Popping Up In The Pop Up Design Shop

It's been a busy few weeks, but I'm pleased to be able to finally announce that you can now buy 'A Crafty Hen' items from the Pop Up Design Shop 
in The Brooks shopping centre, Winchester, from now until Christmas Eve.

Source: scribd.com via Jenny on Pinterest

The shop looks amazing, full of wonderful pieces and I feel very lucky to have some of my things in there. It's the first time I've been involved with a 'Pop Up Shop' but I think the concept of these shops is great. Such a good way to fill up empty high street shops. And Suzie the owner of the shop and of  Urban Bird is so passionate about showcasing what is out there that it's been a delight to dedicate the last couple of weeks to sewing stock for the shop.

I have sent a selection of baby bibs some new and some of my favourites. 
There is also a selection of my cushions and large cosy blankets.
I hope to get these into my web shop soon but it probably won't be until the New Year, as this year is quickly disappearing!

 Oh and Lavender Raindrops are on their way!

So please if you are in the area, do stop buy and have a browse.
I wish I could!

Cyber Weekend Sale

Cyber weekend is happening in my Etsy shop

10% off everything,

with code HAPPY10

I am also offering a 10% discount off all Christmas items in my Bigcartel shop

with the code XMAS12

Can you believe this time next month it will be Christmas Eve?!

No neither can I!!

Excitement Builds!

A walk to one of the highest Churches still holding service,

A moment to take in the amazing views,

and to understand why people believed it was the nearest Church to heaven.

And after the marching and climbing a Hot Chocolate to warm our souls!

Not a bad way to spend Christmas Eve.

Have a very Happy Christmas

J x

Sewing on the Countdown

Surprisingly this Christmas I found myself with only one present to make [so mum if your about to read this before xmas day please look away now!] So I felt under no pressure as I was sure having the week before Christmas to make a set of cushions for my mum would be plenty of time. Of course if I had stuck to my original plan and had no last minute shopping to do, lots of wrapping to get done and the entertaining of 3 very excited kids to contend with, then yes a week would have been fine!

 Ever since this mail bag arrived in the post I've been wishing I could get a fabric just like it so as soon as I saw Joel Dewberry's Heirloom collection over at  M is for Make I feel in love with the colours and patterns and set about quickly cutting and sewing up the cushion fronts. I love Dewberry's Rose Bouquet in gold and it is more of a gold than a yellow as it has come up in my photos and the leaves are a deeper purple. I do have a concern that the colours are a bit bright for my parents house who like their neutral colours but it's been lovely working with such bright and luxurious colours I'm just hoping they will fall in love with them just as much as I have.



 For the second cushion rather than sticking with my original idea of doing a log cabin block I decided to try something I've never attempted before but has been on my to do list for sometime! Of course this is the moment the 'no pressure sewing' turned into a complete nightmare as I got totally confused with how the blocks of two strips of different fabrics that I'd made were ever going to form a zigzag but eventually after quite a lot of head scratching and wasted time I managed to make cushion 2!

I'll be honest and admit that the lines of zigzags were supposed to be all different, but as I said I did get confused and found having every other line as the plain fabric made it easier to put it all together. I also didn't realise until after I'd sewn the cushion front together that it was too small, and not being able to add more blocks to it I decided to put a thin border in which I think has worked out well.

I thoroughly enjoyed making it and could have quite easily carried on sewing the zigzags together to form a quilt top if I'd had more time. So whilst I can remember how to do it I'm definitely going to be making more! Both cushion fronts have been lightly quilted, with a layer of flannel and then some plain fabric. I also sewed the cushions together using French seams, as I wanted them to be neat for my mum, though in doing so the corners are rather bulky and cushion #1 has become a bit smaller than I had hoped for. The envelope backs are made using a linen/cotton blend fabric and I've finished them off with a decorative stitch.



 So now I just need to get them wrapped up and finish the kids wrapping so it looks like we're in for a busy evening but then I think we maybe ready for the big day. 
Of course the kids have been ready for Christmas Day ever since the first decorations arrived in the shops in September!!

Hello September, Hello New Stock!

