jewellery

Hello all :)

Today I must say a big thank you to Annie at Birdcages and Butterflies who sent me this gorgeous necklace when I won her giveaway. It arrived last week and is stunning, so well made and very special indeed.

It is also sewing themed, so perfect for me! I got to chose what colour I would like it in and went for blue, and Annie has used some gorgeous beads and buttons for it. I love the little scissors too, so sweet.

If you like this as much as I do, then luckily for you Annie sells them in her blogshop Birdcages and Butterflies Shop so do go check them out, they are so well made and are absolutely lovely.

This necklace below is what I have bought for the wedding, mentioned yesterday, I tried my outfit on with Annie's lovely necklace, but the neckline is quite high on my dress, so I needed something that sits a little higher. I wanted something simple, but pretty, and I think this shall do the trick!

These earings are to go with it, from Topshop. Love the pretty cream rose and ribbon bows.

Oh did I mention I have two ear piercings in each ear? Well that means two pairs of earings surely?

Hmm yes these little blue roses should do the trick ;)

X

Cute Stuff

Hi everyone, thanks so much for all the lovely comment on the purple quilt, I am so pleased you all like it, and am glad to have it completed! And it got a thumbs up from the BF which is good! 

Anyway today I thought I'd share some cute things I have...erm....purchased lately. After finding my lovely button necklace on Folksy I couldn't keep myself away! I came across another lovely seller who makes wonderful applique pretties and bought this sweet cupcake purse/pouch.

Isn't it sweet? I have been using it to keep my jewellery in but might use it as a make up pouch. 

I wish I was able to do free motion sewing, I imagine its quite fiddly but it looks so impressive.

Love this little cupcake with a strawberry on top!

Last weekend we went to Oxford and stopped off at a little place called Bicester, and I got a new CK wallet to replace my old one as its faded rather a lot since I got it, and this one was discounted! I love this print, although I don't know what its called its really bright and cheerful! I do love CK, but she is so naughty with her prices!!

This pretty hyacinth in a tin can from M&S got me all in the mood for spring, only for it to start snowing again today! Its so pretty and smells lovely, and the tin is rather nice too don't you think?

I love this vintage rose image, reminds me of those cigarette cards with the rose paintings on them. 

The tin shall be staying here with me long after the hyacinth has died ;)

Ah yes, these were actual necessary purchases as my parents have decided to get married (after 30 odd years!) and I am wearing a blue dress with a navy jacket, so I needed some navy shoes and a bag. 

I found what I needed in Primark for a very nice price and am so pleased with them. These shoes are really sweet with a not-to-high heel and pretty polka dot lining. They go rather nicely with the CK provence rose bag too, so perfect for summer.

I love the patent bows on the front and am looking forward to wearing these this summer :)

This is the bag I got, which is sort of suede effect, and was plain navy. I added the brooches from my collection to jazz it up a bit and hope that it looks smart enough for the big day.

I think brooches may well be my most favourite accessories of all......

What have you been buying lately? X

Purple Quilt Done!

On Friday I managed to spend a few spare hours basting, quilting and binding the purple quilt ready to show the BF. Because the quilt top is made up of strips it made it really easy to just quilt along side the seams. My sewing machine worked like a dream and there was no unpicking necessary for a change!

Here is the quilted top, its not overly quilted as I wanted it to feel quite similar to an eiderdown with rows of quilting. I'd love to give free motion quilting a go, but I don't think my sewing machine allows me to do that!! This photo is a good representation of the actual colours of the quilt, as you can see its got some lovely patches, and hopefully still retains its 'manly' look!!

I didn't really want to use bias binding for this one, but my measurements for the backing went a little off course, so I had to abandon my plan of using the backing folded over as binding. I bought four rolls of deep purple bias binding from John Lewis and only sewed one side on using the sewing machine. 

The other side was finished off by hand and I was so pleased when I had finished as I could really have done with a thimble for my poor fingers!

Anyway I took it round to the BF and took some photos of it, some of which are a little dull sorry about that! I found it really hard to take a photo which showed the scale and colours well, but here goes...

A little patch of slushy embroidery, well it was valentines week wasn't it. The embroidery is a little wonky, but as we say that adds to the handmade feel eh?

The back is three different fabrics, two gingham and one plain purple cotton. I am so pleased with the back, I like it almost as much as the front!

The bottom is a pale lilac gingham, and the top is a deeper purple gingham. You can sort of see the eiderdown effect made by the quilting, which I managed to keep pretty straight!

As it was meant as a sofa throw/blanket I thought I should take some photos of it in situ. The sofa is a lovely brown colour with purple, cream and brown cushions, and the feature wall is aubergine.

The lighting has changed again in the photo below, but you can see the wall I was trying to co-ordinate with! 

Mmm cosy!

