Craft Stall #2

I had a second go at selling my wares last weekend.  It was another school fair and I wasn’t actually able to go but my two friends who I was sharing a table with very kindly agreed to take along my things.  All together our stuff looked pretty good from the photo.

I learnt from the last craft stall (read about it here) and made sure that I had some little things that appealed to the kids who didn’t have much money to spend.  And those were the things that went, hardly any of the bigger things sold.

I branched out into a bit of jewellery making and made some flower necklaces and hair slides that were very popular.

I also made some simple button hair clips, flower hair bands (no photos but based on this tutorial), and some more button hearts.

Details on some other makes to follow.

Oh and look…

… flowers from my garden!!

Using up the stash!

Well it feels like we’ve had the wettest, coldest and darkest June ever in the UK!  While I am disappointed that we can’t be out in the sun, having bbqs and enjoying the new grass in the garden, it does mean that I don’t mind staying in making.  My current aim: use up some of the stash!

This is my dresser. I got it in a much more orange pine state from a charity shop. I painted it white (many layers!) and changed the handles to make a cute place to keep my sewing stuff. In addition to the fat quarters you can see, the bottom cupboard is also full of fabric and other bits including ribbon, buttons and cotton.  My mission is to use some of it up.

I know from reading other people’s blogs that I’m not alone in accumulating significant amounts of fabric, and reassured when I see that other people have way more than I do.  I have a habit of buying things without a purpose, just because I like it and buying more than I need for projects and never getting round to using up the left overs.  So my aim is to make things that start to use up all of the bits and pieces that I have.

A top tip that I picked up from somewhere is to cut scraps of fabric into squares ready to use for patchwork rather than leaving them stashed away as scraps.  This makes it easy to create something like these patchwork cushions, particularly if your fabrics coordinate.

Left overs from this quilt

Left overs from a few projects

(the backs)

I also conquered the zip and made these little zip pouches using 5″x5″ squares (same size as in the cushions), bits of ribbon, and some calico that I had left over.  These were a bit fiddly but worked out ok.

And I made another baby blanket, again using 5″x5″ squares.  I love the colour combination on this one. I used some satin bias binding for the edges which makes it nice and tactile and fleece on the back for comfort.

Fabric purchased from the Festival of Quilts 2011 (must use these up before going again in August!)

Still plenty of material to go.  I’m going to struggle more with the bits that don’t seem to match anything.  I’m thinking maybe a scrappy quilt with lots of different colours.

Union Jack Bunting

It’s not often that I can say that I whipped something up but I did just that with this bunting. I’ve made it for something Olympics related but got the fabric and bits on the jubilee weekend so I thought I would make it in time to put up in my window for that.

It didn’t take long. I made five union jack flags by sewing wide white grossgrain ribbon and red ricrac onto the flag. In between I had plain red and blue flags. A great quick little project.

A Spot of Gardening

I am definitely more of an indoor than outdoor person and therefore never really that into gardening.  But now I have my own little garden and if I don’t look after it it’s just going to go wild.  So I do my best at cutting things back, keeping them watered and generally trying to stop them dying!

But my grass went a bit bonkers this year; it was growing in big tufts with large bare patches around them.  So a few weeks ago I spent a day pulling it up, raking the ground and then spreading new grass seed.  And now a few weeks later look…

New grass!!

I must admit I’m quite excited and have been tenderly watering it through the hot period we recently had.

I’ve also managed to keep a few things alive that are now flowering.

Clematis which looks dead at the roots but is still flowering

I can’t remember what this is called but I planted it last year

This was in the garden when I moved in and does a good job of coming back each year

And this rose looks like it’s about to have flowers

I’ve even had a go at planting some seeds this year.  I though it would be nice to have flowers for the house and for giving to others so I planted a few flowers for cutting.  One lot seem to be doing very well but the others are a bit slow.

Hopefully soon I’ll have some lovely flowers x.  I must admit that gardening is ‘growing’ on me.

I also got given flowers in exchange for a crochet lesson.

More making coming soon.