My sister loves a scottie dog, it’s the way they run, with their little legs going… so I made it as a little extra for her for Christmas.

Anyway, this toy is a really quick easy make, I just stitched it together one evening after work in front of the TV. I’ll definitely make it again as a last minute baby prezzie, although I wouldn’t use beads if it was for a child obviously but I think little blue embroidered eyes would be good too. I found the tutorial on Allsorts blog but there are loads of good felt toy patterns around, and you could easily make your own.

I made this for my friend who punches me in the face (at Jitsu obviously – duh), she sneakily left it until the last minute to tell me it was her birthday this week leaving me little time for crafting. However, I like a deadline! So I have made her this lovely tote. Apologies for the poor photography (even poorer than usual!) I was in a rush to wrap him up and get him ready to go.

Now stop right there, I hear you say, this looks remarkably like another tote bag I’ve seen on this blog. Well you’d be right, and wrong. This bag is slightly bigger, I measured by eye rather than ‘suggested measurements’. It has shorter handles (mainly because I was running out of fabric) and I have added a handy little pocket to keep your oyster card and phone in, or anything else you find it difficult to put your hand on in a cavernous bag. Alternatively if using it to carry crafts it would serve equally well to house crochet hooks, scissors and the like.

I know I bemoaned the timescales given on the previous bag but this one was actually very speedy, I cut and ironed all the pieces one night after netball and then did all the sewing and was finished before Simon got home from work on the Friday – bosh! Thoroughly recommended for a last minute gift.

A card from my lovely sister Amber, handmade with Liberty fabric

It can not have escaped anyone’s notice that this week was my Birthday, I would have preferred not to have announced my age to the world but my friends had different ideas.

But I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I got some really lovely presents, had some amazing meals (I would thoroughly recommend L’Art du Fromage!) and was generally made a fuss of, perfect! I thought you might like to share in my craft realated gifts so here’s a quick run down:

Firstly, as if she had read my mind, Lizzy got me a pack of beautiful V&A fat quarters

And after months of excuses for not knitting socks Lizzy also bought me a sock making kit, wool, needles and a pattern. This wool is really soft, Regia 4ply designed by Kaffe Fassett and you can get a free pattern for socks made with this wool on the Coats website.

And I’ve started them already – with a hangover and everything!

My Mum made me a cover for my sewing machine – she’s so clever

And she also decoupaged me a letter ‘K’, it will look great in my craft room (once it’s finished).

As will this sewing box that Liz (Simon’s sister) got me – he has been complaining about my messy sewing things recently so maybe he has been hinting , I love it, now I can finally sort all my cottons and notions out so I can see what I have to play with.

I also got lots of fantastic non-craft related prezzies and so many cards, all in all I am a very spoilt girl!

Okay so for my birthday my lovely grandmother, Georgie, gave me a family heirloom, a quilter’s geometric ruler. Still got the packaging and everything!

Georgie is a Master of Patchwork and I’ve been meaning to give it a go for ages so I decided to buy some fabric, I spent ages agonising over the gorgeous and hugely expensive designer fabrics on etsy but in the end decided I didn’t need to spend loads of money to make something beautiful.

So I bought some fabric from this great shop on ebay, Dungarees and Daisies which arrived today – how exciting! Really reasonable prices and postage. I also need some plain, maybe navy or black fabric to break up the reds I think.

There are loads of free patterns online and some good and some bad ones on Amy Butler’s website (also free) but I have a template kit for a Queen Charlotte’s Crown design  that came out of the bottom of my mum’s craft pit so I think I’ll give that a go – am I being too ambitious? I can just never bring myself to do the shit boring things first. With any new craft I want to do the complicated pretty designs, so it ends up with a lot of swearing and unpicking BUT it’s worth it, and I think I learn quicker that way…

Anyway this is another project that I plan to do a bit of every evening so I’ll post some more pictures when I have a decent pattern drawn up and some sizeable peices sewn together.