Crafting for crafters

As a lot of the circles I move in are full of other craft-lovers, it was inevitable that my little bags have ended up being used for carrying crochet and sewing!  The crocheters (not sure if that's even a word!) have also been asking for crochet hook rolls - who am I to argue!?

So, here is a new product to Sew Ray Me -

Crochet hook rolls are lightly padded to protect crochet hooks from bumps and scratches, they roll up and tie with a pretty ribbon.

Inside, there are 10 slots for hooks, with a handy flap to ensure the hooks don't fall out. 

Each roll has gorgeous outer fabric and a co-ordinating lining. 

I've made a few which have already sold, but the one above, along with a few others have now been listed in my Folksy shop. 

Here's a little peek at some of the others I've made -

Sewing for the sisters

In my last post I showed you some gifts I made for the arrival of baby Grace.  Shortly after Grace was born, her big sister turned 3.  She is one of Joshua's friends so I wanted to make her a little something special as well. 

A Twitter friend, MrsDG (who also blogs here) came up with a great suggestion of making a personalised applique picture.  I loved this idea!  Since I was making gifts for both girls at the same time, I decided to make them one each. 

I wanted to keep the designs the same for both pictures, but using different fabrics.  They are also very simple designs. 

I was really pleased with how they turned out!  You might also have noticed that the fabrics used for Grace's picture match the fabrics used for her other gifts :)

As a little extra gift for big sister Isla, I decided to make the doll that was featured in a recent issue of Mollie Makes magazine. 

The doll was really easy to make.  Here's how she turned out -

Pretty cute!

And I couldn't resist having a little photo shoot with the 2 toys I made (you can read more about the bunny in this post) -

Gifts for Grace

At last, after months of waiting, my friend's baby arrived, a girl!  I have had months to think about what to make for a gift, but without knowing whether to make things pink or blue, I've had to be very patient!

As soon as I heard the news that baby Grace had arrived, I dug out some cute pink fabrics, along with some lovely soft cream towelling I'd bought with baby gifts in mind.

By the time I actually sat down to sew, all of my original plans (of which there had been many) went out the window.  Before I knew it I was making some bibs!  Something I've wanted to try for a while, but had no one to make them for.  I decided to personalised them with the initial 'G' and keep them pretty simple. 

My favourite bit has to be the poppers!  I got a little tool for this and it's the first time I've used it.  I think they really add a professional touch to the bibs.

After a bit more playing around I ended up with some cute little dangly toys.  They are fabric on one side, towelling on the other, a few ribbons as tags and a little added something for some crinkliness inside!

Another thing that I ended up making - purely because I had the towelling fabric, and the idea just came to me was a gorgeous Tilda bunny rabbit.  The pattern is from the 'Crafting Springtime Gifts' book and was so easy and quick to make. 

Isn't she adorable?! (I've since bought some light brown towelling fabric so I can make myself a slightly more grown up version!)

There was 1 more part to Grace's gift but I'll show you that in my next post :)

Trying new things

Having a little boy means that I often struggle to find things to make just for him.  There are plenty of dresses, tops, bags and dolls for little girls, but not so many cute things for boys.

About a year ago I had a go at making Joshua a pair of simple trousers.  There are many tutorials for making these by tracing around an existing pair of trousers to make your pattern.  They turned out pretty well - for my first attempt.  So I decided it was high time I had another go - not least because he has grown out of so many pairs of his trousers recently! 

I found some really cool fabric at my local fabric store, it looks like camouflage, but upon closer look it's actually lots of little dinosaurs! 

We had a few days of sunshine so rather than making trousers I thought I'd start with a pair of shorts (obviously those haven't been needed lately what with all the torrential rain we've had here in the UK!!).  So here are my very simple shorts -

Armed with my new 'skill' I decided to try a pair of trousers...but I wanted to be a bit more adventurous! 

I dug out some plain fabric and teamed it up with some fun 'boy' fabrics and planned the trousers. 

This is the basic trousers, the inner leg seam sewn and ready to be embellished. 

I thought some little 'patches' would be cute! 

  

This is a little pocket - for the back of the trousers.

The final embellishment is.....

Cute little turn ups!!

So, once the embellishment had all been done, all that remained was to sew up the outer legs of the trousers, and the waistband. 

And...ta-da!

I am soooo pleased with these!  Here are some other shots of them -

And of course, here's a photo of Joshua actually wearing them (he loves them!)

One last little amendment I did make to them was to add button tabs to keep the turn ups in place.  I purposely made the trousers longer than Joshua needed so that they'd last him a long time. 

I still have some of the dino camouflage fabric left so my next plan is to make a pair of trousers from that fabric too.  I haven't thought what embellishment I'll put on those yet, maybe some front pockets to make them a bit like combat trousers. 

