Come And Be A Fan

I have finally gotten round to setting up the frogs+sprogs facebook page - click on the badge on the right and come and join us.


And with all the new fabrics that arrived last week, I now have a lot of new projects on the go that will be in the shop soon:

New apron designs ...

Funky Bibs ...

Mini Counting Bean Bags ...

New Crayon Rolls ...

Extra Large Toddler Blankets ...

Hope you have all had a nice week-end!

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?

Fabrics and more fabrics

As I said in my last post, before Christmas and in the last two weeks I spent some time on my favourite fabric websites and a few days later these arrived:

Most of them have already been turned into lovely soft and snuggly blankets, all I need now is the sun to come out so I can take photos of them .... phew!

And here is where I sin:

Fabric Rehab

Saints and Pinners

Fabric Inspirations

Celtic Fusion Fabrics

fabulous*fabric

M is for make

I have also used the months of January to have a good clean-up in my fabric stash and use up all the fabric scraps, the result of which are lots of new crayon rolls and bibs (still to be finished). It's been a busy month!

Now I just need more time to put them onto the website .... there definitely aren't enough hours in the day!

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!

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??

Rich Pickings

It's already Saturday and I haven't blogged at all this week - it's been such a busy week with orders coming in and family visiting that I've hardly had time for anything else. Except today when the weather was lovely and it actually felt like summer again. Our fruit trees were mostly bare last year but it looks as if it's going to be a whole different story this year ... in fact I think I'll need to think about storage for all those apples soon. If you're in the area, stop by and I'll send you on your way with a kilo of apples and pears. I will spend tomorrow browsing my books looking for appropriate recipes.

Remember I mentioned those personalised T-Shirts? Well they seem to be flying of the shelves, I think I'll choose a few more fabrics this week for them to have more varierty. Here are a few that have gone out this week:


I've also had to source for a new fabric for a third crayon roll that would go with the two star fabrics so these three will be going in the post on Monday:


I haven't done my usual Etsy trawl this week but I have ordered a hoodie for Luca from this lovely lady at kitschycoo, she makes fabulous children clothing and has a sale on at the moment so go and have a look whilst I retire to the sofa with that bowl of plums.