Delayed Valentine Loveliness

Sorry again for the slack blogging, things are very busy around here, lots of things happening that I can't tell you about yet, very frustrating for me (and you) but be sure I'll let you know as soon as I can! However thats no excuse for lack of blogging news, I should start by updating you on how the button swap went, there are some amazing buttons being made and posted around the world to people, check out some of them at the flickr group. I think it was a success for those taking part, I certainly had a great time learning about lots of new crafty people and what they make.

Here are the lovely buttons I received from Incywincystitches, photos copied from ms incywincystitches herself as she photographed them so much better that I did (hope she doesn't mind!), I also recieved a lot of other lovely goodies, inluding this pin cushion, super cute!

Also my parcel of Valentines goodies arrived from Skinny Laminx, a great tea towel and lots of lovely other bits and pieces, a great and unexpected prize to win.

Lastly look at these lovely parcels I recieved in the February A little Fabric a little chocolate swap, and look at all the lovely fabric, chocolate and stuff that was inside:

I've been very lucky to have received such a lot of lovely items in the mail over the last few weeks, I hope the people I sent my parcels to are half as pleased with what they receive as I was!

our snowy house

our snowy househttp://www.flickr.com/photos/phatsheeptextiles/3285921494/, originally uploaded by Phatsheep Textiles.

Heres what we've been living with for the past week, lots of lovely snow well it was lovely to begin with but when your car gets stuck in the drive and you can't get anywhere easily the novelty wears off quickly... still it has all gone now and I'm a bit sad.

So I was very excited to get my swap parcel from the handmade button swap sent to me by the very talented incywincystitches (I will post up some nice pictures here of the lovely buttons and goodies I received once we actually get enough daylight to take a pic that will do it justice!), and also to discover today that I was one of the 10 winners of Skinnylaminx's valentine giveaway and this lovely tea towel and card are going to be arriving in the mail soon, lucky me :)

Swap update and more tutorials

Image sourced from Flickr Madeby Beag's photostream

Most of you should have received an e-mail yesterday with your swap partners info, if you didn't then its either because I haven't got your contact details yet or I have missed you out, I do hope I haven't done that, it certainly wasn't intentional but trying to co-ordinate partners with a toddler pretending to be the andrex puppy with all the toilet rolls in the cupboard is a little distracting! So if you haven't received a swap partner then please get in touch and I'll sort it out.

I've been looking into some other tutorials and buttony interestingness.

Here are a few on making fabric covered buttons:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=R3LDkEkNm2U

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=o2InD6t-R9s

and instructions for crocheting buttons:

http://www.yarnforward.com/c_button.html

http://crochetme.com/easy-crocheted-button-covers

http://www.craftstylish.com/item/6550/how-to-crochet-a-button

and lastly I should direct you to swap participant incywincystitches blog where she is giving away some super cute free embroidery patterns for buttons.

If anybody know of any other good button making tutorials please post the link to them below.

Tiny shoes for tiny toes

Above are some new products I have been working on over the past days and I'm quite pleased how they turned out, there is a lot of cutting and sewing in these little shoes, see photo below:

But worth it, I think, although I'm not sure I'll be saying that after I've had to make dozens of them........ This pair are headed for the etsy shop.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the button swap, I think we have 14 participants at the moment, theres one week left to sign up so I hope there will be a few more sign ups. Those of you who have signed up if you haven't already e-mailed (e-mail addy is in the 'important but serious bit' in the side bar of the blog) with your name and address can you do that sometime before the 25th January so I can tell your swap partner where to send your parcel.

I hope some of you tired the fimo buttons in the tutorials in the last post, I'll be back with some more button making tutorials soon.

Its Swap Time..Sign up here for the PhatSheep Handmade Button Swap

Anyone fancy taking part? I’ve never organized a swap before and as I have a BIG love for buttons of all shapes and sizes I thought this would be a fun swap to set up. Here are the swap rules:

Each person will make for their swap partner a set of 6 co-ordinating or themed buttons, sizes can vary.
The buttons can be made in any-way you choose with whatever material you like, only rule is they must be useable by the recipient so please bear this in mind when you are being creative!

Also include something handmade which features/uses a handmade button (this doesn’t have to match the set you are already sending your swap partner but can if you like).

As with all swaps please feel free to include some random extras but it is not necessary.


I’m thinking January 25th for the sign up deadline and February 14th (romantic Eh?) for the Post out deadline. I’ll keep you updated here if there are any changes to these dates. To sign up please leave a comment below and e-mail me with your postal adress. I’ll be back in touch with you partners details after the 25th Jan.

Also a BIG thankyou to everyone who took the time to vote for my fabric over at Spoonflower, I'm currently in a very respectable 2nd place, so we will have to wait and see what happens in the next 24 hours!

Exciting Parcels

The other day I received a lovely parcel in the mail, I'd signed up to take part in the melly and me Fabric swap and was paired with a lovely lady in Australia who sent me all of this fabric (and lots more that didn't fit in the photo!):

It was great to get all these fabrics from so far away and they are very different from the fabrics I have collected myself so very inspirational, I am really looking forward to having the time to sit down and make a start on a patchwork blanket using all these lovely scraps.

All this is really well timed because a day later my new sewing machine was delivered. It took a while to decide on what model to buy but I settled for the Brother ES 2400 because my previous sewing machine and knitting mahine are both brothers and have served me well.

So now I have no excuse not to get on and be creative!