Bonjour, Amber here, guest-posting, as I have had 6 weeks off and have inevitably been crafting it up…

So, I have had my eye on this party garland recipe from The Purl Bee for ages as it looks amazing in their carefully styled photos and I loved the different shapes and sizes. Seeing as it looked pretty easy and I’m all about the instant gratification of such projects, I gave it a go one typical ‘summer’ afternoon.

Apologies for the poor and dingy photo, I’m afraid I have no garden or quaint natural setting as has Kimberly… However, it does look very sweet in my newly organised Haberdashery room and was super easy and quick to make, as claimed by The Purl Bee.

I used some ‘fat eighths’ of this beautiful V&A revival fabric that Kimberly bought me over a year ago for patchwork, but as mentioned earlier, I’m all about the instant gratification and I have discovered that slow paced crafts such as patchwork are therefore, not for me.

First I downloaded the templates for the different shapes and duly cut out a few of each from each piece of fabric. I was concerned that the shapes looked a bit titchy but did what I was told…
I then laid them out into some kind of ‘random’ order.

So, to the sewing! I was thrilled to find the required invisible thread in my local Morrisons! It was actually quite satisfying sewing it all together, if only because it takes hardly any time at all and the whole thing was finished in an afternoon!

Although it looks lovely, my main problem with the whole thing is that it is all so ABUSRDLY TINY! As if it’s been made for The Borrowers’ summer fete. The main reason I decided against employing my own initiative in the sizing was that the photos on The Purl Bee made it look much larger and I thought it would all be ok once it was put up somewhere. What a fool I was…

The fabric works perfectly for this project I think but I would need a lot more to make a proper length garland should I want to use it for some kind of celebration.

So, despite the templates for this being so stupidly miniature, I would definitely make more of this, but bigger, and maybe using some plain fabrics too to complement the beautiful patterns. The moral of this story is therefore, I know best.

As you may be aware, I quit my job in December last year and am now fortunate enough to have two really interesting part time jobs instead of one frustrating full time one – lucky me!

In both of my new jobs I need to take my laptop with me places (yes I’m one of those twats in Starbucks on my laptop, that’s my office now) and I have been becoming concerned that it has no protection knocking around in my handbag so today I made a sleeve for it.

I used (vaugely) a pattern in this book I got for my birthday, it was really helpful in terms of how to measure your laptop and make it fit (allowing for seaming and ease) but I wanted an integrated flap and a contrast colour so I made some modifications to the design.

I used some Ikea fabric I bought in the sale ages ago (I always do this, piles of one metre pieces I have no plan for…) and some contrasting pink polycotton for the lining. I used the thinnest wadding I could find as I didn’t want it to be too bulky but in hindsight it could have been rather better padded.

However for a couple of hours work I pretty bloody pleased with myself, my laptop now looks stylish (to impress other Starbucks frequenters – most important) and has some protection when lugging it around London.

I have been saving this beautiful fabric for ‘something special’ for nearly a year now, stupid I know! I got a whole range of fabrics from the V&A quilting exhibition, produced by Liberty of London as limited edition prints. It was Lizzy’s birthday coming up and I wanted to make something for her rather than the baby as I know little Beatrix has been getting all sorts of prezzies.

My sister has a a bag like this for her knitting that my Grandmother made, I love how simple it is, perfect for keeping your latest knitting project with you when you’re on the go. I’m not sure why I didn’t deserve one, perhaps I’ll request one for my birthday. Anyhoo I used one of the Liberty fabrics and then two plainer complimentary fabrics from my stash. I didn’t want to have too many patterns as I wanted the Liberty one to stand out and to do justice to it’s beauty. I lined it with plain cream fabric as it makes it easier to find whatever you have knocking around in the bottom: stitch markers, stitch holders, embroidery scissors etc, without fumbling around in the dark.

I did the patchwork and the lining on my machine but I underestimated the amount of hand sewing needed for a project like this, mine isn’t as neat as I would like but it’s good discipline, imagine the people who hand-quilt massive pieces for double beds? Crazy!

I’m aware that owls may be ‘over’ these days but I don’t care, I like them for their killer instinct and blood lust as much as for their cute depictions in various crafts.

