Work In Progress

I have spent the last week cutting scores of fabric into squares so I can finally starting making my patchwork blankets. It's great fun then arranging them into the final designs. Here's a preview of the very first one, many more are to come.

The Race To The Finishing Line

It's been a bit of a mad month - first I decided to re-open my frogs+sprogs shop and on Dawanda. I didn't really expect very much to happen, but how wrong was I ... several of the lovely snuggly blankets are now in the post, as well as a few of the funky crayon rolls. I hope their new owners will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Then there was the advent calendar project .... and since I had now dusted off the sewing machine, I decided to go for option no.1 and voila ....

I am quite pleased with the end result - I know it still has a number missing, but the little man hasn't noticed so far, and to be honest I doubt he will. I'm planning to stock these in my shop for next year so I'll soon start working on them.

And last but certainly not least there was the Christmas Swap organised by the lovely Louise over at Sew Scrumptious. I was lucky to be paired up with Louise herself, and the directive was one christmas card, at least one handmade christmas decoration and some Christmas chocolate. Her parcel arrived a few days ago and look what got: (apologies for the poor photo quality, it was evening time and I managed to get photos done just before other half launched himself onto the chocolate):

 

The cutest little christmas stockings with my sons' initials:

A gorgeous fabric wreath:

And some more chocolate ... but that was gone by the time I finished the photos.

My parcel is now on it's way over to her, here's a little preview.

I now have one project to finish before Christmas and am also working on lots of new product ideas for the shop. Surely an excuse for some more fabric buying?

Blankets, blankets and more blankets ....

So the sun finally DID make an appearance and I got to take all the photos I needed of the new blankets which are now in the shop. I am trying to pick a favourite but simply can't - I think baby no.2 will have A LOT of blankets ...

I'll Try With A Little Help From My Friend

Sorry I've been away for a while, things just went a bit mad and there was no hope in the world I'd get 10 minutes to blog, let alone read other blogs. But it seems to quieten down a little, so hopefully I'll be back a little more often. I've hired a new help in the house to make things easier, he's still a little unexperienced and unorganised but hopefully things will improve soon.

Five things I can tell you about the past weeks and the next days:

1. The last fair went really well, I had a lovely day with lots of sales and am now getting ready for the next event. My new blankets are selling really well which makes me very happy.
   
   
2. I am a very lucky girl this week-end as my husband has decided to take me on a surprise week-end for our 4th wedding anniversary - well it's now no longer a surprise because after the consumption of about a bottle of wine last week-end, in front of me he told a friend that 'we're off to Flor....' and then realised what he was doing. I figured that a week-end was too short to go to Florida so yes, we're going to Florence this Friday. Hurray! Without Luca. For the first time. Gulp!
   
   
3. There are 6 weeks left to Christmas and I officially started browsing for Christmas gifts and wrote down my list of Christmas cards whilst the photos were uploading for this blog. There is no escape now.
   
   
4. Toddler lunchtime naps are highly overrated - at least this is what Luca decided, and so we don't really do them anymore. Help!! Mind you maybe we can use that time for some more household cleaning training.
   
   
5. I am desperately trying to come up with a 5th point but it's getting too late so I'll give up before I start writing rubbish.
   

Time To Get Sewing Again

I was going to call this post 'Time To Get Sewious Again' but Other Half thinks it looks like a spelling mistake so I won't give you that but you get the idea - holidays are over and it's time to get busy again. Since my last fair I have done very little apart from working on orders but I now have three, yes that's THREE, fairs looming between the end of October and the end of November. Oh and I might throw in a little Christmas event in my local area just because I haven't got anything better to do - ha!


So on the 25th of October I'll be at the Southern Baby Event at Fontwell Race Course, West Sussex. Then two weeks later on the 16th of November at The Designer Baby Show in Berkshire and finally November 20-22 it's the Life Crafts & Gifts for Christmas Fair near Guildford, Surrey. If you're in the area come along, say hi, buy me a cup of tea.

I still have a bit of stock from my last fair so don't need to go too mad, but it's still a little daunting to be having three of them and not too much time in between to get new stock ready. Also at my last fair I had an open space whereas the next three are in a shell space so I've got to rethink my stand layout again. Well only for the first one, after that it should be easier.


I enjoyed the last fair so much, I'm really looking forward to these. But at the end of the year I'll be reviewing my 'fair experience' and deciding which ones to do next year.


On the sewing side I have found a lovely fabric called Velboa, I didn't even know it existed in the UK but it's similar to what the Americans call Minky and it's super soft, perfect for baby blankets. But oh this morning I had a quick try at a small blanket ..... it felt like a snake trying to do ice skating under the needle, the fabric is so stretchy it doesn't stop moving. Not a good moment! So if anyone has any tips and hints how to make this easier fire away, I'm all ears. Right now the fabric is in the washer/dryer but I can't wait to get going again in the next days.

On the blanket front I have been making more, they're not yet in the shop though.

I also finally got round to making one of my crayon rolls as a pencil roll.

It was only afterwards though that I realised that I haven't got any of this fabric left so that'll be one off then. Duh .... holiday brain!

And The Winner Is ....

...... TA DAAAA

Ok so I haven't figured out yet how to put this widget on the blog but Randomiser says that it's entry no. 6 from all those that wanted to enter the Baby Blanket give-away, which means it goes to the lovely Sandy at Baby Baby. Congratulations!!


I am once again packing as we're heading off to Rick-Stein-Land where I'll be scoffing posh fish & chips and wash them down with a nice glass of rosé ..... aaaahhhh! Before that though we have to attempt the little man's first haircut this afternoon - I think a little bribery may be required.

5 Things .... And My First Free Give-Away

Today I feel a bit like this:

Because ...


5 Things I Am Doing At The Moment

- filing bills, invoices, bank statements
- tidying my desk and slowly trying to reduce the number of messages in my inbox
- emptying the suitcase from a week-end away, washing + folding laundry
- tidying the house
- emptying the garage of all items for this week-ends car boot sale

A-List-Of-Things-That-Could-Go-On Forever Of Things I'D Rather Like To Do

- make more baby blankets
- make a new nappy bag since we've lost ours
- make a wallet/organiser for my bag
- think about new curtains for Luca's room or amending the current ones
- work on my webshop
- look at fabrics
- watch a nice movie
- read blogs

I think I should have my own reward chart where for every task accomplished I'm allowed 30 minutes with my sewing machine - the problem is only that once I start it's hard to stop. Last week I was all set to go for a run and just quickly went upstairs to check on a fabric and before you know it, I came out an hour or so later with this:

My first baby blanket. And because I wasn't really supposed to be there doing just that, I've decided that this will be my first free giveaway. If you think that you should be the lucky receiver of this gorgeous soft blanket, post a comment with the reason by Thursday 17 September, the winner will be chosen at random by myself at 13.00pm UK time. The blanket has a cute owl design with pale pink, blue, yellow and blue owls on a white background, and a super soft pink fleece on the other side. It measures 31x39 inches.

Display Dilemma

Still here and still trying to recover from a great week-end with the family. At the same finalising everything for the craft fair next week-end and for the last three days I have been racking my brain to find a nice way how to display my things. I wish I could take my garden with me (or part of it) because then it could look like this:


But I can't take the garden with me so I'll have to be creative with two tables and a few clothing racks. I am starting to really look forward to the event, just hoping the weather will be ok so that the turnout will be good. Am I asking too much if I want ANOTHER week-end of sunshine??