Simple Paisley scarf

At Christmas Mr. F asked for a vintage men's scarf, you know the ones, paisley printed silk one side, cosy complimentary coloured wool the other. I would call it a men's dress scarf but who knows the real name?! Well he asked for this about a week or two before christmas, and I searched but couldn't find one anywhere, and without time to venture to manchester to wade through the wild array of vintage shops there I decided to give up...... For now.

After my bow tie making marathon before christmas I realised I had quite a few sections of some lovely quilting cottons left over. So I felt a quick project was in order. I realised I had some rather lovely paisley cotton left over that was just big enough to make a scarf with. So I rummaged though my remnant box and found a piece of lovely camel coloured wool mix twill that was an incredibly good match! 

It may not be the vintage one he asked for, but he is happy all the same.

This was a super simple project that probably took half an hour in total with cutting, sewing and pressing. Okay, okay, well maybe a little longer if you include hand sewing the lining shut. 

There you see the lovely warm lining. This scarf was four pieces cut, joined and then, "bagged out". Then a quick trim of the corners, turn the right side out, press and finish with a little hand stitching.

I debated whether to top stitch the whole way round the scarf but I thought that might make it look a little clumsy. 

The fabric is a really lovely quality quilting cotton that I got from Minerva Crafts, unfortunately i don't have a brand or name for it, and there was no selvedge on my piece.

And here he is modelling the scarf. I am sure he really loved modelling this for me.... Ha ha. 

Thanks for popping by, and as ever I would love to hear your thoughts on any of my projects. 

~HJF~ 

By Hand London Fabric Design competition!!!

Hi All, I have recently been selected for the short list in the By Hand London fabric design competition. This is such awesome news, I am over the moon. If I am successful my fabric design will be professionally printed and commercially sold for By Hand London.... How exciting!

Here is my design, the brief is 'once upon a dream' 

If you would like to place a vote, just follow this link. 

http://byhandlondon.com/blogs/by-hand-london/17096064-once-upon-a-dream-fabric-competition-the-shortlist

There are some really lovely designs in the short list! Good luck everyone!!

~HJF~ 

Motivational Banner

Today I would like to share with you a project I have been working on for a couple of weeks.

I haven't done much embroidery in my time, I have done a lot of free machine embroidery, but not much by hand. I think it such a skill and something I have admired for some time, but, alas, I am really not very patient. My mum and grandma have made a wonderful variety of embroidered tablecloths with a fantastic array of delicate stitches on them, that really are beautiful. 

For my first real piece I decided to keep it simple, with a back stitch. 

Here it is, finally finished. My motivational banner.....

I would just like to say this project was a little out of my comfort zone, I am not usually very fond of using "quotes" but I really like this one. I know quotes and slogans are very in right now, but I don't think it is something I will be indulging in too often. 

I typed up my quote, printed it and transferred it to calico using my lightbox.

I then used my watercolours to create a background so my banner wouldn't seem to plain. In hindsight I think using a patterned fabric might have been a better idea, but I will learn.

(Would you just look at those pom poms!!!! They are easily my most favourite part of this project)

After I had stitched my design i marked my banner and cut it to size. I stitched my pom pom trim into place and I then cut a back piece from some mint linen, this would enable me to 'bag out' my banner.

After I had finished my machine sewing to neaten all of my raw edges I hand stitched the top edge down to create a channel for my dowel to go through. (My dad helped me cut, shape and drill the dowel....it was too cold in the garage for me today ;)

I threaded a few lengths of grey thread through the dowel to give my banner something to hang from and I was done!

I really love the overall look of my banner, I am still slightly unsure about my use of a quote, but maybe if I let it hang a while I will get over it.

On another note, I ironed my fabric pre embroidery and after embroidery - twice! And would you just look, the creases are worse since I finished my embroidery, I was hopeful they may drop out while hanging, but now I am not so sure. I think I will have to live with it. 

Thanks for popping in, if you have any thoughts on the fabric banner trend or use of quotes I would love to hear them. 

~HJF~

The Village Haberdashery #TVHHAUL competition

Hi all,

I wanted to share with you something pretty exciting today! Over the past month I have entered a competition run by the lovely, The Village Haberdashery, a friendly run London based fabric and haberdashery shop. They ran a competition with the chance of winning £50 to spend in store. All you had to do was to tag photographs of your purchases from The Village Haberdashery or any makes you had created with goods from their shop on Instagram. Using the tag #tvhhaul, you could share your photographs to be in with a chance of winning. There would be five winners chosen at random, and one winner chosen in the "Most Creative Catagory".

