Being Mrs C

Crafty Fox Box Purse

I bought myself an Easter gift this year in the form of the March Crafty Fox Box as put together by the lovely Emily of The Startup Wife fame. I've known Emily for a couple of years now and know what a keen crafter she is, so was delighted when I heard about her latest venture.

My box arrived last week and it was a lovely treat once I'd put the kids to bed one evening to unpack it and start thinking about making things from its contents. I'm not going to share everything yet, but spending time with my sewing machine on Saturday made me itch to do more. So I managed to make the time on Sunday to squeeze in a little project. Little Miss C was fascinated to see my sewing machine and it made me realise that apart from when she was a little baby I've not done much machine sewing with her around. As I was threading it at the kitchen table she kept asking me what I was building!

The project I tackled today was a sweet little purse, designed by The People Shop. It was originally designed, I think, to have the flowery fabric on the outside and the spotty fabric as the lining. I have a lovely tote bag that I made a few years ago in a larger spotty fabric in the same colour as this, so I decided to use the spotty fabric on the outside instead and the sweet flowers and cherries inside.

I tweaked some of the pattern from that published, mainly to make a few things a bit easier for myself and to be able to do as much as possible on my sewing machine. The only bit that I'm not happy with is the loop for the button. I should have made it an open loop, but I just wasn't thinking clearly when I did it. Probably something to do with trying to watch the boat race and keep an eye on two children. My multitasking skills obviously need some practice.

It's a very cute purse though and it would be incredibly easy to make another one. Possibly a bigger one so that it could take flat bank notes maybe. It also wouldn't be too difficult to add in an extra bit to make it so you have two compartments inside. 

I think my crafting bug has been reawakened!

An evening of progress

It's taken a while, but finally progress has been made on the cot bed quilt that I'm working on. An evening of 6 Music, red wine, Oban and my sewing machine and it's amazing how at peace I feel. With all eight rows now completed the next stage is to sew them all together. You never know, it might even get done this weekend. Don't hold your breath though!

Two little lovebirds

Started for Valentines Day, distracted en-route, but finished in time for our wedding anniversary. That's the tale of the above bit of cross-stitch. I happened across the pattern in an email from The Making Spot and fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. There are actually four patterns in the series -these birds, squirells, elephants and penguins - and all are adorable. I'm pretty sure it took me more than the 9 hours they say to sew though - but then their estimations probably didn't account for looking after two children whilst doing so. The last stitch of backstitch was done just as Mr C put his key in the lock having been out to collect my anniversary present the night before the big day. Nothing like cutting it fine! It still needs to be pressed, mounted and framed, but I'm hoping to get that done as quickly as possible.

For our wedding anniversary itself Mr C took the day off work and we went into London with Master C  to go to the Ideal Home Show at Earl's Court. It was lovely to have a day out together (even though the show wasn't as good as we were hoping) and we made sure that we had a mini-celebration in one of the champane bars whilst there. A small reminder of drinking champagne in various places around the world on honeymoon, although the third drink on the table certainly wasn't there five years ago!

Laying it out

I honestly have no idea where I found the time in the last week, but between trips to the GP, mountains of washing, never ending to do lists and general life with two children I did squeeze in time to lay out all the squares for the cot bed quilt that I am making. It was a rare few minutes with no one else above the age of one at home so twitter was my assistant and the lovely Helen from Crumbs and Pegs provided a great bit of advice on the layout based on a series of photos that I tweeted. Technology really does have its uses.

I'm still really pleased with the fabrics in my charm pack and everyone that I've shown the layout to so far seems to have liked it. It was actually much harder than I expected it to be. Some people just have teh nack of getting this sort of thing right first time, but I'm not sure I'm one of those people.

I've now got all my squares in piles ready to sew as per the next set of instructions. I just need to make the time to get the sewing machine out!

Pretty fabric

For years I have wanted to have a go at making a patchwork quilt. I've stood in many a fabric shop swooning over all the pretty fabrics and I've also been stock-piling old clothing that I keep planning to turn into memory quilts. In my usual disorganised way though absolutely nothing has happened. Until now.

I recently "met" Mum of One on a Facebook group and as soon as I read about her plan to make a cot-bed quilt and blog about the steps involved I just knew that I needed to take part. 

As per the instructions I ordered myself a couple of charm packs from The Cotton Patch (how had I never even heard of charm packs before?) and I'm delighted with their contents. 

I went for the "Funky and Retro" selection and ordered a couple of them so that I have some excess compared to the 64 squares that are required and I'm really pleased with the fabrics included. There's a great mix of pretty, funky and cute.

My next task is to decide which ones to actually use and to work out a layout arrangement. I'm thinking that may be the difficult bit. To tide me over until then I'm just going to keep looking at this one (which is now sat on my desk next to my laptop) and day-dream about what I could make for the kids with cute fabrics like this one!

