Raffle Winner Announced

We printed out all the comments and put them in a large jar. My 5 year old was very excited about this. We had talked about why we were having a raffle and she had helped to put together the raffle prize, but now she was just excited about the drama of picking a winner.



She gave them a very good swish and a swirl, then with her eyes closed, she pulled out her winner:



Sweatereyes! You are our winner (not sure why the photo is sideways), Congratulations!



Thank you all so much for buying the raffle tickets.
Sweatereyes - I'll be dropping you an email!

Japan Quake Appeal - RAFFLE NOW CLOSED

**Thankyou for your generosity. Raffle is now closed. Winner announced soon!**

Reclaimed crafty bits and spring treats!

Hi

I wanted to do something for the Japan Quake Appeal, in conjunction with Jo's Blog, but as I'm not sure anyone in blogland would actually WANT any of my crafts, I've decided to put together a selection of vintage/reclaimed crafty bits and a few treats. This package is put together with Spring in mind. New growth and renewal. Good Luck to Japan.

Here's a breakdown of what's included:

Vintage pillowcase in a flower design, yellow/mustard colour

Two pieces of 20cmx20cm felt

Assorted buttons

Spools of yellow and green thread

A spool of silver lurex thread, suitable for sewing, or knitting/crocheting in with yarn for extra twinkle.

Ribbons in mint green, white and gold

A vintage buckle with a pearly sheen

A vintage yellow plastic thimble

Package of tiny blue/green seed beads

Small test tube of yellow sequins in different shapes

Card of sewing needles, assorted sizes and uses.

Dylon "Golden Yellow" dye, instructions included

A few more sewing things:

Piece of linen or cotton (approx 60cmx40cm) with vintage embroidery transfer printed on half.

Two pretty pieces of fabric (approx 25cmx25cm) from a sample book (has two holes punched near the top from when it was in the book). These have a flower/leaf/branch design, one is green/brown colours, the other is mustard/grey

Piece of cream leather (approx 25cmx20cm) from a sample book (has two holes punched near the top from when it was in the book)

Two 4.5yard skeins of "Sheba" vintage rayon thread, one in light green, one in mid-spring green

One skein of DMC embroidery thread in cream

Two skeins of Clark's embroidery thread in light and mid green.

Small vintage booklet with embroidery stitches

Length of cream lace.

Small pincushion made by me from a tiny "Bless this House" cup.

Here's a closeup:

Some yarny bits:

Plastic flower loom

Small skeins of sample yarns to play with straightaway! Mustard, ochre, dark green, and green mix sock yarn

Small (tiny?) skein of pure silk, spun and plied by me on a drop spindle. I'm a learner! This is a little.... rustic :)

Vintage plastic knitting needles (Robinoid size 13 and Millwards size 11)

Some treats:

Three English breakfast and three Lady Grey teabags from Twinings (well, if it's good enough for Stephen Fry...)

Sunny yellow plastic bead necklace

Two Cadbury's creme eggs (I can substitute for other British sweeties if you live somewhere hot)

Sterling Silver Bird and Cloud Rings made by Tuareg nomads from Plumo. Unworn. They sent the wrong size, these are SMALL! (Review here)

Here's a close up of the rings. They're lovely. My chubby-hand loss is your gain :)

Here's a link to the full picture set on Flickr, incase the photos mess up here.

Here's how to enter:

Each raffle entry must be a donation of £5 ($8 ish).

This is open internationally, I will post anywhere. PayPal should convert your currency to £GBP for you.

To enter, go to Global Giving and make a £5 donation, when you have done it come back to this post and leave a comment with your receipt number and you must also leave a valid email address, you can write the address in the format of mymailname 'at' hotmail 'dot' com.

You may enter as many times as you like but each time you need a new receipt number. For help with the donation you can refer to this post on Jo's blog.

Raffle closes at 12.00noon GMT 26th March.

If you make a mistake or forget to add you email address please delete the first comment and re-write it.

The raffle held on this blog is in no way affiliated with Global Giving, that's just our chosen method of getting the funds safely to the affected area.

Hand spinning

I've been dabbling in hand spinning on a drop spindle. So far I've only produced two vaguely usable things:

Minty green silk

This is a really small skein, possibly only enough for a brooch.



I can't remember where this roving came from. It's been on my drop spindle for ages, and I only just got around to finishing it.

Don't look to closely, I kept getting my clockwise and anti mixed up when spinning AND plying. It's all over the place. But I think it's knitable


And here's my next project....

Roving from Woolie Bullie via the Phat Fiber Chinese New Year sampler box. But first, I'm going to draw some helpful reminder arrows on my drop spindle....

KCWC Round Up, and what came after

OK, so KCWC is gone.
I DID actually finish the two things I planned to during the week, but blogging about it too proved a step too far. So, here's what happened

V's Hat.
Is done. Definitely not my finest work: I need to practice sewing jersey, and it's too big, but it still looks cute. I'll take a photo when I can

Insa Skirt

Here it is without the elastic waistband sewn yet, I needed to check it against her waist.

I'm pretty pleased with this. It was really good fun to experiment with patterns and add whatever I wanted. I made some piping from string and ribbon to edge the front panel:


It was quite a bit of work, and you know what? E's not interested in it AT ALL. Sigh. That's how it goes sometimes I suppose.

In all, KCWC was a success for me. It made me find some time to sew, and when I did, I found it wasn't all that intimidating and I could actually get something finished.

And so, since then, I've made something else:

This is from Sew What: Skirts by Francesca DenHartog. It's the A-Line Skirt, Fitted Waistband version that you create the block/pattern for yourself.

And I'm pretty pleased with it. It fits! for one, and it's nicely Autumnal, and it was pretty easy to do if you took it step by step.

I used Ikea fabric (total cost £3.99) for the outside, and the fabric for the facing was from my stash of scraps, so also pretty cheap.


Now, what's next....

KCWC Day 3

Finally have some fabric cut out.
Insa Skirt is cutout from some of my vintage pillowcase stash. I let E have free reign to choose the colour combo she wanted. As you can see, it's mostly pink. That is the world of my four year old girl!

The baby hat is cut from a t-shirt which i picked up from a jumble sale last weekend, with a tiny piece of purple cotton from my scrap basket

Day 2

Somewhere between the school drop off, taking the baby for her second immunisations, having new broadband installed and talking to my brother in law about the work he's going to do in the garden for us this weekend, I squeezed in the tiniest bit of prep. And only them because my Mum and sister came up and picked E up from school.
The baby hat pattern is traced, and fabric has been located and washed.
The Insa skirt is traced and partially cut out. Fabric has yet to be found.
I have a lot of catching up to do.

And... fell at first hurdle

Well, not a great start. Seriously, V has been up for HOURS tonight. Not crying, just awake. And looking about. And wanting to be cuddled.
So I've chosen cuddling my child over sewing for her.
She has now gone to bed though, so I've made a little start. Looked through my books, chosen a couple of patterns I'd like to do. Does that count?
Thinking about, for a gentle start, the baby hat from Making Children's Clothes
and maybe,hopefully, the Insa skirt from Sewing Clothes Kids Love.

Have traced the pattern for the hat and chosen the fabric from my thrifted tees stash. I still need to find a contrasting fabric for the ears.
And that'll have to do for tonight