Sewchet

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Tag Archives: bunting


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Sunday Sevens #99

This week’s Sunday Sevens is a couple of week’s worth as I haven’t had chance to get near a computer before now.

To find out more about Sunday Sevens, visit Nat at Threads & Bobbins.

1. The Boys were desperately in need of a haircut……

2. This was the ‘before’!

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3. All No.3’s curls have gone! N0.3 wanted me to cut his hair ‘long’.

4. The Boys are eating the crackling, which I cut off the pork belly before cooking what is possibly the tastiest meal ever.

5. I managed to get around to making a friend’s curtains which she has been waiting for for ages.

6. No.1 Son also wanted a haircut before we all went camping. I did the ‘Mad Woman Let Loose With A Pair Of Scissors’ impression.

7. I whipped up some simple bunting for the tents using some scraps out of my ‘less than 4″ square scrap bag’. Come on, I know I’m not the only one who can’t bear to throw away even the tiniest piece of fabric.

8. Talking of camping, No.1 Son went a day earlier and took both the tents as there wouldn’t be enough room in my little car (Mr H-L’s big car was in the garage). At the last minute, the garage rang to say they’d fixed the Merc. Bonus!

9. Camping with all three sons and N0.1’s girlfriend.

10. Everyone needs a bit of bunting on their tents. And homemade picnic rug and crocheted blankets.

11. Standard camping breakfast – sausages!

12. Family selfie at Hurlstone Point overlooking Porlock Bay.

Camping selfie

13.  The Boys chose their own fabric for their sewing lesson projects.

14. Hanson’s fabric warehouse in Sturminster Newton was in the midst of putting up all manner of things outside their shop for Yarnbombing Day.

15. The nearby open spaces were also duly adorned with knitted and crocheted works of art. The Boys couldn’t resist touching everything.

16. I’m still working steadily on the knitted baby shawl. At this point I think I was two thirds of the way in with 60 hours under my belt and over 70,000 stitches to date.

17. The Boys went back to school, everyone went back to work and I went to the café all on my own for a bit of peace and quiet and well earned coffee and cake.

And…..relax!


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Sunday Sevens #82

 Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series to show a snapshot of your life outside the blog. Visit Nat over at Threads & Bobbins to see how you can join in.

1. Mr H-L brought me up breakfast in bed complete with a ‘vase’ (whisky bottle) of flowers. Fifi is still curled up at the end of the bed. She is spoilt and has always slept on our bed – Tess sleeps downstairs and sulks every night at bedtime.

  

2. N0.3 Son bounded in mid-breakfast and proudly showed me what he was making downstairs.
  

3. My sister came to stay and we ended up in the pub after a nice walk. At the time we were the same age, but it was her birthday yesterday and she is now a year older than me:)

  

4. My favourite hen, Amber, was weak and not her usual confident self and all the hens were bullying her again, so we brought her into the house to live whilst she regained her strength.
      

5. Unfortunately, she didn’t recover and died peacefully one evening. She had such a great personality and has featured in many a blog post. We miss her dreadfully already.
 6. I held a Bunting workshop – here are the kids enjoying a half time treat.  

7. A couple of photos of what was achieved in the four hour class – pretty impressive for eight year olds, don’t you think?  
8. This little girl made her bunting for her little sister’s birthday present – how sweet?

 9. These patchwork squares came free with a magazine – any ideas as to what I could do with them?   
10. Yet another charity shop bargain – two brand new tea towels for 50p each. Not sure what I’ll make with them, but they were too pretty to leave there.

 So that was my week – The Boys are back to school on Monday so I might actually be able to get some sewing done as it feels like ages since I’ve done a ‘proper’ blog post!


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Sunday Sevens #79

It’s Sunday again – where did THAT week go? Well, I’ll show you in this week’s Sunday Sevens – a weekly blog series devised by Nat at Threads & Bobbins to give readers a glimpse of what you do outside the blog in about seven photos.

There are no rules, which is just as well or mine would have to be renamed “Sunday Twelves” most of the time. It’s easy to join in, so visit Nat to find out how.

  1. It was my birthday last Sunday, as previously mentioned and, because I share my birthday with my daughter, we went out for lunch on Monday to Summer Lodge in Evershot. It’s my favourite place – and now my daughter’s, too:)

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2. The food was amazing as always and we even both had flowers, a birthday card and box of chocolates given to us by the hotel!

3. My daughter bought me a gorgeous Lamy fountain pen in pink……

Lamy fountain pen

4. ….and a bottle of 24K Prosecco!

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5. Progress on my lacy cardigan is slow which means there’s no way it’s going to be finished for Spain in May:(

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6. No.1 Son has finished painting the sewing cabinet he bought me for Mother’s Day/ Birthday. It’s much better but I still feel it needs something more. A bit of gold leaf maybe, to tie in with the gold cording on the inside?