Well this got me thinking! I wanted to enter and I had two new parcels from The Village Haberdashery, but I wanted to do something different than just a photograph. How about over a hundred photographs joined together?!

So here was my first entry into the competition....

I wanted to create a video of me opening up my parcel from the amazing Boxing Day sale they had!

Just click the play button to watch the video.

My next entry to the competition was an idea I had lodged in my brain from the moment I ordered my fabric. This fabric is quite possibly one of my all time favourite fabrics. What is not to love about a fabric covered in Octopus!!! 🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙

This wonderful fabric is brought to you by Sarah Watts, or Wattsalot for Cotton + Steel who, in my opinion never disappoint with the quality of their fabrics. 

So guys, you will never guess what!!!

I won, in the most creative catagory!!!

There were some really awesome entries in the competition, so I feel super lucky to have been picked, and I can only thank Annie, from The Village Haberdashery for holding this competition!!

If you would like to see a selection of the other entries, hop over to the The Daily Stitch to read more about the competition...... And maybe be inspired to enter their Febuary competition?

Now I just have the tough task of deciding what to order with my fabrics..... Decisions, decisions. 

If you would like to keep up to date with my videos, updates and progress shots of my makes, pop by my Instagram. It would be lovely to see some more friendly faces over there!

Click here to check out my instagram!!!!!!

That's all for now, hope to see you again soon. 

~HJF~

Yoga bag prototype

Hi all, today I wanted to share with you my new yoga bag design.

I recently started going to a yoga class and I thought I only needed to take my mat with me, turns out you need a few bits of kit if you don't want to borrow from the studio. This led me to need a new kit bag, I just didn't have anything big enough to hold all my gear.

I wanted to design something simple, that was lightweight, but that had a place for everything.

I started sketching out my design and got onto drafting the pattern.

 And here it is, it is my first attempt, so there are a couple of things I would do differently next time. 

I bought my fabric after I decided to make my bag, I got it from a printing company that sells fabrics with slight faults on the rolls, but i got lucky and mine is fault free! 

(After I bought this fabric, I showed it to Mr.F and asked him if he liked it, he said hmm well, it's very yoga isn't it, ha ha! ) Good to know my fabric choice is on point. 

The bag comprises of ;

one main compartment with an outside zipper pocket, 

two elasticated pockets,

And one square pocket.

My bag is fully lined, with grey cotton and the exterior is a aubergine printed linen mix.

I don't carry a lot of things with me to yoga, so It didn't need to be an over complicated make.

The main body of my bag holds two foam blocks and my mat, but there is room to spare for a towel, extra jumper etc. There are two elasticated pleated pockets, on one side which hold my water bottle and strap. The other end has one square pocket to hold my foam brick.

There is an outer zipper pocket that has just enough room for my phone keys, etc. 

I am pretty happy with my bag, but I need to improve my pleated pockets, mainly just tighten the elastic slightly. 

I would love to hear if you guys make your own kit bags, and if you use any specific pattern? Do you draft your own?

Do you all think there is a market for yoga bag sewing patterns? I would love to hear your thoughts!

That's all for now. 

~HJF~ 

Tessellation table topper

Today I share with you my Tesselation Table Topper, I completey blame the name of it, on Mr.F, maths extraordinaire.....

I recently decided I wanted to get back into sewing some home accessories, I have previously made quilts cushions, caddies, tables cloths and the like, but with no real vision.

This time round however, I knew what I wanted to get started on. I wanted to create a table mat for the centre of our dining table, one that could live there permenantly when the table wasn't in use.

My colour scheme was grey, so I set to ordering my fabrics from the lovely The Village Haberdashery and M is for Make. 

Let me first explain something, when I designed this project I thought, yes! This can be my first English Paper Piecing project. Alas, when my beautiful fabric flew through my letterbox I got over eager, cut out my triangles and thought, I can sew this by machine! I don't need to hand sew! Let's do this thing. Well I did infact machine sew it, and I who would have thought it...... It was a hot mess!!! Ha ha. So I ripped it all apart and decided to do it properly.

