Category Archives: Handmade

Dr Who must be back on the telly!

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I haven’t watched the new Dr Who yet, but I can tell it’s back on the telly. My orders for my Dr Who series have started to ramp up!

At the moment I make a hot water bottle cosy (with the hot water bottle), a mobile phone cosy and a kindle/tablet cover. All crocheted. I like making them, but they are probably one of the fiddliest items that I make – there are lots of separate bits and pieces that need adding on plus some lettering. These and the zombies things probably take the most concentration but look pretty cool when finished 🙂

I’ve been toying with the idea of making a toilet roll cover too. I think it could work quite nicely. Once I’ve finished my current orders I think I’ll give it a go.

Anything else that you’d like to see me make in the TARDIS style?

Starting Christmas early

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I usually get very busy towards Christmas with loads of custom orders coming from my online shop. So, I decided to make a start on some things for my house a bit earlier this year – last year I was too busy to get anything done!

Christmas bunting

So far I’ve made some nice Christmas bunting. I’ve done some felt applique letters on it.

Applique isn’t something I do very often so it seemed to take me ages to do.

I’m also going to make an advent calendar with some of the same material and some nice contrasting fabric.

Crochet nativity sceneI’m also working on a crocheted nativity scene.

I saw a knitted one last year and knew that I’d have to make one this year.

This piccie shows the progress a few days ago, but since then I’ve also finished Joseph.

I’m going to put the nativity characters in the advent calender, with a few tree decorations too – and of course a few chocolate coins 🙂

I also bought some lovely gingerbread man fabric and I’m just deciding what to make with that. Maybe a little dress for my little girl? Oh and I still need to crochet some Christmas stockings to go above the fireplace 🙂

 

Toddler dress sewing project

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A little while ago I decided to put my sewing machine to good use and make some nice clothes for my little girl.

I had a good look around and found some really cool material at Tiny Vikings. Do check them out as they have some fantastic fabrics and their customer service is excellent! I could have bought up half the shop when I was looking 🙂

Izzie's dressAnyway I bought some jersey as I quite like the comfort and ease of the clothes she already has in jersey. What I didn’t realise was that it’s not the easiest to sew with… anyway after a little Google I discovered I was using the wrong needle on my machine for stretchy fabric.

Later when I told my mum I was using jersey, she told me straight away where I was going wrong – my mum used to make a lot of our clothes in the 70s…

This is where I’m terrible – as usual I didn’t have a pattern… So, I grabbed one of Izzie’s dresses that I liked the shape of and drew around it on paper and then added a seam allowance all the way around. I sewed it all in a matching cotton.

Izzie's dress and bibThe neck was a bit trickier as I’d decided to make my own bit of bias binding from a plain red jersey and then attach it around the neck. I tacked it all into place and machine sewed it in place.

As Izzie has been teething again recently I also made a matching bib. This has a lovely red jersey on the reverse side, which I also bought from Tiny Vikings. I used poppers for this. I make quite a few bibs for my Etsy online shop so this one was a doddle 🙂

Sing_and_Sign_End_of_term_Jul15This is a picture of Izzie wearing the dress with some pink leggings. It works well with or without leggings. It also works well with long sleeves underneath.

That’s us on the right hand side of the picture. This is our end of term picture at Izzie’s favourite class – Sing and Sign.

I’ve got some rainbow and some kangaroo material left so I think I’ll be making a couple more of these. They will be perfect for autumn 🙂

More dolly things I have made!

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This is following on from my last post, Making things for Shovel.

I made an extra nappy for Shovel with some more spare material. This was just as well because Izzie decided she liked the nappy so much that her bear, who is luckily the same ‘unusual’ shape as Shovel, also apparently needs to wear a nappy.

Crocheted dolls' blanketIzzie has this little fold up dolls’ pushchair and she likes to put Shovel in there and then pile lots of other stuffed toys in on top of her.

I thought I’d make a little crocheted pram blanket for Shovel. The pram is in pink (I tried and tried to persuade her to choose the blue pram, damn it) so I crocheted it in some scraps of pink wool.

Now that she has all these things for Shovel and the pram I thought I’d have a go at making a bag for the pram. I’ve not attempted a lined tote bag before so this was a first. It worked out OK so I might have a go at making some more for my next handmade fair.

Above shows the little bag on the pram – I used some pink bias binding to make some little straps to match the binding on the pram. The material is just a fat quarter of fabric and the lining is just some plain cotton. I made the bag and a nappy from the fat quarter and still have a little bit left.

Dolls' cloth nappies and bagSo, Shovel now has a nice little selection of things to go in her changing bag, which fits nicely on her pram.

Izzie loves taking things in and out of the bag. She can even take it on and off the pram.

Next is a hat and bib for Shovel. I think I have enough of that fat quarter to do the bib…

Incidentally, I can make any of these to order 🙂

Making things for Shovel

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Anyone who has met my little girl has also met Shovel.

She takes Shovel everywhere with her. Apparently Shovel loves to go shopping. She shares her food with Shovel and luckily it appears Shovel will eat things that Izzie isn’t too keen on. Shovel will also check out new territory by being thrown in that direction.

The famous ShovelThis is a rare picture of Shovel, on her own.

Most pictures of her are with Izzie. In fact any of our holidays photos with Izzie in front of various scenes, have been photo-bombed by Shovel.

She’s everywhere!

So, Izzie is now liking to do things with Shovel that I do with her. She likes to brush her teeth, comb her hair and feed her. Recently she has decided that she likes trying to put shoes and bibs on Shovel.

This gave me an idea. Izzie loves Sing and Sign and currently one of her favourites is about Jessie cat needing the potty. Izzie wears cloth nappies so I decided to make a cloth nappy for Shovel.