I haven't really ventured into clothing for myself yet but I have ordered some lovely floral cotton with a view to possibly trying to make myself a top from it.  Luckily some Twitter friends are on hand with clothes-making advice ;)











Pimp my cardi!

Knowing my love of buttons, my OH very sneakily bought me a gorgeous set from Cath Kidston - whilst I was in the changing room! (Told you it was sneaky!)  What a lovely surprise -

As soon as I saw them I knew that I wanted to put them onto a top or a cardi, so set about trying to find something that would be 'just right'.

Eventually I settled for a navy cardi.  I know I'll get lots of wear out of it, navy will go with everything already in my wardrobe, and with the addition of these pretty buttons I'll want to wear it practically every day! 

In case you're wondering, it's from H & M.  As cardigans go, it's pretty unspectacular, but it was just what I was looking for!  (And it's something that I know I'll wear for a very long time.)

So, armed with my cardi, my buttons and my threads, I took the opportunity to enjoy some rare sunshine we had and sat out in the garden whilst I 'pimped my cardi'!

It went from this -

To this (after it took me aaaaages to decide on which order to place the buttons!!) -

I struggled to get a really good photo of it to allow all the buttons to really shine in all their Cath Kidston goodness, but here's a few more pictures of the buttons just for good measure! From the bottom up -

And of course, from the top down -

And finally, here's a pic of me actually wearing it....

Sorry I'm headless, I hate taking my own pic, having my pic taken, seeing pics of myself etc etc!!

I still have half of the buttons left, soooooooo.... this one is next up to be pimped! 

Stay tuned!

Embroidery adventures...

If you follow my blog (good on  you!) you'll have seen that I've been trying out little bits of embroidery here and there. 

So when the latest Design Team package arrived from The Sewing Boutique, I knew almost immediately that I wanted to try to use some embroidery in this month's challenge.  Here's what was in the package -

This gorgeous (and very colourful!) fabric is by Michael Miller, - Mod Blooms in White and is now on sale at The Sewing Boutique here.  There was also a length of lovely blue spotty ribbon.  I really love this fabric, especially the vibrant colours, however, it isn't something I'd usually buy as I tend to go for small prints and the flowers on this are fairly big. 

So, I chose some threads to match the colours in the fabric, hooped it up and just started stitching! 

Immediately I knew that the centre of the flower, with all those dots, *had* to be filled with french knots! 

Ooooh! lovely!

I didn't really plan what I was doing next, I just played around with a few stitches, adding in some lazy daisies, some back stitch and some satin stitch.  Here's what I ended up with -

I was really excited by how it turned out as it's the first time I've done anything like this.  I'd put so much energy into the stitching I hadn't really thought about what to actually make it into.  I thought perhaps I'd frame it in the hoop and have it as a wall hanging...then I had a better idea. 

I mounted it onto some lovely pale green gingham and used the ribbon to add some embelishment along with some buttons, -

And then I made it into......a sweet little notebook cover :)

I sewed a little length of the ribbon inside the cover to act as a bookmark. 

I still had some fabric (and just a little time) left so I decided to sew up some quick lavender sachets. 

Why not hop on over to The Sewing Boutique blog to see how the other ladies used their lovely fabric and ribbon?

It's great fun taking part in something like this, I've always wondered what different people would come up with if given the same few things to create with.  Looking forward to next time already :)

When life gives you scraps....

When life gives you scraps....make stuff!!

I've been making tonnes of my 'anything' bags lately, but the more things I make, inevitably the more teeny tiny scraps I'm left with.  It's no secret around here that I LOVE scraps!  You can see a couple of things I've already done with scraps in the past here (this one is probably my favourite!), here (uh, this is actually another favourite!), and in this post you can read about a swap I did with some of my scraps.  (For even more things I've done with scraps just find and click on the word 'scraps' in the big list on the right hand side of my blog.)

So as my scrap pile started to build up again I had a great idea for a way to use some of these little co-ordinating pieces of fabric....I got out my glue gun and eventually ended up with a pile of pretty fabric badges!

These fabrics are just gorgeous, I love the florals, and the polka dots and gingham were used on the lining of bags I've made and have long gone to their new owners. 

These ones are made with some Flea Market Fancy scraps, you can see the bags made up with some of these fabrics in my previous post. 

This is a lovely bright combo - the floral is the IKEA Rosali fabric. 

I think this one might be my favourite.  The checked fabric is Cath Kidston and it goes lovely with the pink and white stripe.  Here's the actual bag made up with these fabrics -

The badges will be going into my Folksy shop just as soon as I get a spare moment, they'll be £3.50 per card (of 2) with £1.00 p&p.  If you'd like one before they go into my shop please just let me know.

The bags are £8.00 with £1.00 p&p.  I almost can't make them fast enough to get them stocked in my online shops so if you'd like one just let me know (rachael@sewrayme.co.uk) and you can have it custom made in any colour you like :)