I've been a busy bee

and listed not one but two t-shirts in my Folksy shop today.

First up, another bus-themed product. I do love them so (but only to look at you understand, waiting at bus stops is very pesky)

Secondly, branching out from buses, but sticking with the London Theme, a little Guard

As I hadn't tried one before, I had a bit of a play around on some calico first which I think I might make into an egg cosy

I've decided that Tees are a good option for me right now, as they're relatively quick for me to put together, which fits in with my hectic full time working Mummy lifestyle quite well!

Both of the T-shirts are available in the shop now, and can be made up in different sizes if required. I'm going to have another play around this evening and make up another dino tee to sell, and then I think I might go back to a bit of stationery for a few days.

the wonders of technology

On the rare occasions that he isn't running around after the Boy, being the fantastic stay at home Daddy that he is, this is where the Frenchman disappears to do his work..

(i know, the lawn does need mowing)

This morning contact was made to the house from the shed via skype...

I wonder if he'll ever come out again?

As the Boy is napping, and I appear to be a shed widow I'll be making the most of having some time to myself. I've bought some ickle t-shirts to embroider and list in the shop soon. But I thought I might have a try at something for myself first. I've been thinking I might like one of these for a while..

Which you can buy here.. they had very similar ones last season, so it's not a new fancy either. Then I stumbled across the Saints and Pinners tutorial to make a yoyo necklace from these

Which actually (gasp) looks like something I might be able to do. And for a lot less than £39 at that!

PS. no, I haven't put up the picture frames

Folksy Friday

I've been building up a collection of picture frames to hang in my hallway and landing for quite some time now. For the last I don't know how many weekends, I've promised and promised myself that I'll get some of them put up. They don't actually have any pictures in them yet you understand, I just figured that hanging up the frames would be the prompt that I need to choose the pictures to put in the frames ... humm, you can see where this is going; much procrastination, a pile of frames looking something like this...

and a picture in my minds eye that looks a little more like this...

It really does take quite some effort to be this spectacularly disorganised!

So the subject I've chosen for Folksy Friday is prints, in the hope that this may kick start me into action, where buying, then moving this pile of frames to inconvenient locations around the house (where I'm bound to get so annoyed at them that I'll hang them up ... ahem) has failed.

I do already have a couple of prints from this shop, but theres always room for a third

When I was expecting the Boy, I had ridiculously bad insomnia, which often resulted in me listening to radio 4 very late at night, and very early in the morning and often catching the shipping forecast. Somehow, puzzlingly, I remember those sleepless times fondly which is why I think I'm drawn to this print from Love From Penny Lane

I just love this print by Janice Long

As I have so many frames, I don't think it'd hurt to stray from the hallway a bit - I think this from Ruka Ruka print studio would look supercute in the Boys room

and finally, I think this teacup print from Miss Sammie Designs would look just perfect in my kitchen.

Right, I'm starting to feel inspired..best go and find me a hammer and spirit level..oh and some pictures!

living without spots

Life is getting back to normal again around here... yesterday was my first day back at work, which left me feeling completely couldn't-move-out-of-the-chair exhausted when I got home last night. Doing anything other than vegetating on the sofa then, was a bit unlikely. So work-in-progress wednesday went out of the window It doesn't look as if today will be much better either. I have therefore resigned myself to getting back on the craft wagon tomorrow, and for today here's a spot of someone else in the houses work instead...

I've been trying not to feel too disappointed that I still haven't made my elusive first sale on Folksy... I think I spent such a long time building myself up to getting things listed that I kind of just imagined that that would be the hard work over. Ha! I think that, combined with the dreaded spots has left me feeling a bit lacking on the creative front over the last few days. So I think perhaps it might be time to try and find a craft fair or car boot to potter about in at the weekend to try and give myself a bit of a boot up the backside! Fortunately I've also got this to look forward to in a few weekends time, as I think it'll just be a great opportunity to see lots of amazing creations and shops.... although hopefully it won't take that long for me to get back to work!

more stitching!

As my quarantine period draws to an end and I'm mostly feeling back to normal, preparations are in place to get back to work again tomorrow. I've made the most of the extra stitching time I've had - it's probably taken me much longer to get on with things and pick them up as my head has been a bit thick and fuggy, but overall it's still been a fantastic opportunity to slowly work my way through making a few bits and pieces. And following my initial attempts at machine embroidery yesterday, there's really been no stopping me! I'm still far from perfect.. but I think that for me, part of the attraction of this technique is that it isn't supposed to be perfect.

buy me here

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm hugely conscious of the fact that there are already lots of folk, far more talented than I, who have cornered the teacup/teacake/bunting thing, so I thought what better than to try a hand at some of my own designs. Determined to try a bit of machine appliqué, I had a try at the elephant from my safari stationery set. Cute no?!

The giraffe worked out pretty well too. I'm thinking these may have to be put to good use for some baby products in the shop

I then decided to have a bit of a play with dino from another of my stationery sets.

Which went so well, that I bit the bullet, and stitched him on to one of The Boys little plain t-shirts.

He's a tiny bit off-centre, because I was going to have him saying roar, but then chickened out at the last minute ... maybe writing can be a skill to master another day!

stitching away

After thoroughly digesting the book yesterday, it was time for a play today. I just had a bit of an experiment to see what worked best for me. It helped sooo much dropping the feed dog (which I hadn't even realised existed!)

After playing around with the darning foot and embroidery foot, and still finding it all a bit chuggy, I decided to be brave and give up, so these attempts were all completely freehand!

I've still got a bit of practising to do, and I haven't even tried appliquéing yet

but overall I was extremely pleased with my efforts for a first attempt, and just really enjoyed the process

This is all a bit of a journey for me ... the things I was expecting to enjoy about making my bus quilt turned out to be the bits I didn't like so much, and the embroidery that was almost an afterthought, was just amazing!

Now that I've found a technique that I enjoy, I'm conscious that I've got to try and find my own style rather than copying other people's work - the teacup was a direct copy from the book, but the rest is just me playing about, which I'm quite chuffed with!

Having been stuck in the house for over a week now, to say that cabin fever has struck would be something of an understatement. Given that I'm still supposed to be contagious, I was very lucky to have been paid a visit today by my parents. The Frenchman was happy, because he got a few extra precious hours of work done in his shed, The boy was happy to have had some special grandparent attention lavished on him and presents, and I was happy, not only to see some actual real life people, but also because I was fortunate to have been loaned some books from my Mum's vast library of sewing books. I'm not even sure whether I'd even actually opened this book before I'd placed an order on amazon for this ..

I cannot wait to sit down and digest the contents of this. I'm only a few pages in, and have already learnt so much.

Yay for Mum and Dad.