I Heart Wall Art: Make a Noticeboard With Scarves

Now then, if like me, you prefer to make your life difficult via the means of:
a) Trying to not ever buy things new, unless they're full-on proper eco-friendly produced
b) Always wanting very pretentiously to do something a little bit 'different' but not actually having any ideas jump into your head easily
c) getting a bit cross and bothered and wishing you were a really creative 'blank canvas' person who just goes "Ooh, ooh, how about we twist some twigs into a giant pepperpot shape, interthread tin-can shards in it and then invent a whole new peg system made from old cotton reels and make a noticeboard that way!"

Yes, sound like you?  Then what the heck, my love - just steal this idea.  Honestly, do.  It looks awful purrdee and is a proper good scavenging project.  Plus of course, it's got hearts in it, and like it or lump it my good people, hearts are a nice shape, aren't they.

Deely-boppers. Key to our business. Ahem.

Stuff and Things You'll Need

• Scarves from t'charity shop.  Also good - silky tops you've kept to re-use for something.  Best is silky things because they will not be bulky and will insinuate themselves nicely through rings and round nails etc
• Rings - I found a bedillion inch diameter or so metal curtain rings in a charity shop once, and I used those.  Failing that, use whatever rings you can lay your hands on.  Can't find any?  Don't worry - leave 'em out!
• Magnets if your rings are metal - ideally little craft magnets (strong ones), but you could just round up all the magnets yer kids have abandoned
• Paper clips, curtain cafe clips, bulldog clips - anything clippy or hangy or holdy or grabby.  And yes, they are the proper technical terms.
• Hammer and Nails
• Tape measure, Pencil, Rubber

   
Ready?  Hop to it!

We gave our workroom wall a good clean to rid it of dust and, ahem, pencil drawings, and removed bits of blu-tack and sellotape.  A nice clean blank canvas for you to whack your scarf art onto.

Poke through, bring round, poke through again.

1. Tie/sew your scarves and silky bits together, and measure how long it is.  You'll need this figure in your head to give you an idea of how big or small your outline is going to be in the next step
2. Put the curtain rings, if you are using them, at regular intervals.  Simply poke through once, bring round and poke through again, as you can see here, so that the rings are 'caught' on the scarf.
3. Next you need to sketch your heart-shape on the wall (or hey - any shape, it doesn't matter!  Go crazy you creative loons, you) using your pencil.  Start lightly - it took us a while to get the heart shape

   

   The mighty dustpan and brush

   right, let me tell you, and involved lots of standing back and viewing it askance and squinty-eyed before we got it right, which in turn involved a lot of drawing, rubbing out and re-drawing.  
4. When you're happy with the shape, start hammering the nails in to the wall.  Now listen here - you have to angle them slightly, and the angle will differ depending on the shape the scarves will make.  For example, the downward 'dip point' at the top ofthe heart needs a nail which is angled downwards so that the scarves don't just slip off, upwards....think tent pegs and guy ropes and you'll know what I mean!  If in doubt, just hammer them in a little, so that you can manoeuvre them once the scarves are tied on.  You'll soon see what we mean.
5. Next - begin placing your scarves round the nails - if you're on your own, you may need to tie the first bit to a nail, or it'll keep slidin' awff.   Amanda and I were doing this together so one was holding the first bit in place while the other looped and curled the scarves into place.  If you found the whole nail angling thing tricky, you can always 'loop the loop' the scarves round each nail.

   

   Get cafe clips from curtain hardware suppliers

6. Tie the two scarf-length ends together when you've created your shape, or if you prefer, tie them to a nail. Don't worry if you have too much - just let it hang down, or cut it, or wind it round some more.  Don't get hung up with measuring, no, no.
7. Now's where you get busy hanging things off your hearts!  Now, I'll leave this to your imagination - we had all sorts of funny bits and bobs - we've got some things stuck on with two magnets, some things jammed into paperclips just hanging off scarves; we've got cafe clips holding stuff, and of course we used the nails too - see the dustpan and brush there?!  Basically, use whatever you think might work!