My mum brought this up last time she came to visit as she knows I’m interested in crewel work at the moment, she made this years ago and it’s been sat in a cupboard in our house sadly getting eaten by moths. What a shame! Look how brilliant it is, I love the woven sections and the fluffy bits around the eyes (which are done by making big loops with the wool and them cutting the ends of the loops off apparently). My mum is very clever isn’t she?

For a more vicious bird see the below photo which was taken at my ‘birds of prey day’ in the New Forest last year, check out the claws on that!

As I’m sure you are all aware, sewing machines need covers. No, really, they do! It protects them from dust and whatnot. Anyway as Lizzy has this lovely new craft room and can actually keep her sewing machine out she was definitely in need.

I spent quite a long time online looking at photos and (really shit) patterns as I had decided I quite liked the idea of doing one with a patchwork band around it, however, I really left it too late for this and then I came across this fabric in my stash, originally from ikea, it was perfect! I also found a huge roll of red felt which would be the perfect lining and help it to hold it’s shape.

I based the shape and size on my sewing machine which is slightly different to Lizzy’s but I think it turned out okay. I erred on the side of caution and made it slightly bigger and from the looks of it it could have been slightly shorter, but better to be too big than not to fit at all.

The quilting was really fun on this and although it took a while really pulls it together in my opinion. Doesn’t the craft room look lovely with all it’s home made goodness? You’ll be pleased to hear that the curtains and other soft furnishings have a red base so it will all match wonderfully.

You may already have seen this photo over on Ruffles and Ribbons and you can find more there about that fantastic seat cushion, but this is the crochet cushion I made for the rocking chair in the nursery, it’s based on Lucy’s version over at Attic24 (as usual) and I was using leftover Rico cotton dk, I made this in about two days it was so quick and easy, plus I got a really lovely feather cushion from ebay. That baby Ruffles is going to have such a  colourful bedroom it will be the sparkiest, happiest baby ever!

Thanks also to Lizzy for the brilliant photos

I never used to see the point of these but recently with a million projects on the go I have always been searching for my scissors, very annoying! Lizzy has the most beautiful cross stitch one she made ages ago which I would really like a copy of but I think she’s going to have her hands full for a while…

I made this one for Simon’s mother as she does lots of needlepoint and so I thought this would be useful, I used very small scraps so it’s a good stash buster and ribbon rather than cord to attach the scissors. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any prettier scissors than this as I left it until the last minute, what an idiot.

My mum also made some of these but she made them slightly larger with a pocket for the scissors to sit in, I really love this fabric and the lovely floral patterned scissors – I’ve put my order in and so I’m sure mine will be arriving any day now

My friend has recently bought a lovely old house out in the country so I was pretty sure this would be a useful gift! I made this pattern up as all the patterns I could find were for dog or snake ones and I really didn’t want it to look remotely like that!

So I just went for a simple envelope shape, with a handle for moving it around easily, I used a heavy canvas fabric (from fabulous Ikea) and stuffed it with a mixture of old t-shirts and jumpers to give it weight, and cushion stuffing to give it shape.

Nell kindly photographed it for me performing it’s intended task, isn’t it pretty? I have been meaning to make some for our house so now Christmas is over I should really get on with it…

My mum hinted very unsubtly that she wanted a needle book as the one she currently uses was made by one of us at school and features a badly sewn on christmas tree with some ‘embroidery’, and its falling apart.

I spent quite a while looking for a patchwork pattern, not that I necessarily needed one but I was looking for inspiration really. However I found this really fantastic tutorial on Patchwork Posse, the construction of the patchwork was really fun, it basically involves layering fabrics over each other, but I do think you need to plan it first otherwise you could get stuck! I really like the random effect you end up with and it’s a really good project for using up scraps.

I added some minimal quilting to it but if you’re more creative than me you could really go to town with this bit, I think it would look amazing with a very close pattern stitched over it, alternatively you could do it by hand with bigger stitches and contrasting thread, which, in hindsight, is what I should have done, I think it would look cuter. Inside I used green felt, which I should have cut with my pinking shears I think.

Lizzy and I used this technique for making a cushion cover out of offcuts and it’s definitely a method I will use more often as I have a huge scrap bag that I need to use up before I’m allowed to buy any more fabric…