I wasn't expecting to get much sewing done through the school holidays, maybe a little for myself, but not a lot for my shop. I started the holiday with finishing off commissions, lost the middle of the month to life in general and then somehow out of nowhere I have managed to grab little opportunities throughout the day to get ironing and cutting done which has then meant that I have got quite a bit of sewing done in the evening.

I have completed three new baby gift sets, each comprises of a matching bib, burp cloth and come nestled in a storage basket, which can be used for so many things. I adore making these and are pleased that they sell so well. The set above is made using Carolyn Gavin's Spring Street which is such a bright and cheerful print that is perfect for both boys and girls.

This farmyard set uses one of my favourite boys prints. I love the tractors with their smiley faces and the cute vegetables and teamed with the red gingham fabric I think it is adorable. And then I've finally got round to restocking this Girls Scandinavian Gift Set. The first time I listed it on Folksy it sold within a day so I have my fingers crossed that this one will do as well!

I have also made matching ribbon blankets, though I have listed them separately as they make for lovely presents whether on their own or bought with a matching gift set. 

 

All the gift sets and blankets are available in my a crafty hen shop and I will be listing the items on Folksy over the Next few days. 

Well if I can carry on at this medium pace I might just get ready for the few Christmas fairs I have planned! And as for the bit of sewing for myself, that never happened, though I did buy some gorgeous fabrics for myself, so I guess that is a start!!

So it's 2011

I'm still here and enjoying getting back into some sort of a routine! Which is something I never thought I'd hear myself say, as I loathe the school run, but now after the Christmas holidays, I realise how much we all need some structure in our day. Even E our youngest who is only 15 months old benefits from the routine set by her older brother and his school day. To be honest by the end of the holidays and after having all three children suffering with chicken pox, our days were all over the place. Christmas 2010 will always be remembered as the spotty one!

  We spent a lot of the holidays indoors, so it was lovely Sunday to be able to get out of the house and quite literally blow away the cob webs. There's nothing quite like splashing in the sea to get rid of cabin fever!

Or having a waddle on the sand!

So with the first full week of school coming to an end, we are all slowly getting back into our routines. J has realised that school unfortunately carries on even after Christmas! A is finding his 4 sessions at nursery saps his strength! And E is getting back into her daily naps! So hopefully I will get back into the swing of blogging and maybe even more importantly find the time to catch up on all the blogs I read.
You just never know!

Goodbye 2010

 We have a household full of kids with chicken pox. So the last few days and nights have been difficult and tiring to say the least. But we have the music going now and are having a boogie with the kids and I don't think it'll be long before we treat ourselves to a glass of Elderflower Champagne, so we are slowly getting into the spirit of things! 

 [Flossing after the turkey!]

We won't be staying up to see midnight in, hopefully we will be snoring away catching up on some lost sleep! 

Whatever your celebrations I hope you all have a good night.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year, 

and a Prosperous 2011

xxxxxx

This Is It!!

The mince pie and carrot are by the fire waiting for Father Christmas and his reindeer, the children's stockings are ready and we have just put three very excited kids to bed!

We've been tracking Father Christmas and as I write he is delivering presents to children in Madagascar!
So he is on his way!
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas,
Best wishes and enjoy xxx

Finished And Complete!!

The last of the wrapping is finished. 

The trip to the butchers is done, and my last bits of sewing are complete!

Our daughter's present is a wooden pram, and no pram would be complete without a quilt set!

The pram has red wheels so using this as my inspiration I chose a Russian Doll fabric that I have had in my stash for ages and I couldn't resist teaming it with one of the Westfalenstoffe prints.

 
I've made it reversible and it'll be interesting to see which side she prefers to tuck her dolls up in.

 
I've used a plain linen for the mattress and also used it with the Russian doll print on one side of the pillow which is my favourite part of the set.
So with this present finished I have put my sewing machine to bed for Christmas!
Well until Boxing Day that is!

4 More Sleeps To Go!

Every morning my oldest tells me how many more sleeps there are till Christmas. Too him the ever decreasing number of days brings excitement, for me it brings on just an ounce of stress and concern! Will we have everything ready for the big day!

