Sleep mask tutorial and free Pattern

Summer is definitely on its way, and with that comes bright early mornings! I have made a blackout blind for Annabelles room to prevent any unwanted early risings, but haven't made one for our room, and seen as my husband can sleep through anything, I figured I just needed to make it dark for myself, much easier and cheaper than buying/making blackout blinds! So here is a free pattern and photo tutorial for making yourself a sleep mask either to keep those pesky sunbeams at bay first thing in the morning, or to help you sleep on a long haul flight, or for whatever reason you may want a bit of personal darkness. Its a very quick project and I managed to get mine done in an hour and a bit despite having a 6 month old who needs attention! (If you don't have a baby I imagine it will take you much less time!!)

For the free pattern and photo tutorial click "Read more"

Crochect Chevron Blanket

I have finally finished crocheting my chevron blanket I started more a year ago! It really shouldn't of taken that long to do, but I hadn't decided on a way to finish it and so it has been left incomplete for a long time! As this was the first thing I had really crocheted (apart from the baby shoes) my tension wasn't quite right, and I'm not sure I had the correct hook size for the yarn and so my sides were a bit uneven, and I had also decided to fill in the zig zags at the top and bottom of the blanket which made it very lumpy looking.  I thought it really needed something extra to give it a better finish. So after much deliberation I decided to back it in a pale blue jersey fabric and then used matching embroidery thread to hand quilt the back to the front, much quicker and quirkier than other options. I machine stitched the jersey to the front of the blanket to create a border. In hindsight I should of planned the blanket a bit more carefully as the yarn I chose was although very smooth and soft, it was very expensive, and I needed waaaay more yarn than I anticipated! So her is the most expensive blanket I have ever made or been given! If you want to have a go yourself you can find a free pattern here.

So here it is! Its lovely and smooth for Annabelle to play on and because its so heavy it's also nice and warm to use over her in her carseat.

See more after the jump.....

Jazzing up baby t-shirts

Anabelle is growing very fast and in a bid to save some money I bought some plain t-shirts in the sales, a set of 3 for something like £2. Now that I don't have much time either (babies are quite time consuming !;-) I needed a quick and easy way to jazz them up, so I did some simple animal silhouettes using the wonder of Bondaweb and some cute ditsy print fabric! Wanting to keep traditional I decided to do woodland animals (apart from the Dashund, I just love them!), and found the sillouhettes using google images. I drew the shapes onto the paper side of bondaweb, ironed it onto the back of the fabric and then cut them out. I then ironed them into the t-shirts and stitched round the edge. I'm very pleased with the result, they look super cute and trendy. I will also be posting a "how to" bondaweb  for those who want to know how to use it properly. Let me know what you think!

More after the jump......

Easy Baby Teether!

So just recently Annabelle has been a little on he grizzly side and since her friend Jospeh (who is only one month older) cut his first tooth around her age I was beginning to wonder if the dreaded toothy pegs would be cutting through! She seems to like sucking on my cardi and other fabric things so I wanted something that was fabric and hard so it would be good to teeth on and this is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy making it, it only took me about 20minutes.

For the photo tutorial click "read more"

Oven glove tutorial and free pattern

I have made a pattern for these oven gloves which you can download here and follow the photographs below for how to make them. I hope they make sense! The fabric I used is a cotton print I got from the market (trying very hard to look like a Kath Kidston Print!) and the Bias binding I also got from the haberdashery on the market. It is 2cm wide. You can buy specially made insulating wadding, and I bought some called Insul fleece, I’ve not used it before and was a little dubious about how successful it would be as it’s quite thin. However it can easily be quilted on the machine without any special machine feet but to be honest I think I would double it if I was to do it again as it wasn’t as insulating as I hoped it would be. If you didn’t want to fork out for the more expensive insulation wadding you could instead buy some thick curtain lining, as this is much cheaper and I think would do the job just as well, seen as I use tea towels and all sorts to get hot things out of the oven.
Apologies for the photos not being great, but I took them while showing everyone how to do it!

Photo tutorial after the jump....

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Baby Car Seat Canopy Tutorial

It was half term a couple of weeks ago so I had some free time on my hands AND some energy which is nice after months of feeling exhausted! I have bought loads of fabric with projects in mind, I think my hubby was getting a little nervous I was never going to use it! So I set about on my first baby sewing project since finding we were pregnant! Can't believe it's taken me this long to get started! I'd seen these types of covers online and decided rather than buy one I thought I'd make one. I've photographed each step so you can make one too. It's super quick and easy and really only took me an afternoon. Think I may knock up some more for my preggers friends!

You will need:

• Two pieces of fabric measuring 103cm x86cm for the body and lining
• 4 bits of fabric measuring 23x8cm for the straps
• Co-ordinating(or contrasting!) machine cotton
• About 20cm of Velcro (hook and loop tape)

Here you can see the lovely pop of colour from the underside, and the car seat can still be easily carried with the fabric over the handle.

Photo tutorial after the jump.....

Ombre dip dye apron

A couple of weeks ago, I was due to host another crafting session with my growing craft group DCI (Dream Create Inspire!). I had decided that we were going to make aprons, and I had sent out the materials list etc, but when the time came, I had totally forgotten to go out and some fabric for myself! Now I know, I do have boxes and boxes of fabric stashed away, but not large enough bits to make a whole apron out of! Then I remembered under the stairs I had put some old white Ikea curtains that I had already hacked about a bit to re-fashion some curtains......so I took those with me and while I was making it, (pattern to follow shortly) I had a little brain wave to jazz it up a bit. Why not dip dye it!? So that's exactly what I did! Brief "how-to" below the picture.

• First you need to make up the dye as per the instructions on the packet. Use a cold water dye. Ideally in something deep like a bucket.
• Then you need to drench the apron or the product to be dyed in water. It needs to be wet all the way through, then wring it out a bit, but not so its bone dry.
• I dipped the apron in as far as I wanted the Ombre affect to go up the apron, then lifted it out so that just the first 3 or 4 inches or so were still in the dye. Then I suspended the apron from above the bucket, you could use a clothes airer or tape the neck strap to a table with the bucket underneath.... 
• Its important to keep the apron damp throughout the dying process as the dye gets naturally drawn up the fabric due to osmosis (fancy word!)thats how you get the nice faded out effect rater than a sharp difference between colour and white. To keep it damp, I occasionally poured water from the top of the apron down the front into the bucket. 
• I left my apron to sit overnight. 
• When you are happy with the dyed effect you need to rinse out the extra dye. BE VERY CAREFUL not to get the dye on parts of the apron you want to keep white! I got blue dye on my waist straps and the neck which was really annoying! Run it under hot and cold water alternately until the water runs clear, then hang it out to dry. 
• I then ironed mine to seal the dye in and to get all the creases out. Ta-da!