Giveaway #1 - Amy Butler Frenchy Bag Pattern AND fabric

First off is an Amy Butler Frenchy Bag pattern. This can be made either as a shoulder or a handbag.


















Accompanying the pattern is also fabric to make the shoulder bag. There is 60cms of Kaleidoscope Dots Leaf for the main panel and straps and 140cms of Full Moon Polka Dot in Lime for the lining, pockets and exterior top (the lady in the shop helped me calculate the amount, so it should be right!)














Of course, you don't have to use the fabric for the bag, but I know that whenever I get a new pattern, I just want to get started on it straight away, so thought it would be nice to give the fabric as well as the pattern.

To enter this giveaway just leave a comment telling me your favourite Amy Butler fabric. Easy!

Giveaway #3 - Something hand made by me!

Finally, giveaway number 3 is something I've handmade (please be gentle with me....I only got my sewing machine at Christmas!) This is a set of 5 hand made Cupcake cards. Each card measures approx 5" x 5" and comes with an envelope. It is blank inside for your own message.


To enter this giveaway just leave a comment below. No question for this one!

Friday night sewing

The news came today that Ofsted are going to be paying us a visit next Wednesday and Thursday. I'll still be on Jury Service. How lucky am I? I think we've been expecting them for a fair while and I think they've choosen a good time (for us - or at least my colleagues!) to come. Our Year 10s will be on work experience and our Year 12s left for study leave today. It's the people who have a full 6 lessons on those days with all Year 7, 8, 9 and 13 teaching (like my Head of Faculty!)

So, I decided I *needed* to do some sewing this evening. I made cards.

I hadn't been planning on making cards, but the Kid's Mail Swap got me thinking and half an hour later, they were done.


Made entirely out of scraps. I think a zig zag stitch may have been better, but I'm not very good at zig-zag and plus I quite like the 'rustic' feel to them.

Look familiar, lol?

Paying it Forward

Continuing Silky Sue's Pay it Forward, which I just couldn't resist joining in with, this is my Pay it Forward post (is it wrong that I am stupidly excited about this!)

The first three people to leave a comment will receive a hand made gift from me.

The only thing you have to do to participate is carry on the gift by giving to three more people...as soon as you have left a comment do a "pay it forward post" on your blog and continue the giving.

I'm not going to say what the three things are, but they involve these fabrics (one of them has the two fabrics on the left, the next has the three orange fabrics in the middle and the last has the two fabrics on the right). (I'm more than happy to post internationally if anyone from overseas wants to join in as well)

My first ever tutorial - Reversible A Line dress

There are so many tutorials that people have posted to their blogs and I thought I would join in. I love making this reversible A Line dress as it doesn't take any time at all and it looks lovely on, but each time I do it, I always have to stop and re-think how to do it. So, not only am I hoping that this will be useful for others, but it will also be useful for myself!





I use New Look pattern 6578 for this dress, but anything similar would do. I think, depending on how talented (or brave) you are, you could also easily draft your own.



I use the 3 size from this pattern, which has been fine during the winter as Cara has been wearing the dresses over leggings. However, if she were to wear it on it's own (as I am hoping in the Summer), it is possibly a little short. I therefore decided to add a little to the length. In the end, I added 6cms (it wasn't calculated scientifically - just a rough guess!)

So, pattern selected, you only need the front and back pieces. Nothing else. You now need to cut two front pieces from each piece of fabric and two back pieces.

Two front pieces - one from each piece of fabric:


Two back pieces - one from each piece of fabric:


You now need to take the two back pieces and place them right sides together. Pin and sew where shown on the photo (the red line)


Turn in the right way and press where you have just sewn.


You now need to do exactly the same, but for the front. Place the two front pieces right side together and sew where shown (red line on photo)


Again, turn in the right way and press and then do your button holes.


You now need to sew the front pieces to the back pieces. To do this, lay each piece out lengthways - you have to sort of fold down the part you have just sewn and then it will lay out. Place the fabric right side together, but so that you have one of the patterns on the left side and the other pattern on the right hand side:


Your next step is to sew the two pieces together. Starting on one side, sew the entire length of the dress (red line on the photo) - take care where you move from one dress to the other, because the better you match the seams up, the neater the finished article will look.


You can now turn your dress the right way and you should be able to see it clearly taking shape.

You now need to press and pin your hem. If you made your original pattern longer (as I did) then you can take the time to try it on and measure it properly. Obviously, the more time you take with the pressing and pinning of the hem, the neater the match between the two fabrics you can get. When you sew it, you need to try and get as close to the bottom of the hem as possible. Once you have done this, you can top sew it if you choose (I don't).

All that's left now is to sew on your buttons. Work out where they need to go and then sew two on back to back on each strap.

That should be it (fingers crossed!)



Here is my finished one being modelled (whilst bouncing on the bed!)

My first quilt (and a little confession!)

I've decided that during the summer holiday, I am going to decorate Cara's bedroom. I'm going to let her help choose the colour scheme, but I can see lots of pink (I'm thinking pale pink with white).

I decided that I would love to make a quilt for her bed, to finish it all off. So, this week I started. I have never made a quilt before, but just feel so inspired by all the fantastic examples out there, that I decided to just go for it. Now...my confession is that I don't really have a clue what I'm doing. I'm just sort of 'doing it' and am going to see how it ends up (probably not the best way of doing it!)

I've made several blocks so far and am really pleased with how they are turning out.

Lots of lovely goodies!

I decided to treat myself rather a little bit too much this past week!

I have been lusting after the combination of these two Amy Butler fabrics for a while now. My two usual favourite fabric shops let me down - one shop stocked just the Polka Dots and not the Wall Flower and the other didn't have either (although they did have the Wall Flower in Apricot which I succumbed to!) Anyway, I found a place on the net that stocked both and the lovely postman bought them to me earlier in the week.













Next I decided to actually make myself something so bought the Amy Butler Barcelona Skirts pattern and some fabric to use for it.













The last thing, which I am incredibly excited about is this new 'Flip' video camera. We recently got some of these at work and they are fab. They hold 60 minutes worth of video and to download it, you just flip out the USB, plug it into your computer and it's done! Expect to see lots of video of Cara here soon!