sun cheater?..or just "cheater"!

Ahem...

Well i was so worried about posting the last of the May crafts before the end of May and before i ruined my nice even post record...when i remembered that you can set the date of posts after the fact...hehehe....so i promptly went out in the camper with my family to the beach and decided to backdate this post!!

So in honour of cheating, I'm posting a sun-cheater or sun visor as we more often call them.

This type was supremely easy to make. I adapted the pattern found at instructables because the scoop looked a little bit big and it didn't curve enough at the edges for me...i think i could even make the scoop a bit smaller still when i make it again.....

This will definitely be the first of many...i will probably want to customise the next ones with some text and applique...and probably a few sequins if i'm being honest!

Come on summer!!!!

aprons for auction!

So our church was having an auction of promises on Saturday night to benefit the Rabboni Mercy Orphange in India which the church supports. People auctioned off gardening teams, a weekend in their holiday house, painting lessons etc. SuperD auctioned a 5-course traditional italian meal to be served at houseofspoon on the evening of the winner's choice and got £120 for it!!!

I donated 2 hand made aprons thinking maybe we'd get £10 or so for the pair....they sold for £45!!! I was really delighted and was so pleased that the work of an hour could have earned something for the orphanage!! YAY!!!
Here are "photos" of the aprons (yes i forgot to take photos (!!) but Microsoft Paint drawings of crafts are allowed on houseofspoon...they are, believe me..i checked the official houseofspoon rules and everything.)

heavenly view

No..this picture of SuperD about to cut his hand off is not the "heavenly view"....why is he cutting little pieces of wood in half??
...to make these of course!! Now why is he doing this?.....

To make this of course!! (is this getting annoying yet?!) And what is this??....well open it up and see!

aaaaaaaaaah (cue angel voices)...It's poog's grandparents-in-law's farmhouse in La France, as painted by lil'pil.

I love this frame it's so individual...check out the little shutter fixings that SuperD made...cute!!

scary cherries!

[I'm cutting it fine this month for the 10 craft posts - the problem isn't the finished crafts, i've been as busy as ever, but we just haven't had good photographing weather lately!!!]

We got our niece Eleonora a gothic/manga/heavy metal handbag for her birthday (it is the stage she is going through at the minute!)....but i wanted to add a little hand-made magic!

What better than a pair of cherry skulls as a bag charm??!!

Haha! she wore the bag the entire weekend...success!!

jewellery tools wrap

with little poog becoming all craftalicious i had to amend the crochet tools wrap to fit her jewellery pliers and knives etc so she can travel with craft everywhere she goes on her very special adventures. I recognise that the picture would be a lot more instructive if the tools were actually inside the wrap, buuuut i got fed up waiting for her to have time to come craft with me and decided to go ahead a post it empty anyway!!

It fits 3 pairs of pliers, a scalpel (what does she use this for??!!), a teaspoon (again...weird) and the paper tape measure fits in the elastic straps at the top.

All rolled up and ready to go!

sewing machine sleeping bag

Well my poor little sewing machine friend was most offended by some remarks that i made in a previous post (although goodness knows how she found out...unless there's something illicit going on with her and the laptop!! oo!!)....well anyway she threatened a strike and we can't have that, soooooo I decided to make her something special!

She gets pretty chilly in the sewing room on those cold nights when i've been dragged kicking and screaming from the house, being forced to attend some social event or some irritating language night class, so i made her a little sleeping bag!

This is the first project that I have used free-motion-quilting, at which i am an abject beginner (obviously) I'm satisfied by the way it turned out, but will add that there is distinct "room for improvement".

The embroidery was fun on the butterfly and the little machine applique. I apologise for the bad lighting in the photos, it was absolutely LASHING with rain outside so the natural light coming in the window was an absolute minimum!!

"So what do you think sewing machine??.....sewing machine???......."

Oh right.....emmm.....she seems to have dropped off....lets just leave her to it, ok?...shhhh!!

welcome elton!

So it was a monkey-loving friend's birthday....what to make?..what to make?...obviously it had to be a sock monkey!! They are everywhere!!!

To me all stuffed toys should be male but it became a little awkward because this sock monkey was decidedly PINK! It was only when i had sewed on and stared deep into his crazy button eyes that it all became clear......he had to be called Elton!! (hence the label by his tail)

I mean...what else could i call him with those sunglasses? lol

(Thanks to mamma for the dodgy wig....she doesn't believe in baldy monkeys!!!

lovely laundry

So apparently lil'pill is having to do her laundry in public! No, this is nothing to do with the airing of the scandalous secrets of her private life, i'm speaking literally here!

So what better place to store her corsets and frilly knickers that are en route to "washingtown" than a girly laundry bag with corsets and frilly knickers on it!

I used one-sided-waxy-chintz for the bag so that all those oily copa stains won't transfer to the bag and the sticky bits of barba-papa (of which i can only imagine that she still needs at least one a day) won't stick to the laundry sack!

(Sorry about the pics - severe lack of natural light that day!!!)

hot little hands!

Get them while they're hot!!....ooops! too late...mamma already did!

No looking at the wonky stitching on the bias binding....HEY!...I SAID NO LOOKING!! The padding was so stiff that i couldn't sew them the right way up so instead had to kindof wedge them under the presser foot and push like mad to make the material move....hence the drunken stitching.
If you've ever tried to sew with my machine, you would sympathise with me. I love it but sometimes i want to heave it out the window, then run down the stairs and jump on the wreckage a couple of times. It has a mind of its own and has its own opinions about which direction to sew or whether to start munching fabric.....but i can't lie, i still love it!!

May's flowers - and showers!

"April's showers bring forth May's flowers"

......except that....it is May and it's lashing so hard that the flowers are being driven back into the ground!! So we have to find our flowers somewhere else!

I got this picture aaaaall the way from Germany of one that I made (thankyou crochet-zilla!) ... cute!