Blue Bunting Birthday Card

Hi all,

Gee whiz,  it's been ages since I've posted. I am a very bad blogger! I haven't been totally idle though, I've started thinking about making stock for my Christmas Fairs.  All my Christmassy stash has been taken out of the cupboard and some of the non Christmassy stuff has been stuffed back in it's place! I daren't open those cupboard doors now for fear of an avalanche!

Anyway, I'm here with a card for the new challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers and More.  One of our new DT members, Pamellia, has chosen the theme THE TRIPLE B CHALLENGE.  She would like you to include 3 of the following on your creation:

Butterflies

Blue

Birthday

Banners

Buttons

I've chosen Blue, Birthday and Banners as it just so happened I was sewing some blue bunting last weekend, so I used some of the left over scraps on my card ...

I used: Blue fabric scraps, a Stampin Up sentiment, blue card stock, oval dies and an SU framelit.

When stitching onto card use an old needle and a longer stitch length, so that you don't get too many holes in your card and go slowly!

And here is the said bunting, though it's not finished because I didn't buy enough bias binding and when I went back to get more, they didn't have any more! So I had to go to another shop this morning where luckily they did have the colour I was after and also some Christmas fabric just happened to jump into my basket, so expect some Christmas bunting and stockings to follow! 

Also linking to Handmade Monday

Have a lovely week.

Take care

Suze xx

MWAH for Mrs P

Hi all,

A quickie post today to send get well wishes to a lovely (did I really use that adjective to describe her!) fellow blogger, Marie (Mrs P) who is having a tough time, not only with a gammy leg, but lots more besides!

The lovely Kylie over at the Addicted to Stamps Challenge has added the option of making a get well card, to the current challenge, to try and cheer the old bag up!

Well, I couldn't not join in, or I would never hear the end of it (would I Mrs P!)

The lips stamp is from Stampin Up, using real red ink and clear embossed.  Sentiment is PC generated.

Get well soon Mrs P!

Mwah!

Suze xx

Kaffe Fassett Workshop

Hi all,

Well, last Sunday I was at my Kaffe Fassett workshop and what a great day it was.  Not just because Kaffe (and Brandon Mably were there) but just because I spent a whole day doing something I enjoyed with like minded people.

We were designing a "snowball" quilt, which is basically just squares with small contrasting corner squares, which gives the illusion of a round shape, hence "snowball".

These are the fabrics I had purchased beforehand and I cut them all into 6" squares, to save time at the workshop

Well of course, they weren't all suitable so I had to purchase more fabrics when I was there! Honestly, I have enough left over squares to make about 10 cushions (which I think is what I will probably do, rather than make another quilt).

Here is my quilt before the "corner stone" squares were added 

and this is it with the corners added.  The photo doesn't give a true colour, the small squares are quite a vivid red batik

At the end of the day, the man himself critiqued everyone's quilt.  He was very complimentary of everyone's work.  He loved the rich blues and purples of mine, and the red added a dramatic touch ... like "Cruella de Ville's nails" Lol!!

Needless to say, I haven't even started sewing it together!

Linking to Handmade Monday

Have a great week everyone.

Take care

Suze xx

Embossed Hearts

Hi all,

A very quick post to tell you about the new challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers and More.  The theme this fortnight is "DRY EMBOSSING".

As per my usual style, I have made a clean and simple card, suitable for a wedding or anniversary ....

Supplies Used:
Hearts cut with Sizzix Primitive Hearts Die
Embossing folders - Swiss Dots and Victorian Fleur
The bows and 'love' dies are from Memory Box
Coloured card and ribbon are Stampin' Up Raspberry Ripple

Thanks for popping in, hope you can find the time to join in our challenge.

I'll be back soon to tell you all about my Kaffe Fassett workshop.

Suze xx

Fabric Tissue Holder

Can you see my halo glowing! I spent all day yesterday tidying out my craft room.  I didn't actually throw much out (!) but I did a fair bit of re-organising,  took all my craft fair stuff out of the big cupboard in preparation for Christmas and have all my sewing fabric and "accoutrements" at hand!  I even have a space on my desk for my sewing machine - although it's still meantime set up on the kitchen table as that's much bigger and handier for cutting etc etc .... :)

I now only need hubby to put me up a couple of "big" shelves so I've got a place for crafty books and can get all the other "non essential" stuff off my desk!

Okay, now onto the crafting bit.  I needed to make some quick raffle prizes for my sewing group, so browsing the internet I came across this tutorial for a fabric tissue holder by Fiona at Two Brown Birds.  This really is a very easy make (suitable for a beginner if any one fancies giving it a try!).

I'd like to link to Handmade Monday.

Okay dokes, that's me for now.  I probably won't "see" you again until next weekend when I have my Kaffe Fassett workshop! So looking forward to it.

Wishing you all a lovely week.  Thanks for popping in.

Suze xx

The Quilt is Finished!

Hi all,

I'm dropping in today to show you my finished quilt.  I've really enjoyed making it and it's been such a learning curve.  A lesson in sewing seams, unpicking seams then sewing them back together again so they join together neatly!

I pieced left over fabric to make the back ...

I think my favourite bit is the stripey binding, it just ties it all together ...

I decided to quilt it in straight(ish) lines which I think compliments the design of the quilt and besides, I wasn't confident enough to try free machine quilting a fancy design!








I've really got the sewing bug now, card making has temporarily gone out the window!

Linking to Handmade Monday

Thanks for popping in, wishing you all a lovely week.

Suze xx

Fancy Folded Fabric

Gee whizz, it's three weeks since I posted, the summer is flying past. I've been doing very little crafting other than finishing off my quilt. I'm on the last leg now, hand stitching on the binding and hopefully, I'll get that done today.

I did however, spend some time scratching my head for the new Crafty Cardmakers and More challenge. The theme is FANCY FOLDS.  You can create anything you like as long as it has some fancy folds on it!  

I haven't really been card making of late, but I've got lots of fabric to hand so I settled on some fancy fabric folding ...

You start off with two fabric circles. I just drew round a small bowl which was 5" in diameter.  This gave me a finished square of 2 1/4"

You then sew them right sides together, leaving a gap for turning

turn right sides out, then top stitch all the way around.  Now, this was my first go at this and you can see my stitching is not at an equal distance from the edge.  It doesn't really matter, as you don't notice it when it's finished

You then need to stitch it together (if you fold the fabric in half, both ways, and crease the folds a little bit, this will give you your stitching point.  It doesn't matter how neat you stitch as the stitching will be covered later)

(Note: you want your main fabric to be on the inside)

draw up the other two sides and make a few stitches so that it's held tightly together

you then turn the four corners inside out, tweaking a bit to get them looking even

the back should look like this

and the front should look like this

finish off with a button, gem or brad in the middle.  (I cut the 'legs' off a brad and hot glued it to the fabric)

Initially I was going to use it as an embellishment for a card but it's really a bit bulky for that, so I added a string to make a hanging ornament instead.

You can make them any size, and on the internet you can find quite a lot of folk have made them in Christmas fabric and they make lovely Christmas decorations.

The challenge is sponsored by The Stamping Boutique who are donating 4 digital images of your choice

Also linking to Handmade Monday which I haven't joined in with for a few weeks.

Thanks for popping in, see you later in the week with my finished quilt!

Suze xx