A lot more interesting than a boring old noticeboard, eh?  We shove things we love, reminders, our sewing patterns all hole-punched and hanging on a nail, ready to whip down and use when we get orders; we stick receipts on nails, hang works in progress, even coat-hangers sometimes, with other things hanging off them.

Take part in some heart wall art!

What will you do?  Ooh, and what shapes are you thinking of using?  A cat? An owl?  Kisses?  Tell me!

Reinvintage: Revamp your Chairs with Scarves

I'm very happy to be guest blogging over Eco Age's blog this week, with a piece on quirky chic recycling - using, yes, you guessed it - scarves.  I do seem to have a bit of a thing about scarves.  Well, they're just so easy to get yer hands on!

Go and have a little read - it'll tart up your chairs beautifully!

Dolly Sling Tutorial: Quick-Make Straps

And the imaginatively named Brown Teddy comes too....

Well, I don't know, you write a pattern, or a recipe, as I like to call 'em, and you think, ooh, i like doing it that way, ooh, I should change the pattern, oooh this is a nice way to do that, ah, maybe I should change the pattern, ooh i could add a little sketch in there...

Luckily I am able to recognise these thoughts for what they are - my inability to just leave things alone!  Everyone does things differently, and the recipe is fine.  It's fab, in fact, but it is one of our "Needs Loving Care" difficulty ratings, so of course, I'm always worrying about whether I've communicated it properly.

But oh hello - blogs! Aren't they just perfect for precisely this sort of refining touch to the published article.  So I'm sharing a little Dolly Sling tip for you here, to help you make the perfect sling from your pattern.

Just before we start, here is where you can buy the Dolly Sling Pattern for just a few of your finest shiny coins. 

The Signature OriginalStitch Straps

Dolly Sling in all its strappy glory

When the first Dolly Sling prototypes were cranked out of Old Mother OriginalStitch's (that's my mum) machine, she had used what have now become our signature strippy things.  We use these for our Backpacks too. I love this method coz I have never got to grips with rouleau loop turners, the darned pesky varmints, so I hate having to do the turny-inside outy thing with narrow straps. And this zigzaggy patchworky look (yes, those words exist, people. In my world.) is very much our thing - great for using up scraps and fun and funky.  But I have discovered some people find 'em a bit tricky and fiddly.  I don't, which is unusual because I have almost always fallen into all the pitfalls other sewists have, but even so, there are long-winded, and short-winded (now I'm not sure that's a word....) ways of doing it.

Oh and hey, you don't have to buy our patterns to make these - these straps do look great anywhere.  Apron straps, bag handles, loops, drawstrings...you've got projects that could use them, right?

So, here's what you need
* 2" wide long strip
*1" wide long strip
*Double Sided Fusible Interfacing (herein known as DSFI, I think, don't you?!)
*Iron, contrasting cotton, sewing machine

1: Cut your DSFI to fit the 1" strip of fabric, or even better, slightly narrower.
 
2: Iron the DSFI onto the Wrong Side of the strip (stitcher Katie, who has made a few Dolly Sling orders in her time, puts baking parchment under and on top of hers to save ironing board and iron from 'orrible sticky goo - it's good advice!)

3: Peel the waxy layer away from the fabric

4: Now place the 1" strip Right Side up onto the WRONG side of your 2" strip and iron

Et voila. Your 1" strip is now cunningly stuck down, and you don't need to use pins.

Next, press the overlapping edges of the 2" strip down on to the Right Side of the 1" strip, ready for sewing.  Straight to the sewing machine now then.....where your fabric suddenly mysteriously turns into a different fabric entirely....hm, weird.  Continuity Officer!  Emergency!

5: So all you need to do now is be tuck the raw edges under a quarter of an inch, and neatly stitch the folded edge down on to the 1" strip. You can see here the left edge is not stitched yet, and the curling under of the right edge as I tuck in the raw edges.

6: And here is the nice zig-zagged edge, all neat and stitched in place.  Repeat with the other edge, and your work here, as they say, is done!