The disruption caused by the snow might mean that certain parcels haven't arrived and that a weekend spent with my parents in law didn't quite go as planned, with them stuck the other side of the moor, with the only road between us closed by the police due to heavy snow, but the snow has meant that Mr D hasn't been able to work, which has it's bonuses as it's meant that I've been able to get on with making Christmas presents.

After seeing the flannel/Voile scarf tutorial over on Seamzine I knew that I wanted to make them for my mum and sister and of course myself!! I was wondering what Anna Maria Horner's voile would be like to work with, so I decided I best make my scarf first, purely for learning purposes you understand! The Diamond Mine in Ink goes perfectly with her flannel Forest Hills in Moonlight which I have become just a little obsessed with, and have already bought more to use for a blanket for #3. The scarves are very quick to do, I found the cutting took the longest. The voile and flannel are lovely to sew through.

The finished scarf can be worn wrapped round 2 or 3 times. Worn with the voile against your skin it gives you the feeling of wearing silk and worn the other way, the flannel makes it the most cosy of scarves. I chose a mix of mauves and yellows for my mum's scarf and Diamond Mine Sky for my sister's.

I apologise over the quality of the photographs!! They do not show the scarves at their best, but time is limited and I decided to try and do them myself rather than rope Mr D into helping. There is something about the bottom photo that I adore however unclear it is!
Right that's another job to tick off my Xmas to do list!!
I am slowly getting through the jobs and have high hopes that on Christmas Eve we will be able to relax with a glass of port, rather than having the last minute rush wrapping gifts, that has over the years become quite normal in our house at Christmas time!

Busy Sewing Stockings!

In any spare time that I've found lately I've been busy making stockings for the kids. Last year they ended up using some walking socks of ours as we couldn't find their stockings. And I've come to the conclusion after rummaging through the attic that somehow they have ended up being thrown out. Of course no Christmas is complete without hanging up your stocking on Christmas Eve so I've been eager to get this project finished.

I found a free pattern on Denyse Schmidt site's called "All the Trimmings Stockings" and if I'd looked properly would have noticed that she includes a pattern for the stocking that you can print out and enlarge. I didn't notice so got Mr D to draw the shape for me, which I think adds to the uniqueness of them. I made the first stocking up following the pattern's instructions for quilting through all three layers, folding down the top edge and sewing around the top, but I don't think the finish is very neat, though that's probably a lot more to do with me rushing than the pattern!

So for the other two I made a separate liner that I sewed in at the end and I much prefer the finish. I also played around with the "trimmings" and added some of the fabric from the body of the stockings to the top. I'm really pleased with how they have turned out and also of how quickly they came together.

  I also love the fact that they are similar but different enough that each child has one that is their own so hopefully no arguing Christmas morning over whose is whose!
And of course the most important thing is the fact that the boys are also very happy with them, especially the size of them. They have never had such big stockings and are now busy imagining how many gifts Father Christmas will be able to fit into them. Saying that I too are wondering how many presents it's going to take to fill them!

A Christmas Sale!

 

 With Christmas quickly approaching and the last posting date before Christmas in my shop being the 15th of December, I am offering 20% off all Christmas Bibs and Decorations.

So if your looking for a special something for a little person or a unique decoration to decorate your home then please take a look in my Folksy shop.

 

 

Vintage Wise Old Men

It's surprising what can be found in a sleepy village in Devon.

Well actually, not that sleepy, it would be better described as positively thronging! Which is a great sight to see and one that I feel I miss out on, as I normally work on a Saturday. So with day off work booked we decided last minute to cancel our family shopping trip to Exeter, I'm so glad we did. We haven't been to Exeter for well over a year and I have very fond memories of sitting outside a cafe by the Cathedral but whatever were we thinking, Christmas shopping with three young kids?? Thankfully we came to our senses before it was too late and headed instead to Ashburton. 

Ashburton is filled with independent shops, antiques and collectables sit amongst quirky giftware shops, and a lovely vintage emporium that was so wonderfully set up that the boys collapsed onto the sofas and asked where the TV was! Which was great as it gave me chance to mooch and stumble across these two vintage hanging ornaments and this lovely teal vintage fabric.