And another thing I can tick off my list of crafty aims for 2010...

number 14. See what else handmade the BF will let me smuggle into his flat :)

X

Organisation

I popped into Tesco the other day and was on the hunt for some storage boxes for my fabric. I had seen these in there before and hoped there might be some new styles, but alas I had to make do with these pretty ones!! I bought two but could have really done with four if I'm honest about the amount of fabric I have accumulated in a year!

I am well aware that I have a large amount of pink fabric, and so I decided to use one box for just the PINKS, the other box is shared between my polka dot and gingham/stripey fabric to keep them organised. You can see the boxes filling up below!

Just a little more for the pink box.....

And this is the cupboard where I keep my fabric, yes clothes used to be in here, but now its fabric! Who'd have thought it!

So the new boxes are on the bottom shelf with some other 'odd' scraps that wouldn't fit at the top and don't go into the 'pink' or 'polka dot/gingham' catagories!

Nicely lined up and labeled.

And this is the top shelf which houses the larger and heavier weight fabrics - about 95% floral there as you can see! Yes I am oh so predictable when it comes to my fabrics. I buy what I love and I use what I love :)

I hope I can both keep it organised, and actually still want to take it out to use it now that it looks so neat!! How do you store your fabric? I'd love to see! X

In My Bag

I've been tagged by Beki to reveal the contents of my handbag! I have been using this CK bag since I bought it as its such a handy size and perfect for carrying all my junk.

I've pinned my lovely brooch from Emily Pickle to the handle and it matches really well with the Provence rose print I think.

Anyway here are the contents:

I have got quite a lot in here, mostly useful, some stuff is just there because!

I have a lovely notebook for scribbling ideas/websites/shops etc, tinted lipsalve for the cold weather, minty scented hand cream and two mirrors - one butterfly and one union jack which was a present from the BF this christmas.

Two bunches of keys, one for my home, one for the BFs, both with little russian doll keyrings so I can find them easily!

Oyster card, antibacterial hand gel, Cath Kidston wallet, a handmade (by me!) hairclip and tissues - always handy

I've also got some beady bracelets which I was wearing the other day and popped it in my bag, a pen, and a little accessorize purse which has my make up essentials in it!

And thats my lot!

X

Pretty Parcels

Just a quick post from me today to say thank you to two lovely ladies who have sent me some goodies this week. Firstly a big thank you to Kate @ Emily Pickle for sending me a little parcel of hairclips and brooch backs and glue after I asked for some glue-y advice!!

Kate was also kind enough to send me a pretty Darla Rose button brooch which I love and will wear with pride! If you haven't checked out Kates blog please do, and have a little browse in her Folksy shop too and see the lovely things she makes :)

The other parcel came from the lovely Mary Poppins who sent me a little bundle of fabric pieces.

Included were some sunflower seeds and a pretty little letter from MrsP :)

Would you like a closer look at the fabric?

Thought so!

Some pretty pink floral pieces, striped, and some vintage Cath Kidston :) ooooh I do love little pieces of fabric and have some lovely ideas for these. 

Thank you lovely bloggy ladies for my goodies xx

Working With Purple

Firstly Happy Valentines day to you all :) hope you have been utterly spoilt by your loved ones.

Today I am revealing what I've been working on this week:

I thought, that for some reason it would be a brilliant idea for me to make a quilt for the BFs sofa using the one colour that I have practically no fabric in - purple!

But luckily thanks to SCC I was able to swap some multicoloured strips (for ladies doing the string block quilts) for some purple/lilac fabric. Thank you again to everyone who sent me some, even if it has not been used for this quilt it will be used and loved x

Knowing that I am not too brilliant at making sure my seam allowances and fabric are accurate I decided against another squares quilt, and went for strips of varying lengths in a random (well, carefully placed to look random) pattern. Above is all of the pieces laid out on the kitchen floor - very efficient I know!

Then came the task of keeping them all in order and labeled - I have 14 rows of strips made up from about 10 different fabrics. I bought a meter of plain purple, large purple gingham and 1/2 a meter of small purple gingham but everything else had been kindly sent to me and amazingly they all work really well together. Special thanks go to Mary @ Sew Hot Mitmot who sent me two parcels of purple fabric including some lovely silky material which has made its way to the quilt!

All laid out on the table ready to sew with some pretty vintage and co-ordinating thread - well the first few strips were joined using this...I went through about 4 reels of cotton on this quilt top!!!

Unfortunately I can't get a nice true to colour photo of the quilt top finished, it all looks a bit dull and blue when its really a lovely warm purple with a mix of tones and shades.

Some favourite pieces ::

Its not too floral and not too plain, just the right mix I hope :)

The wadding has been bought for both this, and my own floral quilt so I hope to be getting on with it some time next week X