My week in pictures...

Like lots of us out there I'm a little bit addicted to Instagram on my iphone.

It's such a brilliant way to record day-day life without having to have a camera permanently on one's person.

Here's my week this week...

 Monday: Wimbledon started...which saw me adopting my favourite lunchtime position. I can be seen here quite a bit this fortnight.

 Tuesday: finally got around to washing the party bunting. Unfortunately it is still in a tangled heap due to being alternately drying and rained on all week.

Wednesday: capturing a rare UK Summer 2012 sunny shot, depicting how at least the rain is certainly helping to produce full blooms.

Thursday: An evening stroll up the road for me to meet friends for dinner, while Matthew and Ruby decide to go on their own summer's evening little jaunt.

Friday: Thanks to an Instagram pic from Sarah, I managed to bag this fab neutral nail polish free with Marie Claire this month. Now all I need to do is remember to buy some polish remover so I can complete the hand...

You may notice a distinct lack of sewing this week. I can assure you there has been plenty going on behind the scenes, as well as some other exciting stuff, which I am waiting to announce very soon. (If you have beady eyes you may already have caught a glimpse of it here...)

I was very pleased to tick a Bar Mitzvah job off the list today.

Part of the celebrations include a party at home and no party is complete without bunting.

 Despite having several buntings that I have made over the years I had in my head that I wanted rows of them high up criss crossing across the driveway, rather than simply strewn across the fence or hedge or the like, which is what I usually do.

 

 I wanted impact... 

I wanted bunting with attitude...

and I also wanted rectangular bunting flags, not triangles.

 So there was obviously only one thing to do...

make some!

I decided to be frugal and look through my larger scrap pieces and screen printed pieces that were slight seconds and began cutting into random sized rectangle. 

I'm definitely not a neat and tidy and orderly person so random sizes suits me perfectly.

 So having now got piles of random coloured and shaped rectangles the question was what was I going to do with them?

I wasn't sure whether to do completely ad hoc or have some kind of order.

If order was involved was it going to be one red row, one orange row, one green row etc?

Having laid them all out over my studio floor, I eventually decided on each one being a rainbow so the depth of colours could be seen in rows.

I hooked them up on the deck to see if it gave the impact I was looking for and I'm so pleased with them and can't wait to get them in their proper spot on the day.

The only thing left is do I have enough?

I'm thinking maybe a couple more rows...

It's fair to say Washi tape has the looks, but does it have any substance? You know what we say about all looks...

It's all very well possessing some of this pretty stuff, but what are we going to do with it?

I wanted to share some of my favourite images from around the web of fab things people have made with washi tape just to illustrate quite what a wonder product it is.

From simple but effective greetings cards to prettying up your keyboard, washi tape certainly has an amazing repertoire of uses. It is such a stunning decorative item, in so many available designs that no crafter should be without a few rolls. Not that I have shares in Washi tape (blimey, I wish I did) but I really think you all need some. If you are still not convinced, go check out the zillion other examples on Pinterest of stunning uses that clever people have come up with and THEN tell me you still don't need any.

Question is...what are you going to make first?

1. sweet notecard

2. decorative homewares

3. mini bunting

4. fab brooch

5. coolest keyboard

6. pretty pegs

7. cocktail sticks

8. more pretty bunting

9. neon noticeboard

Like Mother, Like Daughter

It was another of those Saturday afternoons. Wet and wild outside. The boys had all gone to see 'Monsters & Aliens' (thumbs up by all) and Ruby and I were home alone.

We were up in my studio and my plans of her sitting quietly (there's always a first) while I got on with preps for the impending were scuppered after several seconds. Ruby was interested in making something. This could have gone one of 2 ways. I could fight this as long as possible, determined not to lose valuable time, but get nowhere because Ruby wouldn't let up. Or give in and enjoy a bit of quality time with Ruby and worry later about what I had to do.

Obviously we did the latter.

Ruby wanted to make a bunting. Like the one in my studio. Not a glue and stick kind of bunting. A fully fledged sew with the machine kind.

First off was choosing the fabric (please don't want my Liberty fabric. Please, please, please) With a little guidance Ruby chose some well matched fabrics and we set to work.


Ruby competently drew around the template, cut out all the triangles and began to line them up on the floor. She became quite meticulous in measuring them into place. (I SWEAR she can't ever have seen me do that. Could she?)


We then chose a nice pink gingham for the topping, after her rejecting my first 3 ideas. And I have to agree that this works far better than the (old, tired, trying to use up) fabrics that I suggested.


Onto the machine. I haven't actually braved letting Ruby loose on the machine by herself. I am a little bit frightened about that, to say the least. So her on the foot pedal, me feeding through and before we knew it, task completed and one hellava gorgeous bunting to show for our afternoon's toils.


Me. Well, no work done. But I did add a little something to the tote, just while I was hanging around.

Shhhh

Some things are just too exciting to not be shared.

Every now and then something out of the ordinary happens.

But it's top secret and I promised I wouldn't tell.

But nobody reads this blog. Right?

The beginning

Well, I've been talking about it for long enough and I've finally made the time to start a blog! Hopefully it won't be a one hit wonder and as well as finding time in the day to read some wonderful and inspiring blogs out there, I'll manage to find time for mine too.

This is going to be a steep learning curve, so please be patient and hopefully it will be worth it!