named him Rollabout, which I think is an astonishingly cute name.

A little wool doll

I was looking for something to do yesterday evening, but didn't want to get started on a big project (by that I mean anything longer than an hour and a half :D ) so I made a little doll from some offcuts of wool. She makes me laugh - her arms are rather rotund and I think they look like boobs instead. Perhaps she is a breastfeeding mama doll LOL!

Still, I think she is cute, but how on earth you get a good tight pair of arms, hands and head I don't know - she seems to be sprawling out all over the place. The ones in the pictures were neat little things who clearly ate all their vegetables. I think mine prefers chocolate ;)

She took about half an hour to make and I had to use my toes to press down on the threads while I tied them, so it was good exercise too. The cost of making one of these is next to nothing.

The inspiration came from "Felt craft" by Petra Berger (which is a bit odd as there is no felt on here, but there we go........) I made a little boy from some pure cotton yarn this morning and he is a bit slimmer, but his head and hands still bulk out. Without getting myself four hands I don't know how people make these things so neat!