Giveaway Winner

Ooh, and can we just say congratulations to Mairi, who won the TopCat Red Kite Canvas Giveaway from the last post, extoling the virtues of buying handmade.  Well done, and can I also say that I know, she's my sister, but I promise you, the Hat and the Names Out Of process was entirely legit!

Gift Special: Make Your Own Bath Bombs

Ok, so for Hester's 4th birthday, it was Party Bag challenge time again.  Those of you who follow me know I'm a right old stingemeister when it comes to party bags, for 2 reasons.
1: They're expensive once you add the cost to the rest of the party
2: They're usually full of plastic tat made in places by poor b***ers with few or no worker rights, working horrendously long hours for very low pay.

So, we sit and wrack our brains each birthday, for production line antics giving us homemade goodies to fob off the kids with.  See our spectacularly fantastic meltable crayons for an idea on the stuff we've done in the past.

And this time it was the turn of the Bath Bomb.  So, if...
a) You've got a party for kids or grownups coming up and want something to give them
b) You're on the school fund-raising committee, you lucky thing (heh heh), and are looking for Christmas Fair stall ideas you can rope a load of unsuspecting parents into doing (although watch out here - you need to make sure you don't fall foul of public liability insurance, and if these are being sold, will need the recipe tested by a qualified chemist!)
c) You have 87 children with between them 453 teachers and you're looking for their end of term Christmas and thank you pressie
c) You're looking for some Christmas present ideas...


Then this is the fella!

And if it's even remotely possible, these were even more fun to make.  We based our recipe on the delicious and medicinally herbacious James Wong's Grow Your Own Drugs recipe; and this is a book I urge you to buy - because if you think Bath Bombs are fun to make, then you'll love getting down and dirty with beeswax and porridge oats and almond oil and....I tell you, there is nothing like using your own homemade moisturiser for a whacking great dose of smugness.


Wanyhoo...here's what you'll need (I'll give you a lovely supplier at the bottom too, from whom I religiously get all my stuff, without fail, and am always shocked at how fast she manages to deliver it to me.)

3 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp citric acid powder
Up to 10 drops Essential oils
1 tsp flower petals, dried fruit peel, herbs (optional)
Half tsp edible/non-toxic glitter (optional)
1 tsp vegetable based oil, such as Sunflower Oil or other, such as Almond/Avocado/Coconut oil

1 mixing bowl
Spoons
Fork
Small mould trays or moulds

A Word about the Moulds...

We used a chocolate mould, but you could also use different shaped cookie cutters placed on a baking tray with baking parchment/greaseproof paper on, which works well because you can ease then 'pop' them out easily.

I would advise you use fairly small moulds, because we made large hearts and to be fair, the bath was a little overrun with oils and petals and glitter, much to my amusement, but my clean and tidy friends' disgruntlement....chortle.
Bendy type baking moulds are brilliant if you have them.
If using a soap mould, check it is one suggested for use with bath bombs - we actually found our seashell shapes soap mould too stiff - we couldn't get the bath bombs out without breaking them. 

Right.  Ready, what do I do?

1. First things first - KEEP ALL WATER AWAY!  Dry your hands, dry your kids' hands.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in the bowl, ensuring you break up the lumps with your fork and mix the ingredients well
3. Drizzle the oil into the mixture and stir in with the fork, so that the oil is well distributed
4. Add the essential oils and stir well
5. Now spoon the mixture into your moulds and pat down well
6. Leave overnight so that the oils can evaporate, leaving a nice hard tablet for your bath bomb.
7. To use, simply pop in the bath and watch it fizz!

And I'm guessing you're very creative people so I leave it to you to wrap and gorgeous 'em up - we wrapped ours in greaseproof paper and ribbon; and sometimes we illegally steal transparent packaging bags from OriginalStitch to put them in.  But don't tell Bizzo Partner Amanda Moneybags or she'll 'ave me guts for garters. Look out for little baskets in charity shops, and line with tissue paper or fabric before laying your wrapped bathbombs in them.  Hey, you could wrap them in fabric.  Cover them in pretty stickers; make labels; wrap in garden string for a rustic look; add a sprig of herbs in the outside packaging; oooooh I mean, you must be full of ideas!

