Monday, 1 April 2013

Blooming Felt - logo cushion


Remember a little while ago I showed you a sneak peek of something I was working on? 


Well now I can reveal what I was making, admittedly I am a little behind showing you my recent makes but the main thing is that I'm here now :)

My lovely friend Sarah who is 'Blooming Felt' was planning on moving into a new 'Shedquarters' and I thought that one of my felt cushions would make a very appropriate moving in gift. So I nipped over to Sarah's website and borrowed her logo.


I then made some templates and began cutting out the felt letters and flower.



The smaller letters were quite fiddly, probably the smallest text I've attempted with felt. As you can see from the photo above I've just about managed to use pins to keep them in place.


In no time at all (as I love hand sewing) its was all ready to have the back sewn on and a Bagladee tag popped in place.


I waited until I went to the Knitting and Stitching show at the Birmingham NEC to give Sarah her cushion in person as we planned to meet for some lunch. I'm pleased to say that she loved it :)


I couldn't resist taking some photos of it against my favourite chair.


If anyone would like a felt cushion with their company logo on it please do shout up, not expensive at £15 (incl p+p) I have a mini grey one with my 'B' logo on it in my studio.

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Easter Bunnies Egg Cosy Tutorial


I thought it was time to post this tutorial in full again since its Easter weekend. I know some of you will have already seen this but I made some this week and instead of felt tummies and ears I used some funky fabric. I'll post photos of them soon, meanwhile enjoy this simple and fun tutorial :) 

Hoppy Easter everyone!!


Materials you will need:
Lovely soft squares of felt of your choice
Embroidery threads
Your templates
Scissors
Brads (for eyes)


Additional Materials:
Buttons, Ribbon, and anything else you like
Trick Marker


Take your templates and using your Trick Marker, draw out your pieces.
You will need:
X2 Main body pieces
X1 Front head
X1 Back head
X1 Chest piece
X1 Puffy Tail
X2 Ear pieces
Small nose piece (you don’t need a template for this just cut out a small oval shape)


Now you have all your pieces, take the chest piece and place on one of the body pieces so that it sits at the bottom, like below. Pin in place.


Using a running stitch take contrasting coloured embroidery thread and sew the chest piece to the body.


Now take your front head piece and place the earpieces like below and pin in place. Again using a running stitch sew onto the head piece.


Which should look like this....


Now take your puffy tail, pin to the other body piece (which will be the back of your bunny) and sew in place.


Once you have all your pieces, you need to place the front and back of the head on top of the body pieces so that they overlap slightly....


And pin in place.


Next take your front of your bunny and carefully sew the nose just on the very bottom of the head. Be gentle with it small pieces of felt can be quite fragile (bless).



Now, if you know how to blanket stitch then great, if you don’t here is a brief explanation, I learnt by watching videos on YouTube, search for ‘how to blanket stitch’.
You are going to blanket stitch the bottom edge of the front and back pieces of your bunny.

a) knot the end of your thread and from the back insert your needle about 0.5cm from the edge and bottom and pull through, reinsert your needle close to where you have just been and pull through to the back making a loop.




  • b) Now thread your needle through the loop.

    c) And pull tight (not too tight though or you will squash your felt).

    d) Reinsert your needle from the back about 0.5cm along from your first stitch

    e) Slot your needle through the loop and pull tight.

    f) Carry on all the way along the bottom until you get to 0.5cm away from the end and tie your thread off.




    This is what your finished stitching should look like, don’t worry mine was awful the first few attempts but once you get the hang of it it’s easy.

    Now using your Trick Marker again, mark two dots where you want the eyes to be.


    Take your brads and push through the felt until they are flat, turn your bunny over....


    ....and separate the brad until it lies completely flat on the reverse side. Repeat with the second brad.


    Now take both of your bunny pieces, right sides facing out and pin together.


    This will make it easier keeping it in place while you sew right round the edge of your bunny.


    Again use the trusty old running stitch and sew from the bottom corner of your bunny right round the ears to the other corner, ensuring you don’t sew up the bottom.


    Now if you find this bit a little tricky then sew the head pieces in place after you have sewn the nose on when the pieces are separate.


    And there you go, one Easter bunny egg cosy!!


    You can add all sorts of embellishments to make your bunnies look jazzy, I had great fun playing around with them.


    TEMPLATE
     



    Wednesday, 27 February 2013

    Woooooossshhhh

    That was the sound of the last 2 weeks whizzing past me. I have no idea where February has gone let alone the last 6 months, which is how long we're been living in our beautiful 'new' home. 

    I finally feel settled and content now and there are so many to do lists I'm almost making a to do list about the to do lists :D ha ha! A lovely friend of mine is coming to stay this weekend (waves at Andrea) so I'm planning on chattering lots, relaxing, drink some vino, maybe more that just some ;) and enjoying a tasty meal on Saturday. 

    There has been lots of sewing going on here at Bagladee's new HQ's so I'm planning on another website session next week. Oh yes and I've received another custom order for a completely new style of bag, which is very exciting, the sketch is lovely just hope I can transfer that into constructing the pattern too. 

    Saturday, 9 February 2013

    about bloomin' time!


    Today I finally added some new items to my previously neglected website. I spent most of last week re-shuffling pages, changing content and adding new pages. Then yesterday and this morning I busied myself with listing 16 new items. 3 new mini clutches......




    and 4 new cosmetic pouches (1 of which has sold already).

    I still have some other items to list and some group images to pop onto the main menu pages but I'm pretty happy with things so far. Please spend 5 minutes popping over to take a look, I always appreciate your feed back and if you spot any errors please let me know. Sometimes you get blind to your own mistakes when you've been staring at the pages for hours ;)

    Wednesday, 6 February 2013

    fabric + buttons


    While I was really busy browsing my fav craft shops last week I also bough these fab buttons from Blooming Felt....needed for some more felt flower hair bands.


    I've been after these prints for a while now, I can see them making gorgeous make up bags. Bought from Frumble.


    This week I've been trying to be more disciplined with myself and my craft, its been too long since I updated my website. I have lots of new makes to add to it but I've just been putting it off for this reason and that. So Monday I had a bit of a reshuffle of pages and deleted a few I felt weren't adding any value to my site. I have lots of other exciting bits and bobs to add so I'll keep you posted along the way. I'm also contemplating adding some of my bags etc to my etsy and folksy shops. First things first though.....www.bagladee.com!

    Saturday, 2 February 2013

    Ribbons

    Its a lovely sunny day out today with blue skies so I thought I'd team it up with these bright and cheery ribbons that I bought this week from Sarah @ Paper-and-string. Aren't they fab!

    Cant wait to start using them :)
    Today its so peaceful in my studio, this morning I did a little more work on my 'special project' for Blooming Felt Sarah and started a couple of other makes I've been meaning to for a while.


    I'm hoping that today's sunshine is a sign of the start of Spring, could really do with some extended hours of daylight. Winter always makes me feel lethargic. Bring on the Summer!!

    Friday, 1 February 2013

    this afternoon


    I've been working on something special for a very lovely lady called Sarah. I love sitting with a bit of hand sewing and a cuppa perfect way to spend an afternoon.