Impromptu Crafty Button Heart Picture

I found an Ikea picture frame when I was tidying up a section of the sewing room recently and decided on the spot that it needed to be put to use rather than just being re-stored in my grand relocation project.

I tracked down a little packet of heart shaped Mother of Pearl buttons that I had ordered from ebay for some long-forgotten purpose and decided they would look nice laid out in a heart teamed with some of that beautiful strip of linen offcut I have used for a few pouches lately.

I set to work lacing the linen over a piece of acid free mount board.  As you can see, the linen strip isn't quite big enough to fold over the backing card in both directions or I would have laced it vertically and horizontally.  But, it is big enough to hide behind the aperture mount so I think it will be ok, especially as this is no heirloom project, just a quick crafty make.

Then, I popped the aperture mount over the linen and laid out the buttons as I would want them to be.  I drew around a heart template onto the linen with my Chaco chalk pen first to provide a vague outline to work to.

Next, it got messy as I tried to glue the buttons to the fabric trying not destroy the visible linen with great big glue streaks.  Unfortunately, I lost some of the nice shaping of my original button layout doing battle with gluey fingers and trying to keep everything else clean, but it's only a quick project for our home not a gift or a masterpiece!

When the glue had dried and I had picked off the excess that managed to get on to the tops of the buttons (ahem) I simply put it all back in the frame and hung it on our bedroom wall.   I can't show you a pic of it there though as it reflects too much light and doesn't photograph well.  That's why this pic is taken at a funny angle - I was trying to avoid light reflections and this was the best I could do.

Eh voila! Something less to store and hoarded supplies put to a fun use!

More linen lovelies

Last weekend, working my way down the list of makes before losing my sewing room, I thought I'd make myself a couple of zippy pouches to help me when I need to re-store sewing items that usually sit on my sewing table top.

I sifted out some of my small Bonnie and Camille scraps and chose some Essex Linen in Grey and some of that gorgeous damask style linen that I used previously.  I also thought that I'd make up a wee frame purse for a late spring birthday present while I had the linen and pretty scraps out on the table.

The large grey zippy is big enough to re-home my scissors and rotary cutters when the time comes to pack them safely into a box.  I tried a wee bit of wavy piecing on that pouch just because.

The small linen zippy pouch will be a new pencil case and is quite simply just a little indulgent because I have been wanting to make myself something from those narrow little linen offcuts that I have.

As you can see, I had mixed results with my zip tab ends.  Above on the pencil case they are pretty much perfect, but below you can see that I managed to lose one almost completely on the scissor pouch.  I really don't know what I did wrong, but I'm not too worried as it's not for a gift, just for me.

I think this frame purse is the prettiest of the three and I'm happy that is the case because it will become a birthday pressie in a number of weeks.  I especially wanted to share the linen with the recipient because it really is beautiful.  It needs a wee treat or two inside before passing on, and in the meantime I will just look at it and sigh until it's time to wrap it up for delivery.

Making little pouches that come together quickly can be very satisfying indeed!

Linen loveliness

I have had some scrappy offcuts of the most amazing Irish linen in my stash boxes for quite a while now and when I needed to make up a little cosmetic purse for my mum's best friend a couple of Sunday mornings ago, I reached for the linen and some scraps of Bonnie and Camille.

I really didn't want to over- fuss this little zippy pouch with extra lace or trimmings because I think the linen just speaks for itself.  So, as you can see I simply stitched little mini-charms into a centre panel front and back, quilted with two discreet lines of stitching either side of the panel and added a pretty floral and paisley print from Scrumptious to allow the lining to be a bit of a feature.

Since I had to give this pretty one away, I took some extra pics.  Above is the front and below is the back.

I promise the pouch is evenly angled on both sides even if my photo makes it look like it's not.

Think I might need to make myself something useful in some more of this linen and B&C - just sayin'.

Holiday Stitching - 1

We returned from a lovely family holiday on Saturday night. Can you guess from our silly pic what our holiday purchases included?  Rain hats!  I refused to go all "Australian outback" with mine, but the men in my life are heading off to look for wild horses to break in for their daily commutes!

Our holiday time involves lots of adventure sports (this year: gorge scrambling, Go Ape highwire forest walking, rowing, lake swimming, mountain biking to name a few).  I can now set your mind at ease by confirming what you probably already suspected - I do NOT participate in said adventure sports. My role is to gleefully wave my men goodbye for a few hours and meet up with them for coffee and tourist activities later in the day.  While they live on adrenalin, I am free to stitch some peaceful hours away.

After stitching up the brooches (better pics than the previous post)

I had immense fun appliqueing hearts to some gorgeous Kaufman Essex Linen and embellishing it with a little lace and buttons, hoping to achieve a sort of pretty, vintagey look.

There was a lot of chalking grids and measuring to make sure everything lined up nicely.

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of stitching this little cushion.  It was fun and freeing to just play with design and some notions.  I like the simplicity of it and hope that its recipient will too.

And, because I adored the print from the central heart, I used it on a contrasting band for the envelope backing. I think it might be from Denyse Schmidt's Shelburne Falls line, but didn't know that when I bought it.  I do know that I wish I had bought more of it!

So, this will be off to its new home soon, I hope.  And, hopefully tomorrow, I will show you the other cushion I made while I was away.