Spoilt for choice

I've been making loads just recently which is really handy because I'm going to have loads of blogging material for you lovely lot when my life gets too busy to make stuff. I hope this never happens but I have to be realistic exam season is upon us. As such I was spoilt for choice when choosing a make for this blog but I've gone for a commission I made recently.
The pooch attached to this blog is a bespoke draught excluder. It's not the first one I've ever made but I think it might be my favourite.
What I love about this project is that as long as you can straight stitch you can make this cutie. You need to cut in straight lines too - sometimes the harder aspect of making. As my very wise mamma once said - if you cut out the fabric incorrectly no amount of sewing is going to put it right. But those are the only skills you need.
I love getting commissions because it means people think my makes are worth paying for, so if you fancy boosting my ego ever so slightly have a look through my blogs and let me know which one you might like and I will let you know how many silver coins I'm going to ask you to cross my palm with.

The answer to all questions

I've had a pretty rough week; my little car gave up on second, fourth and reverse gear meaning I could only go forwards at either a very slow or fast pace, I've had the mammoth of all colds - my other half has caught it and gotten over it and I'm still clinging onto mine, and although I'm a fan of a Philip Larkin I think he would have been more on the mark to say 'they p*ss you off your mum and dad' rather than 'f*ck you up'. In my mum's defence she made my week better by sending me a pair of owl earrings (owls are my favourites) as a surprise without even knowing I was having a matathon week. My dad on the other hand just doesn't think sometimes - love him to bits but he is a numpty.
So yesterday feeling pretty glum I sat at my machine to make the next batch of bunting. After an hour of straight stitch sewing my stresshead seemed to be mellowing. My self directed tips of square bottoms of the triangles was working. I didn't need to go out so my car didn't matter, my nose was plugged with tissue bungs - don't judge me you know you do it - and my dad is just my dad, you chose your friends not your family and I have an awesome set of those.
After the said hour of sewing the shuttle needed changing. I then had to attach my bunting to the ribbon. As the ribbon was 10 metres and you have to sew down it twice I discovered there is 15m worth of thread on a shuttle. I don't know why it fascinated me but it did, I've always wondered how much you can get from that little piece of kit and now I know.
So there's the answers to life's questions - bunting will solve all world anger issues and there is 15m of cotton on a shuttle. You're welcome!

Oranges - kind of...

I was really hoping today to blog about oranges. Last year I enviously watched my friend make beautiful gifts with dried out oranges and so this year I wanted to give it a try, unfortunately I don't have my end product yet- oranges take ages to dry. So instead I've decided to blog about a PIF gift that didn't get a mention.

I think it's a suitable blog entry for two reasons:

1. It's an easy homemade gift just in time for a festive period.

2. It is incredibly pretty and orange so still partially what I wanted to blog about.

It's a collapsible food basket. My mother in law has one that she bought from France that she puts bread rolls in and is a fancy centre piece for something quite basic so I thought I would give it a try. And as a food basket needs food I made rock cakes to go inside.

I know my friend's kitchen is decorated in golds, oranges and earthy colours which is why I picked the fabric and I've already made her an apron using the same ribbon edges so soon her kitchen will have lots of matching accessories. The inside is a different fabric which is lighter and I really like the contrast of the two fabrics. You can see the inside better here:

What is so lovely about this is that it's two pieces of fabric, sewn right side together, turned inside out and ribbons attached in the corners to make it pop up. Easy! The ribbon part is the most time consuming- working out where to put it to get the right height. Equally it would be easy to make a set of these in a variety of sizes - now there's an idea!