Now this ended up not being quite as easy as thought it might be. I know people come in all shapes and sizes, and so it seems do dollies!

I used paper to fit around Shovel to get the basic sizing and then cut out a pattern. I used some scraps of patterned material and just used some plain cotton for the lining. I top-stitched the whole things and then added a couple of poppers. Below are some photos I took of the process – as you can see, Shovel is an ‘unusual’ shape 🙂

My little girl loved the nappy so much I made another one and a little bag to keep them in – which I’ll post another day!

Geeky sewing inspiration

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I bought a fancy new sewing machine a little while ago and have made a few things using it, but not many.

geeky materialMy little girl is now in nursery a couple of afternoons a week so I have a little bit more time to sit down and try some new things. A couple of weeks ago I decided to have a search around to look for some new fabrics to give me some inspiration. They arrived last week. They’re a  wonderful mixture of sci-fi, comic book, techie, Wonder Woman and zombies. A real geeky mixture!

I’ve just finished making some coffee cosies for cafetieres. So far I’ve make a Wonder Woman, a Pacman, a zombie and a Star Wars cosy. They are all lined in a nice soft fleece to keep the coffee warm but keep the cosy nice and slim. I’ve also top-stitched them to give them a neat finish

I’ve put some tabs on the top and bottom and poppers on the tabs to make it easy to take the covers on and off. These keep the cosy nice and snug.

P1020820So what do you think? Nice and geeky?

Now I’m trying to think what to make next with all this lovely fabric. Gadget covers, baby bibs or taggy blankets? Any ideas?

These four are currently on sale in my Etsy shop.

 

Handmade valentine – a chip off the old block!

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Handmade valentineMy little girl has started nursery a couple of afternoons a week. It’s a dual thing – it gives her a little independence and also gives me some time to get on top of orders.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I when to pick her up the day before Valentine’s Day. She’d made us a Valentine’s Day card with her handprints. It’s very cute and was very unexpected.

Handmade gifts are just perfect and I love the way the nursery gets the little ones involved in making things like this as hopefully it will be a something they want to continue with. Obviously I don’t mean making hand print valentine’s cards, but the pleasure that you get from making something yourself.

I can remember rainy days when I was little – they were for making things. Covering balloons with paper and paste, learning to crochet, peg dolls, that cotton reel knitting thingie, painting with pieces of potato, pom-poms, pipe-cleaner animals and so on and so on. None of these things ever cost much money but gave so much pleasure!

Quick crochet – baby bunny blankies

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I don’t have quite as much time to spend on new crochet projects at the moment so I’ve been trying to think of some new things to try that don’t take me too much time.

Crochet baby blanketsI quite like the ‘growth’ of blankets, either doing round and round of granny stitch or by making lots of little granny squares and then crocheting or sewing them together. I’ve also been liking doing a spot of amigurumi over the last 18 months, but it can be quite fiddly doing some of the smaller bits and needs a biggish stretch of time to concentrate and count rows.

Crochet amigurumi rabbitI’ve also been using my sewing machine quite a bit more and have been making some taggy blankies – as per my previous post on this – taggy obsessions.

I thought I might try to combine these so decided to crochet some baby comfort blankies with bunnies in one corner.

I managed to work a couple up pretty quickly, doing the blanket bit during the evening when I don’t have to concentrate too much and then the bunnies during the day when my little girl was having her short naps.

A friend recently had a baby, so I thought one might make a nice gift for her, and the other one has now gone into my Etsy shop.

What do you think? I think he has quite a cheeky little face 🙂

 

Crochet rag doll project

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Crocheted toysOver the years, I’ve crocheted a lot of different things – some with better success than others. I’m not very good at following patterns and tend to look at a few patterns and then pretty much make it up on the fly. A bit like my cooking really…

Anyway, as a child my mum knitted me a sort of rag doll for Christmas one year. I used to love the doll. All soft and raggedy. I had the idea that I’d try to make one for my little girl.

I spent a bit of time googling patterns and looking on Ravelry and Etsy. I couldn’t really see exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something all loose limbed and without one of those prettied up faces.

I settled on a freebie pattern but not long after I’d started, it just didn’t seem to be working, so I did what I usually do and started to make it up. Yeah, I know that takes longer really, but I get something more like I originally wanted.

Well, saying that she didn’t end up being quite as I intended, but hey she doesn’t look too bad! The hair was a whole different matter, so I think I’ll write about that in a different installment, but let’s just say she has plenty of it!

I did make some little shoes to match the dress, but they already seem to have gone missing…

Taggy obsessions – a baby sewing project

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My little girl is obsessed with all things taggy – tags on clothes, bits of ribbons, bits of string, cables and even stray bits of cotton on clothes. She can’t find any taggy on any toy, even in her sleep. Every new item is turned and turned around until she finds its taggy. Every day her toys get a ‘taggy inspection’.

It inspired me to try my hand at some little taggy comforters. These are the results of my efforts!

They have worked out quite nicely. I have made one side in a soft fleece and the other side in a bright cotton.

taggy blanketI’m always loosing things so I thought it would be a good idea to use my new Kam snapper and create a little strap so the taggy can be attached to a pram or bag. I actually made the little straps myself from the matching cotton rather than use a ribbon – I think it looks pretty cool (and it’s a bit more sturdy).

For the taggies I used a mixture of textures as it all about the texture for babies! Soft fleece on one side and bright cotton on the other. There are different widths of ribbons and some velvet, plus I crocheted some pieces like twists and knots. Lots of things to be twirled around in little fingers 🙂

For extra safety (and neat freakness) I top-stitched the blankies too. It also helps them lay nice and flat.

My sewing machine also does embroidery so I’m thinking I might have a go at doing some personalised ones next – when I get a spare moment or too from tidying away all the toys after my little girl has finished her daily taggy inspection!