We found an amazing fish deli, that not only provided us with red mullet for our evenings dinner but also a great selection of olives where we found the brightest green olives I've ever seen. They even had a sign up saying "these have not been dyed" as they were so vivid. The boys came to the conclusion that they must be alien olives!

I couldn't resist this card by Rob Ryan which I hope to frame as part of our decorations. 

But it really was these two wise men that were the star find of the day, with their crowns and their jewels, and who are now going to take pride of place in our festive decorations.

Christmas Shopping, Fabric Style!

Christmas offers such a perfect excuse to do some fabric shopping!

And I've been doing my fair share lately. Luckily the weather hasn't managed to stop our postman doing his deliveries! In fact Mr D thinks I single handily keep the Post Office going,
how cheeky of him! 

I've been after some festive fabric to make the children's stockings out of, a print that's not too childish, something that is reasonably stylish, and I think I've definitely found it in these quirky prints from Westfalenstoffe, which I brought from Celticfusionfabrics. 

They are adorable, and I haven't been able to resist ordering more when I saw a few different prints over at Fabricrehab. I've also bought some fabrics over at Saints and Pinners. I think they will become a staple in my stash and not only for Christmas as I can imagine so many uses for them and at £1.75 for 1/4 meter they are very good value for money.

 
 As for today, I spent a lovely hour this morning shopping for voiles and flannels to use to make Christmas presents, well that was my excuse! It was a very indulgent online shopping trip that unfortunately came to a very abrupt end when I realised that the washing machine pipe which I thought I had defrosted was in fact still frozen and we had a stinking puddle of dirty water on the utiltiy floor.

How ever lovely the sprinkling of snow we've had is, I really wouldn't mind it getting just a little warmer!

In for a Penny, In for a Pound!

I have this very annoying habit of giving myself extra stress when quite frankly life, especially heading towards Christmas, is hectic enough! What makes me do it I don't know, probably the lack of hindsight is partly to blame! So last week I found myself in a shop in my local town asking whether they would stock or even just display some of my Christmas baby bibs.

Now I've been thinking of approaching this shop for awhile but my nerves always get the better of me, so why last week was different I don't know. Of course starting a new "venture" just a few weeks before xmas is ridiculous, maybe the fact that I was half expecting them to say no has something to do with it. So when they said yes and then started talking of all the things I could make for them reality started to hit home. And I came away a little shell shocked! When do I think I will have the spare time to start doing all these very exciting new things?! And of course even just getting a few bibs ready to take in to the shop at the weekend meant spare minutes spent writing out labels and thinking of a way of displaying them.

I've been given quite a free rein at the shop, though they have suggested Cath Kidston's fabrics to possibly appear in some of the items. I have mixed feelings about this, from a business point of view it makes sense, especially when I look around the town, but I am hoping that once the owner sees the astonishing range of fabrics new and vintage that you can get these days that they will be convinced that other fabrics are just as saleable.

In exchange for the "freedom", the shop will only pay me if an item sells, so that way it doesn't seem like such a gamble for them and they have agreed to take a commission of 30% which I feel is very reasonable, but being new to this game I don't really know. So the last few days have been very exciting as well as rather daunting.

I delivered my first few bibs on Saturday and I am really pleased with the way they look. I bought the "Santa's little helpers" fabric earlier on this year and have had great fun teaming it up with other festive fabrics. I am hoping to take in a couple more made out of some different fabric this week. But I think my ideas for stockings and blankets are going to have to shelved for this year! I must soon start on some of my family sewing. I really can't believe its nearly the 1st of December, I must finish our Christmas shopping.

I have listed the patchwork bib above in my folksy shop and I am hoping to have another one listed in the next couple of days. I must look into last posting days as I think they will be upon us before I know it. I have had some feedback from a lady who brought some items from my folksy shop and she said that buying from the site was quite hard work, rather complicated, and thought the fact that she had to register quite annoying. I don't know if anyone else has any thoughts on the matter. I think it is a shame that you can't buy on the site without setting up an account and going through the registering process and do wonder if this puts people off? Anyway it is a thought I will continue to ponder over, but right now I must start preparing for Mr D's birthday which is tomorrow, and just seems to have crept up on me and bitten me on my bum! 

Ouch!