Take a look at A-Bear-A-Month Blog and see the Pretty Maids all in a Row.
These delightful bears were made by members of the HugBeary Den Teddy Club in South Africa, a teddy club that has been going for over ten years now with many of the members still there from the start in October 1997.
Hogsback, a little place in this wonderful world, a place in Eastern Cape tucked away high up in the mountains. Hogsback will take you back to nature, a little bit of heaven to refresh your soul and enjoy the many arts and crafts of the local folk.
Enjoy this slide show of Springtime, photos taken by my daughter, Jayne
How often do we need a reel of cotton, only to find a tangled mess of cottons in our sewing box, or reels that have become dust gatherers as they sit on our reel holder.
My way to overcome this is to keep each reel in a little zip lock bag with just the start of the thread sticking out. Now when you need to use a particular colour, just pull your thread to desired length and cut, leaving the start of thread ready for the next time you need to use. No more tangled threads, no dusty reels and no need to open zip lock bags (until you need to replace your empty reel)
Of course if you have the space (oh that we should all be so lucky)you can put a peg board up and punch a whole in the top of zip lock bag and hang your cottons up for easy identification.
This is my 150th post on this blog, can't believe I "write" so much!!-with nearly 6000 visitors and over 11,000 pages "read".
To celebrate I wanted to give something back to all those who have come along to read and written such encouraging comments.
I will be posting Sewing Tips and listing them for easy access on the side bar as I post. These are tips I have discovered along the way, making my life easier in my crafting, most out of sheer frustration in not being able to find things. I have also started with some Easy to Make tutorials -already listed on the sidebar with direct links. So do visit often and enjoy and use whatever you can.
Sewing Tip to follow directly.
You know when you are sewing, there is always a bin of scraps you throw away. Well don't thow those away anymore. Now you can make the cutest mini fabric wreath with next to nothing scraps of fabric and my Scrap Happy ideas.
Make a mini autumn wreath out of fabric scraps
Another Scrap Happy project from Whimsical Prims.
Gather your fabric scraps and sort into colours you want for your wreath.
Now trim your scraps into strips, doesn’t matter what length or widths if they vary a little.
If your strips are short, join together with a little hot glue.
You need three strips per wreath.
To start your wreath, hot glue the ends of three strips.
Start plaiting until your plait is as long as you want.
Form a circle and hot glue the ends to seal plait and trim off excess fabric.
The larger your circle, the wider you should make your strips.
Sew or hot glue embellishments onto wreath. Attach a string to hang.
Its sooo easy with a Scrap Happy projects
Want to know how I made my mini pumpkin pincushions using a bottle top:-
well read on.
What you need.
A bottle top
Wool fabric or other suitable
Hot glue gun
Glue stick
Stuffing (polyfil)
Strong thread & Needle
Small button.
Cut a circle three times larger in diameter than bottle top. You will also need another small bit for circle at bottom of pincushion.
My top is 3cm and circle 9cm.
Grab a piece of stuffing large enough to make a ball so that it overflows when placed inside the top. Roll stuffing up into a ball, holding loose ends together.
Glue inside of top and push stuffing in with loose ends first. Pack stuffing in as much as you can.
Get your fabric circle, place top upside down in centre of circle.
To fold fabric over top imagine you would divide fabric circle into four equal parts.
Holding top down firmly, glue a little bit on top of bottle top. Pull first ¼ of fabric up and glue down. Now work on the opposite side and glue down 2nd quarter. Then repeat for 3rd and fourth. You should now have fabric attached to top with four corners left. Now work on your corners. Take each corner one at a time, flatten and glue, making sure fabric is pulled as much as possible.
Next step is to neaten by covering all joins with a small circle of fabric.
Thread you needle, make a good knot and starting in centre of pumpkin make eight segments. To make a segment, go in through centre and out with your needle as far down side of pincushion as possible. Then take a teeny tiny stitch and come right out near bottom of pincushion. Now bring thread up and back to centre and start again dividing pumpkin into eight segments. End thread in centre with double stitch.
Glue small button to centre and add a few pins and your pumpkin pincushion is completed.
Variation./ideas.
Add green leaves, vine.
Make a garland of pumpkins.
Make a whole bunch and fill a bowl to display.
Make a pumpkin for each of your friends who visit though the autumn season.
Walking around the garden early this morning, I noticed the trees still have mostly green leaves, its early autumn. The flowers have their late summer blooms, the grass is turning and will soon be brown.
Here is a collage of pictures taken on my walk around the garden in early autumn.
Field upon field of cosmos come up every year to delight the traveller on the motorways. These pictures were taken recently by my daughter on her way from East London to Gauteng, (Johannesburg). Isn't nature wonderful!
I am soo busy with my Autumn creating that I thought a little Spring break would be a good idea. Here is my Spring bouquet, made in a vintage glass bowl. The pincushion is a lovely hand dyed velvet, the flowers are all vintage velvet with french wired ribbon bows.
Ok there we go again, more buttons to add to my already overflowing collection of buttons, yet one never has just the right button one wants to use!!
These buttons were from my findings this week, a mason jar filled with some delightful ones. These will be perfect for my autumn collection, now to think of some way to use them.
Here is a picture of a group of littlies I have made for my autumn tree -
two different style chenille stem pumpkin men and a tiny plaited fabric wreath with three rusty bells.
The one style of pumpkin men have painted paper heads, sealed with shellac and aged chenille stem bodies, the other is entirely chenille stems with coiled wire ruffle, bead eyes, aged bodies joined together with a coiled wire hanger and a twill banner printed with "Sing and Dance"
Oh I love this fabric, its rich colours and soft texture. Its a small piece I have had for a while and just felt it was time to make it up. I lined the inside of the bag in a lovely old dark beige linen, added a long shoulder strap and tab fastened with a hand cut wooden button.
