Sewing machine helper

I found this idea somewhere but for the life of me I could not refind it so I decided to just give it a go.

I have a little wooden sewing box but my table is always covered in scissors, bobbins and bits of thread. So as this heat is making me melt to distract me I decided to give making my sewing machine helper a go. It's basically a mat that goes under your machine and hangs off the end of your table with 3 little pockets for storage - aka

Best of all it's really simple, so here goes.

1. Firstly the stripy material is actually a pillowcase I found in the charity shop, you can use anything but this was the prefect size and nice and bright.

2. Next you need some battening, I stitched together 2 bits from a pile of leftovers after I made quilts for my kids. I cut it to match the width of the pillowcase - see cunning, now I don't have to hem much.

 3. Slide the battening into the pillowcase and pin in place, especially the corners. It'll help keep it still until you can sew it. Then zip along the edges and through the middle for good luck to hold the battening in place.

4. Then you cut out your pockets, I used felt - no hemming, lazy, you know the drill. Pin them in place and sew around the edges, leaving the top open. I shifted the 2 sides of the middle pocket in a bit thinking it would make it a better pocket to hold more but actually you don't need to. Just lie it flat and sew.

5. To finish I cut off the bottom of the pillow case so just under the pockets, tucked the open material inside the pillow case, ironed it and then sewed them close as above. Now you are all ready to fill the pockets with anything you like!



Working in Felt

Hello. Long time no write. I have been getting ready for my sister in law's baby shower and it's been nose to the grindstone. But now that is all over and the heat has locked me inside I though I should let you know what I have been up to.

I run Rhyme Time at the local library and have a few things for the kids to play with as we sing. I have some multicoloured shakers and one sorry looking spider made from black wool and pipe cleaners. He has been much loved of late!

But I decided it was time to add to my bag of tricks. So after I finished my sister in law's quilt. Easier than I imagined so I will add a quick tutorial when I do my next one:

Anyway I had some yellow felt leftover from this and decided to make some ducks for my "5 little ducks" song. The great thing with the felt was no hemming, so I found a stencil on google, copied and added it to powerpoint, made one smaller and one larger. The smaller one was about a quarter of a page and the larger one about half. But I stuck them on one page - saving paper! Printed them out, then when I cut them out I decided to had about half an inch around the edge as I was worried they would be too small. I just eyeballed it.

Once you have 5 little ducks and 1 Mama duck I decided to stitch the beaks together without stuffing, I did this with orange thread so it would separate it from the rest of the yellow. I think you could make separate beak if you wanted but I was feeling lazy. Also you could probably have filled in the beak with a lot more orange thread as well if you liked. I didn't - see previous reason!

Then I gave them black eyes just stitching with some black thread.

I zipped them through my machine with yello thread, leaving about 2 inches at the bottom to stuff.

For stuffing I found an old pillow, and have been using that to fill various things. Cheaper than buying plus I get to recycle.

Abi - my 4 year old - and I stuffed the ducks, I sealed with some yellow thread and a basic stitch - nothing fancy. That word would never be used with my sewing in the same sentence :)

And ta da, 5 little ducks and their Mama ready for Rhyme Time;

Laminated Cards

One of the first things I made for my little girl, Abi, was not even sewing related. I created a little book of family pictures on a keyring. She still has it in the car, and she's always loved it. I used to sit in the back and flick through everyone and tell her who they were. Part of the reason I make it was because we were living in London and my husband's family were in Australia. In the run up to our first visit and after it I wanted her to remember who they all were, keep them in her mind. Now we live in Australia I use it to remind her of my family and her friends back in the UK. This is what it looks like:

But you don't have to do family photos, the last ones I did for my niece and nephew were about 64 animal photos. I am probably going to make some more for my kids as they loved helping me create them. So whatever you choose it's really simple.

Step 1: Get the photos ready. If you are doing family ones try and get good headshots, take them off facebook, crawl through old photos. I took a lot from my wedding as they were good quality and everyone looked nice :) When you are choosing also remember you might want to try and keep to all portrait or all landscape, otherwise once they go on the keychain they won't all be the same way.

Step 2: Try and get the photos all the same size, then I used Canon Easy-Photoprint to print them. You could resize and put them all in say powerpoint but it'd probably take a while and be fiddly. The photoprint makes them all the same size without any of the hassle.

Step 3: Get printing. I do mine a few pages at a time, worry wart that I am. Make sure you have enough ink and ideally a good printer. If you don't have a printer, your local library, post office or newsagents should be able to print them off for you for at a cost.

Step 4: This is the step I always forget, so don't worry if you do. But once they are printed write on the back, either the animal names, family names, whatever it is you have pictured. If you forget this step then just get a sharpie pen and use that on the back after you laminate. And when you write on them be aware you will be cutting these up so stick to your photo area.

Step 5: Now get them laminated. If you think you might be doing a few it could be worth buying a laminator. Otherwise again your post office can probably do this for you.

Step 6: Cut out your pictures, try and make them all the same size. You can use scissors but a guillotine will give you a cleaner and more symmetrical edge. If you have already remembered to write on the back - well done! - and make sure when you cut them up you are not cutting through any of the writing.

Step 7: Once you have them all cut out and know how big you need your keyring, go and buy it. For my family one I had a keyring with a little soft toy or but for the animal one I just bought a large clip open ring from the local stationers. Then added a little fun keyring I found in the $2 shop.

Step 8: Add them all on, wrap and give!

See completely simple and a great homemade gift that will get plenty of mileage. You can try lots of different ideas for this, it's really flexible. Apart from family and animals you could do colours, shapes, flowers, fruit and veg. If your kids are older maybe try doing general knowledge questions and answers, questions one side and answers on the other. Guess the celebrity, Guess the film from famous lines or opening lines. Or if they have a big test coming up make studying for it a bit of a game, I always found things stuck better if I was enjoying myself.

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The beginning

So let me start by saying I am not particularly artistic. I've had my sewing machine no more than a year and apart from 1 attempt at a Minnie Mouse costume for my daughter's 3rd birthday it has been years since I have sewed anything. I have always loved cooking, baking especially. In fact a few days before I gave birth to my eldest I used most of our pantry and baked a never ending supply of cookies!
So this blog is a little bit of a record of my voyage. I bought myself a sewing machine and decided that if everyone else could create things so could I. I'll try to keep it simple and easy to understand but please email me if something doesn't make sense. Consider everything here possible, for anyone to do. It might take a few practise goes, it might not always be as planned but once you start realising what you can do you won't look back, I promise.