OTT Glee Swap - Sent

my partner for this swap was ZidishaLuxe ... she actually participated in the metal swap I organised, so I knew she'd be a good partner.

I made her a set of embroidery hoop coasters, emblazoned with some of Brittany's best quotes from season one of Glee :-)

Breastfeeding Pillow - Tutorial

(psst, don't forget to enter my AWESOME giveaway)

 it's essentially a U  shaped bean bag... I got a 1.5 cubic foot Beanbag top-up bag for £3.50 at QD (which is similar to Wilkinson's if you don't have one near you) google it and the Internet will furnish you with suppliers, but because it's a bulky thing it's better to look in craft shops/furniture shops to see if you can pick it up locally and avoid the P+P charges

And now it's a frilly unicorn cushion :-)

see?

So. This baby cushion is (surprisingly) made out of upcycled materials... the floral base fabric is a duvet cover and the bias binding edging to the frill is made from an old pillowcase (I love it and I've got loads more, making your own binding strip is such a good way of using up small amounts of fabric)

And I've made it into a cushion cover so it can be removed and washed (and so I can make other covers :-))

The size of the cushion pad itself is 12"x12" (I made it out of a spare pillow we had in the house)

:-) very happy... and if Squiggle is a boy...  then this is my cushion :-)

So you think you can't upcycle.....

With this super sweet shirt to pillow transformer from Thinkgeek we can all live our thrifty dreams by recycling old, unwanted and damaged T-shirts (or just plain cool ones) into useful household furniture! I've thought about turning T-shirts into pillowcases before, but thought that the jersey material would soon get stretched out of shape if used for upholstery, this nifty item completely solves that problem and removes all requirement to sew...

... pure genius!

Kudos the the Thinkgeek guys yet again

x G

I love my oven =^.^=

Ok so I've been wanting to make oven gloves for a while now, I had a very early foray into making oven gloves before I started blogging, when I made the 'Gleeful' Danielle dress (which I've only worn twice) where I made 2 mistakes (1) I used too many layers of the wrong kind of fabric trying to be a smartarse which meant I was literally pulling the work through the machine (2) I drafted the pattern myself and misjudged the size of the thumb vs thickness of fabric,  and therefore could turn the work wight side out.

In other words I killed myself trying to sew something and then when I'd sewn it it turned out to be a pile of crap :-(

However that was April and 4 months later I'm over it.... well... not really, or I'd have sewn oven gloves rather an this rather curious substitute. The uncomfortable truth is I do INDEED love my oven, but my oven does not love me. I own very faithful stainless steel pans which burn the palms of my hands with their very hot handles, and about once a week I scald myself with the rising steam escaping from a pan or casserole dish.

So the problem is that I need oven gloves but I refuse to buy them because they are such a simple sewing project, finally I accept unless I make something soon, I will burn my fingers off and be no longer able to sew anything at all. So being a philosopher I found a compromise, I didn't make oven gloves, I made FINGERTIP MITS!

I followed savvyseams lovely clear tutorial with no problems at all, I changed it just slightly because I didn't want the patterned material at the bottom (my cookery often causes permanent stains) this was a great little project to prevent further damage to my fair hands and give me my sewing 'fix' which I prewash my supergirl fabric.

oh yes and being an upcycler I didn't bother with any of that cotton wadding malarky.... I used an old handtowel I got free from some people at a carboot sale a few weeks back.

and you shouldn't mark your patterns with a sharpie either!

Things to note! at points here I was sewing through 8 layers of fabric, binding tape x2, towel x2, chili fabric x2 and muslin x2, my little sewing machine had no problems whatsoever. The off missed stitch now and again but that will happen with a mechanical machine. Well done little Singer <3

x G

Ps all the fabric used here was given to me, for free, how sweet is that!?!