Slow and steady

There might not be much to see yet, but slow and steady progress is being made with Jemima Puddleduck. Whether or not I make the self-imposed Christmas deadline is yet to be seen though. The majority of my progress was made whilst I was at my knitting group last week (I know sewing at a knitting group, but still...) as Master C slept through the whole session in his buggy. Unfortunately I'm going to miss the next two session though due to hospital appointments, so I need to find some extra sewing time whilst Master C sleeps. Maybe less time blogging and more time sewing is the answer...

Return of the missing mojo

I seem to recall that after Little Miss C was born it took me a while to regain my craft mojo, and the same seems to be the case after Master C's birth. Obviously there have been plenty of other things going on here too this time round (including having a toddler to entertain) but this last week or so the need to create has returned.

Before I can start any new projects though there are so many around the house that need finishing off. My plan, certainly for the next 6 months or so, is that I'm not allowed to buy anything for any new craft projects and instead need to concentrate on finishing all the ones that I've already started. That should help focus me, and save a bit of money too.

Top of the list has to be what I started before Master C was born - two Beatrix Potter cross-stitch pictures for his room. The stitching part of Peter Rabbit was finished before Master C arrived, but this week I've actually managed to frame it (with a little help from my mum who stayed last week). It's great to see it really finished and this cheap frame that I picked up in Wilkos works really well.

As I mentioned at the time I had started Jemima Puddleduck, but as I expected not much more stitching happened before I gave birth. 

Whenever possible I'm now squeezing in a bit of stitching with an aim to finish this before Christmas. That may well be a bit ambitious, but at least I've got something to aim towards!

Little Peter Rabbit

Yep, here I am STILL waiting! All I can say is that this baby must be pretty damn comfortable in there. 

All this sitting around waiting for things to happen is pretty damn frustrating, but there is one small advantage. I have at least managed to finish one of the sewing projects that I started for Baby C. Before Little Miss C came along I had both a knitting and a cross stitch project on the go for her. OK, so neither were finished before she actually arrived (mainly due to carpel tunnel during the last month of that pregnancy) but eventually I did manage to complete both her blanket and the Ten in a Bed picture.

As Baby C is set up with knitted goodies from my knitting group I decided to just concentrate on some cross stitch pictures for his/her room. Inspired by Cherry Menlove's nursery shelf I had an urge to do something Peter Rabbit related and I was delighted to find a series of Anchor Beatrix Potter kits available on Amazon and sent off for the Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck ones.

I'm delighted to say that Peter is now complete - relatively easy to sew, but the back-stitch was a nightmare due to it all being over strange numbers of fraction squares rather than complete ones. I've even managed to find a frame to use, but it needs a bit more work with the iron before I can frame it properly - not something that's easy or safe to do with LMC running around!

Jemima has been started, but I'm not sure I want to have the time to finish her off too before this baby arrives!

Queen for a day...

... or in reality just a few minutes.

If you're in the UK then you really can't have escaped the Jubilee fever that seems to have taken over. Go to any town centre or village green and you'd be forgiven for thinking that there's been an explosion in a nearby bunting factory. If you have children of school age then there have been numerous tea parties, concerts and picnics to celebrate.

I freely admit to being a bit of a royalist. I love the royal family and what they do for the country and think the Queen should be celebrated after so many years serving the country. Whatever your views though, a diamond jubilee is something that most of us will only see one of in our lifetimes and a big countrywide event that will go down in history.

Little Miss C's nursery have been celebrating the event with a variety of activities for the children and culminating in a jubilee tea party where the children were invited to come along in fancy dress. LMC's had a bit of a recent obsession with the Queen and crowns so it seemed obvious that her outfit should try to emulate the woman whose big day it is. 

The cloak was a simple rectangular piece of red velvet effect fabric from my stash trimmed with a bit of white fake fur from the local haberdashery shop. A couple of gold buttons from my collection and a small bit of fabric to fasten it all together completed the look. An hour or two of sewing and a late night and my masterpiece was complete. The slight problem was that LMC wasn't exactly impressed by it all and apart from the a minute or so when I took a photo the cloak was rejected and never worn again!

Luckily the crown was a bit more successful. Made together I managed to find some gold card which was formed into a round shape. On this we stuck loads of stickers - both small gem ones and sparkly stars. LMC was in charge of the arrangement and seemed convinced that the Queen deserved as many stars as possible on her crown. So pleased was she with the result that when she went to nursery in it she only took it off for nap time and wore it the rest of the day with pride.

If only the cloak had been as popular...

Gold card, gem stickers and sparkly star stickers were all found at Baker Ross.

In situ

In an amazing show of efficiency, yesterday's numbers have been hung and after searching aorund the house for a suitable place I finally settled on the side of our staircase. Whenever we take Little MIss C upstairs one thing we do is count the stairs as we go. The only slight problem is that this means that the numbers read from right to left, rather than left to right as is conventional. I figured that putting up with that was cheaper than moving the staircase to accommodate them!

In case you're interested, the wooden pegs were bought very cheaply on eBay and the lovely spotty ribbon on which they're pegged is the mini dotted ribbon from Cath Kidston (one of those little impulse purchases from their new-ish shop here in St Albans).