Owls Woodland Quilted Panel

I was asked by a friend to create this Owls Woodland Quilted Panel for a family expecting a new baby. So the panel features an owl for each member of their family. I wanted it to be gender neutral so I used a woodland type of colour palette using lots of different bits of fabric and felt.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out and so are the family I hope!
These are the same owls I designed for a nursery hanging mobile, see it here.

 

Macrame Plant Hangers

Last summer I learned how to make a macrame plant hanger, so I made lots of them for christmas gifts. I think my favourite is the top one, I'll have to try to recreate it for myself! They're not very difficult once you get the hang of it.

 

 

 

 

Make it in Design Summer School Creative Brief - Pure Zen

For the last couple of weeks I've been coming up with a pattern design for the Make it in Design Summer School Creative Brief, which was themed "Pure Zen". 

My idea was based upon the idea of oriental origami being very calming to make. A Crane bird is a very popular design to make, and so I decided to base my pattern idea on the image of a folded paper crane.  I used a calming grey palette for the crane outlines and a very slight pink hue in the watercolour background. I'm fairly pleased with the end result although I didn't really have enough time to work on it!

Origami Cranes Pattern

Example of a possible application of the pattern as a wallpaper

Fabric application

More wallpaper

My folded paper origami Crane

3 x original interior images: Designed by Mrsiraphol / Freepik

Cleo Dungaree Dress

I wanted to make a Dungaree dress, and it was surprisingly hard to fin a decent pattern! I chose this one from Tilly and the Buttons, called Cleo it was relatively simple to make and only uses 1.2m of fabric which makes it very cost effective.

I made a couple of changes to the pattern which was making the straps thicker, so that they would fit better into the clip things which I had already bought. I forgot to bear in mind that wider straps need a larger space where they attach to the back of the dress. I also made the straps so that they were adjustable in length, meaning I had to make the straps pieces longer from the pattern.

I added some swallow Iron on patches from Jennie Maizels (it's best too sew those on as they didn't stick very well to the corderoy!). Overall pretty pleased with the dress and definately plan to make more.

Nb I have actually no idea how the pocket ended up so low down! seems to be ok though!

 

Owls in embroidery hoops

From my last post owls hanging nursery mobile I decided to make some more simple gifts using the same owl characters. I sewed the pieces onto some pale grey needlecord (left over from my dungaree dress which I made - blog post to come when I get around to photographing it!) I stuffed some wadding into each owl too to make it a bit 3D, then I framed them in a painted embroidery hoop and hanged with a matching ribbon.

Please do get in touch if you would like me to make you anything similar :)

 

 

Owls hanging nursery mobile

Recently I created this set of cute owls to make into a mobile to decorate the nursery of a friend, which has a woodland theme.

I used lots of scrap fabrics but with a similar colour scheme, sewing 4 stuffed owl characters and 4 different kinds of leaf. I tried to add some detail to the back of each owl too, using buttons, felt and different patterns of stitching to stimulate the small person whilst they look at it!

I'm really pleased with how the owl characters turned out and maybe I can make some more of these little characters soon! Please do get in touch if you would like any similar things created for you.

 

 

 

New handmade Lampshades

Having made a few lampshades in the past, I decided I'd like to create some that were a little bit more original, so I have been experimenting a bit with crocheting a weaving tshirt yarn to make some unique shades. More to follow soon.

 

 

 

The following lampshade is a more traditional drum one, just thought I'd add it in to the post to show everyone. I can't remember the name of the fabric design but it is by Riley Blake Designs.