Look at what i just got

Look at what the postman just delivered!

I bought it as present for my dad's birthday and I have to say I am VERY pleased with it. It looks as nice as I thought it would and it feels deliciously. Its got a lovely weight without being to chunky. I am soooo tempted to keep it for myself! It was made by a very talented lady Mecki that I came across on Handmade Monday. Here's to her blog Mecki Made It if you'd like to see what else she's working on.

She also (very kindly) included a little surprise which I am TOTALLY keeping just for me :-)

BUNNY!

Bunny is going to stay with me in my workspace today, buy I'm hoping to find her a nice little spot in the kitchen to keep me company. :-)

You've got to love handmade!

Sunniness where I can get it (ed. yes that is now a word!)

I am soooooooo over the winter! After being mild for the past few weeks (which stupidly gave me a flicker of hope that spring was around the corner) its gone UBER cold again today. Brrrrrr! I don’t think I had realised how grey it had been recently until the sun came out last week, which picked up my mood no end.

Anyway enough of my griping...

Instead of waiting for sunny weather I have been getting my sunny thrills from my crafts. Like this birthday present for my friend Jenny.

She’s finishing off at college at the moment so I thought I’d give her something that would make her final term a bit more pleasurable. Thank you to Pascale on Between the Lines for the cloth covered books tutorial. Awesome idea!

I’ll be giving her an accompanying coffee cup huggie. One of these three.

What are you  doing to keep the grey clouds away?

Toys for Boys

Sadly I haven’t managed to get anywhere with my patchworking this weekend as present making has taken centre stage.

My other half will be celebrating his birthday on Wednesday, so I’ve been faced with a familiar conundrum...

...What the hell do you make for boys???

Whilst this might seem incredibly late in the day to be planning my husbands birthday present, I have already bought him his ‘main’/ shop bought present, but I didn’t want the occasion to slip by without crafting at least a small something for him.

Now I don’t know about you, but I find crafting for boys (whether  young ones or older ones) a bit tough: they aren’t ever really going to want or need a clutch purse, or appreciate a nice broach, or be particularly grateful for something made out of a pretty materials, buttons or lace.

So I have so far been limited to making/giving scarves, back soothers (the warm in the microwave rice/ wheat back kind for when you have a sore back kind) biscuits/ other food stuffs. The last thing I made Mr T was a coffee cup huggie made from an old surf t-shirt.

Then inspiration hit me – he’s very ...errr....computer orientated. So without giving too much away, I thought I'd try for something a bit computery, a bit geeky, but ultimatately kind of cool.  If you want a clue I was inspired by this fab little etsy store called craftsquatch. Here’s the start of the project ...

Results on Wednesday!

In the mean time, what do you make for the men folk in your life?

Old Fashioned, but due to make a comeback I’m sure – Muffs!

A day off work means plenty of crafting and blogging. Blissful!

In December I was up in Soho in one of my favouritest (is that even a word?) cloth shops looking for inspiration for 2010 Christmas presents. I wanted something that would feel and look special but that would ultimately be enjoyable and not ridiculously time consuming to make. Now I love the Cloth House shops as they are like sweet shops for adults; pricier than some places totally, but the patterns and range of cloths are of a fantastic quality. I tend to go around prodding and poking materials to get a good idea of what they feel like and everything stopped when I came across the most enormous rolls of a fantastic chocolately red with silvery sheen faux fur. Luscious - I could have happily made a bed out of it!

Anyway with the snow and the cold and the fact that I had the nicest fabric around I figured that a muff would be the perfect way forwards. After a reasonable amount of searching and trialing I found these instructions from burdastyle the most straight forward and accurate.

This is how they turned out...

I did make a few additions/ changes of my own though:

1. Instead of using a lining fabric for the inside I just used a second layer of the fur. What’s the point in using the lovely furry fabric if you hands don’t get the tactile benefit!

2. I ended up hand stitching both ends shut. In the end my sewing machine wasn’t quite heavy duty enough to sew two layers of fur together. You cant tell it was hand stitched which is a bonus.

3. I added a length of ribbon to each end of the muff as I was sewing it up so that if you want to you can hang the muff around your neck.

As you can see the end result is quite pretty and really toasty for your hands. My mum LOVED hers and wore it out in the snow for our boxing day walk! Whilst they look quite classy without, I added a button detail to a couple of the muffs which gives them more of a vintage type feel.

If you are going to attempt one yourself my tops tips would be:

- If you have one of those olive sticks (kind of like cocktail sticks… but for olives) in the back of a kitchen drawer they are PERFECT of making sure you have no fur caught up in the stitching.

- If you are adding a detail like buttons or ribbon firstly make sure you work out where the seem ridge inside is going to be. Too high up/ low down and its annoying for your hands and secondly – make sure you have the fur facing in the right direction! In the prototype I kept for myself the fur is the wrong way up when using the ribbon – doh!