it's the little things...: "Brown paper packages, tied up with string..."

it's the little things...: "Brown paper packages, tied up with string..."

Well my little package was well received! I hope this post will prove that the craft swap *is* genuine - I know some of you out there are convinced it is a pyramid scheme - but it will only work if people sign up (I won't get anything back until anyone I recruit has recruited someone). It was a really nice feeling to get such a positive response to my little gift, so, even if I don't get anything back I will be happy to have shared.

Kx

Weekend sewing

It was a good weekend, this weekend, lots of time in the garden, and an equal amount of time at the sewing machine.

This is what I came up with for my swap item - a passport holder/cover in Amy Butler's Martini fabric.

And the inside:

Hopefully the recipient will like it!  I have still had no takers for my part of the swap - so if you fancy receiving some random crafty goodness (you only have to make one item to send off) then please contact me.  It would be a nice to keep the thing going :-)

I made a couple of other passport covers too, one for me (the trial version) in my japanese rooster and tulips fabric:

And another in the reverse colorway of the Amy Butler material, which is destined for my Etsy shop.

The other job I managed to get done, which has been hanging around for a while, was to make a bag to transport my clothes in to work (I cycle part of the way).  I had been using cotton shop bags, but wanted something a bit more personal and a bit more cheerful to hang up in my office.  I got some lovely striped material from John Lewis:

And simply made a lined version of the bag I had been using - much prettier though :-)

And with the rather dramatic black lining:

All in all, a good weekend I think!

Chair makeover

Its been a busy Easter weekend so far!  One of the projects I got stuck into was helping Robert's mum, Rosemary, to revamp a chair I had bought for her from our local auction.  Actually we bought two chairs as one lot (for the princely sum of £4), the other will need to be reupholstered... another day!  They are both very dainty Edwardian bedroom chairs.

The one that didn't need reupholstering (above) did need a new seat, and we choose twisted rush as the material.

It was quite tricky as neither of us had done it before, and the pretwisted rush had a tendency to unravel itself at the most inopportune moments... but, we were getting somewhere.

Here it is in the fairly early stages.  As the seat is wider at the front than the back we needed to do the front first, tying each length of rush to the side rail.

A bit further forward.  It got really difficult near the end as we kept having to squish the rush bands that were already on to get the next ones in the gap.

Here is the finished (bar neatening up when dry) article!

It's probably not what you would call a *professional* finish, but pretty good for a first attempt we reckon - certainly it is now a functioning chair, just right for an old bear :-)