More embroidery...

I seem to duck into different crafts in phases- one big or several small projects in one craft until I get tired of it then off to find a new exciting project.  What, me get distracted?  Oooh, kitty!

Meet George, my new kitty

Ahem.  So as I was saying, I've finished another embroidery- just started it because I was in the mood to do something small, easy to do on the couch and pretty.

The trouble was that crease above the trees.  That's AFTER washing and ironing it with steam.  Grrr.

So I hit google for ideas.  The easiest fix I found with stuff I had was to put some vinegar onto the crease as the acid would help loosen the fibres to iron the crease out.  Then wash it in water to remove the vinegar.  Here's the finished result after ironing and letting it dry

It hasn't completely removed it but it is well and truely in the background now, particularly with the 'bumpy threads' nature of the fabric itself.  I'd call it plausible (sorry, I've been watching a lot of Mythbusters on the break!)

And bonus round, here's a sweet little shadow work embroidery I did (see the theme conversation at the start of this post!)

Bunny bags

This is not the most high tech project but it is fun and good to do with the kids (or for the kids as it is in my case).  If you've not been in the shops since Jan 1 when the hot cross buns hit the shelves, Easter is coming.   I have three nibblings (my favourite word discovery recently- the plural of both nieces and nephews) and of course as a doting aunt, I have to get them chocolate.  But there is a bit of a mix of things to give (in part because one needs dairy free chocolate so that has to be different from the other two).  So I needed bags.

However, when I went to the shops, 'Easter bags' were starting from $2 each which seems silly for a bag you can't reuse for the next birthday/Christmas/present giving occasion the way that normal gift bags can.  But plain brown paper bags were only $2 for three.

So I was at home looking at my boring brown bags and decided to try and smarten them up.  Step one, cut out three pairs of ears from white paper and pink paper.  Nothing fancy, but I was sneaky and doubled over the paper prior to cutting so the rough, uneven ear would match the other.  Glue the parts together.

Next step, the tail.  I don't have a pompom stash at home so if you do, you could miss this step if you liked.  I tried two methods- using two discs of card with a slit cut through it to wrap wool around or wrap wool around the four fingers of the other hand (there are tons of pictures and explainations on how to do this on google).  The finger method was far faster than the card method, although the pompom was much neater than using the card method.

Both methods are much easier without certain assistance from George...

Finally glue the ears on the inside of the front of the bag and glue the pompom tail to the back (craft glue was good for this) and let dry.

Have fun and happy Easter!  And if you are one of my nibblings, no you can't find out what is inside until Easter.  Assuming the bunny inside doesn't eat it before then...

I've said it before, kits are good holiday go tos

Labour day was a little while ago but since I've not gotten around to photographing this until now, here's a new post!  This is part of a cute little bag kit I bought from a patchwork and quilting shop in NSW a few years ago on my travels and it was perfect to throw in a bag and take camping.

I tweaked the pattern a little- I added boards to the boat (it was just an outline originally) and changed the colours of the fish because I preferred the green and yellow.  The boards are a little wonky and uneven but I choose to call it quaint and rustic instead of 'wobbly because you really should've drawn it on before you started'.  The important thing for any project is to know how justify... innovative differences caused through inattention...