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sewing cabinet

7. To quote Hot Fuzz – “What d’you wanna do?” “I dunno……pub?”

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8. Just LOOK at the size of those (empty) bottles of wine!

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9. On the walk home from the pub, we spotted these deer grazing in the middle of the afternoon.

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10. Our lovely cleaner hoovered the (not inconsiderable) dust from every single one of the buttons on our antique French bed. I wouldn’t have dared showing you what it looked like before!

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11. The Boys washing up again!

Boys washing up

12. The Boys after another riding lesson. I think No.3 Son will be getting new jodhpurs for his birthday….

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13. The hens appreciated The First Mow Of The Year. That’s Mr H-L with his head in the chicken coop:)

first cut of the year

14. And finally, I whipped up some sample bunting for one of the Easter Workshops. It will also be a late Easter present for our granddaughter:)

bunting


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Crochet Camping In Miniature!

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I happened across this fabulous little book by Kate Bruning called ‘Let’s Go Camping’.

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Well, despite the proper thing to do being to put it on my Christmas wish list at this time of year, it somehow found its way into my Amazon shopping cart and, lo and behold, dropped through the letterbox a day or two later.

Of course, the sensible move would be to pop it on the relevant section on the book shelf, wait until I finished my really long gifts-to-make-for-Christmas list and then think about crocheting miniature camping paraphernalia. But I thought I’d just have ‘a quick flick through’, whilst grabbing five minutes with a cup of coffee.

To quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman – “Big mistake. HUGE!”

Faced with delightful images like this of a crocheted caravan complete with crocheted bunk beds and kitchen sink, how could I possibly resist the crochet itch which was insisting on being scratched?

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Well obviously I couldn’t, but I did have a moment of clarity which told me that making anything in the book would soothe the itch, so rather sensibly decided to ignore the time-eating caravan and hook up a quick little picnic scene instead.

And here it is!

let's go camping kate bruning teepee

Just look at that sweet little teepee!

let's go camping kate bruning teepee and cushions

Kate suggests covering wooden skewers or similar with washi tape to use as tent poles, but I improvised with some twigs from the garden which work just as well.

let's go camping kate bruning bunting

Miniature bunting was made in no time at all.

lets go camping kate bruning bunting

A circular rug provides a more comfortable sleeping area for the playmobil characters.

lets go camping kate bruning rug

I made three tiny cushions both round and square, a chequerboard picnic blanket (my own design) and what picnic is complete without a hamper full of food?

lets go camping kate bruning picnic hamper

The lego baseplate will have to suffice until I get around to making the crocheted camping backdrop complete with all manner of trees, bushes and even snow-capped mountains!

lets go camping playmat mountains

The Boys have already declared ownership and spend many a happy minute playing camping with their “mens”.

lets go camping kate bruning

At only £7.49 I think it’s a great affordable Christmas present idea. Are you putting it on your list?

(This is not a formal review – just my own opinion)

On another note – swap partners have now been allocated for the #stitchingsanta. If you haven’t received your email, please check your spam folder first before getting in touch.


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Presentation Box With Bunting

If you saw yesterday’s post about the handmade fudge I created for the school fair, you may remember that I was just going to take it along in a bread basket.

Well, I thought that, since I had gone to the trouble of making the fudge and packaging it nicely, I could be a bit more creative with the presentation. 

An hour later I had made this: –

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Inspired by this tiny scrap of leftover “Afternoon Tea” wrapping paper which was just too pretty to throw away…

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…I decided the colour scheme could be pink and blue with paper bunting.

Here’s what I did….

  1. Paint the outside of a shallow cardboard box (I used the lid off a box of photocopier paper) in blue and the inside in pink.  I used acrylic paints which dried super-quickly.
  2. Using parcel tape, stick two wooden skewers at an angle to the inside-rear of the box.  Paint pink.

 

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3.  Using PVA adhesive, glue down a piece of wrapping paper to the inside base of the box.  (I didn’t have enough to cover the entire       base, so I painted a strip down each side in pink beforehand).

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4.  Attach a length of string between the top of the skewers using parcel tape.

5.  Draw a small triangle onto a piece of card and cut out to make a template for the bunting.  Fold your wrapping paper and place the template short edge along the fold.  Draw around, and cut out.

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6.  Paste a small amount of glue onto the inside of your bunting pennant, hang over the string and press together.

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And there you have it – a suitably themed box in which to present your homemade goodies for sale.  They look much cuter in this rather than the bread basket, don’t they?

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A presentation box complete with “Afternoon Tea” wrapping-paper bunting – perfect for selling sweets, chocolates or small gifts on your stall at your school fair or Summer fête.