I cut myself plenty of paper triangles, armed myself with my super new (and now favourite) Sewline Glue pen and prepped all of my triangles. I have to admit it was a lot quicker than I had anticipated. Then came the sewing, I found that a slip stitch worked the best for me, and as usual I used a super fine beading needle. 

The whole process of sewing the triangles went together quiete well, I struggled with some areas, mainly I think because one of my fabrics was a heavier weight and added some bulk to the joining seams. 

I then had the decision of how to finish it?

Do I quilt it? Do I add wadding? Do I machine quilt it all? Some of it? Argh!!

I had no idea what I was doing, this is my first piece of EPP and I think I made things more complicated by the somewhat awkward shape. 

No fear, armed with my other new toy, Clover Wonder Clips, I decided to bravely start to sew on the backing. I decided I didn't want wadding and I didn't want to machine quilt it.

In the end I opted to blind slip stitch a plain white cotton backing onto my table topper.

And here it is done!

Admittedly I really should have ironed this before I photographed it. (Curling edges are not cool)

The fabrics I used were;

Cotton and Steel - Moonlit Gems- Truly Outrageous Grey

Carolyn Fiedlander - Botanics - Crosshatch in Grey

Art Gallery Fabrics -  Indelible - Spirodraft in Carbon

Some grey and white cotton from my stash, and some grey paisley off cuts from Mr.F's trousers. 

I hand stitched in grey around only the white triangles, just enough to keep the backing in place.

I loved making this, and  am so glad I started afresh and completed my first EPP project.

I am now hooked and can't wait for my next project. 

I would love to know what you think and if you have any comments or tips for a beginner, I would love some shared knowledge. 

~HJF~ 

Alder Shirtdress - a Grainlinestudio Pattern

The Grainline Studio Alder Shirtdress is one of the many lovely patterns I received for christmas. 

Check out this sweet haul! 

Pretty lucky girl huh!

So I am gradually trying to work my way through the patterns, Linden - done, Nest egg Tote - done, and now the Alder shirtdress is finished, Yay!

I decided to try out this pattern using some lovely fabrics from M is for Make (they had a super sale on, and as ever they have excellent service)

I used a Kona cotton solid in Prussian (which in honesty was a little more *blue* than I had anticipated, more on that later) and some rather awesome Leah Duncan Florascape Moonstone from her Meadow collection by Art Gallery Fabrics. 

This pattern was a breeze to put together, it really was. I was a little hesitant about putting a collar in, it has been a few years since I have done one, the pattern is beautifully cut and didn't give me any trouble. 

I decided on adding some top stitched lines down either sides of the button placket to add some texture to the plain fabric. I have used bright blue Kam Snaps instead of buttons, and I am quite happy with the finish. 

The Snaps however were not the breeze I thought they would be! I trialled a few on Christmas Day when I got my new tool, and thought....yes! This is the most amazing thing ever! What can I put snaps on, I want to put snaps on everything!!! Quick, make something you can put snaps on!! Ha ha. 

In reality, I wasted seven, yes, SEVEN! Snaps making this dress, think I was tired and rushing to get it finished, so maybe I will have better luck next time. 

I adore the contrasting fabric I used for this shirtdress, in an ideal world the whole dress would have been made from it, alas, my contrasting collar and back yoke will have to do. 

I finished this dress and before adding the snaps I tried it on, and couldn't quite believe it. It fit, no FBA needed, no awful drag lines, ok, I would prefer a slightly softer fabric but the fit is good! 

Please excuse my awkward posing and weird non smile face, it is -1°C, there is still snow on the ground and I am outside prancing about in my summer weight shirtdress and jelly shoes trying to look all casual like I am not freezing... Ha ha. 

(p.s. I had ironed the dress just before I took the pics, looks like it's going to crease a little) 

All in all I love this shirt dress and I already have a lovely soft floaty rayon mix lined up for my next version. I also plan to take a few inches of the hem, so it sits just above the knee.

 I do have a slight issue with this dress, the colour. It is more blue than I anticipated, I was going for navy and this is quite royal blue. Totally my fault, it is true to the website colour swatch, I guess I didn't have my eyes on straight when I was ordering ha ha. The colour reminds me of a uniform a little too much, but I will still be wearing it. 

Thanks for stopping by.

~HJF~