So, where to buy?

I get all my stuff from the lovely Summernaturals.  They stock all but the edible glitter (and she may well have that too if you ask, I wouldn't be surprised!). I make all my own cleaning products, and a fair few toiletries, and Summernaturals is my No.1 supplier - she has a fantastic range of products, and does them in hilariously massive bulk sizes too, if you so desire.  Plus she's extraordinarily helpful if you need a hand, or aren't quite sure what you need.
Say hi from me!

A Manly Punch, or One For the Ladies?

We had a load of fun with our essential oils, trying to choose ones we thought were for ladies, or ones which would make a very masculine manly sort of fragrance.  And of course, the daughters said that for the man ones blue glitter should be used.  I'm thinking actually, girls, maybe NO glitter in the man ones?  They're not all like your father you know.  Snigger.

It's entirely personal of course, and fun experimenting - but I would recommend using no more than 3 different oils in one mixture, and using one as a 'main' oil, with 6 drops or so, and the others to complement.

Manly Essential Oils: Clary Sage, Basil, Thyme, Eucalpytus, Tea Tree, Rosemary, Peppermint, Pine, Sandalwood, Sweet Orange, Lime, Lemon, 

Ladies Indulgence Oils: Lavender, Rose, Geranium, Sweet Orange, Tea Tree, and actually - anything floral or fruity.

Anyhoo, so here's some suggestions on scent combos you could use for men's bath bombs:

For a robust, liqourice scent: Basil, Thyme, Eucalyptus
For an after sports special: Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Basil
For a refreshing zing: Tea Tree, Lime, Peppermint
For a fruity, lively bath: Lime, Sweet Orange, Lemon
For a relaxing soak: Lavender (1 drop) Sweet Orange (3 drops) Clary Sage (6 drops)

Of course, these are all lovely, and don't only have to be for blokes, for goodness sake. Geezers however might be fussy about too feminine a scent, and certainly the herb based oils are really very masculine.  For ladies' bath bombs, the bath is your oyster, but here are a few if you're looking for a shopping list!

Pure Relaxation: 7 drops Lavender, 2 drops Sweet Orange Oil, and 1 drop of either thyme, basil, or clary sage
Bright and Zesty: Tea tree, Lime and Sweet Orange
Deep-Breathingly Floral: 6 drop Geranium, 4 drops Rose
Balancing and Deep: 7 drops Geranium, 1 drop Tea-Tree, 2 drops Basil
Exotic and Warm: 6 drops Jasmine, 2 drops Geranium, 2 drops Rose

And well, I could go on, but if you're strapped for cash, my two essential Essentials are Lavender and Tea-tree, which serve a multitude of purposes round the house, and can be the staples of a Lady or Man Bath Bomb.

Like this bowl? Go check out her wares at http://woolboutique.blogspot.com

Once you're all done, you might want to add labels to your bath bombs, with ingredients, and instructions, especially if you're selling them at fairs, or giving as gifts, just to be on the safe side.  Just click below to download my example sheet, and if you're editing them, keep within the lines so you can print onto A4 sheets, which have three columns of stickers 63.5x38mm in dimension.
Bath Bomb Label Ideas

Go, bomb, have fun!

Dabble in the Double

Double-sided fusible interfacing...

Don't you think that's the most terrifying string of words ever?  I found it very intimidating when I first read that in a sewing pattern somewhere.  I was all, what the devil is that, for heaven's sake?!  And where the blunkers do you get it from?!

Well, you can get the stuff in most haberdashers, to be honest.  It's quite hard to explain why this stuff is handy, because it's a bit like explaining the benefits of glue.
"Glue rocks.  Coz it's really sticky and sticks things together."
No kidding.

So, enough of that.  Here's a handy, or rather hearty, tutorial to get you off to a flying start with the wonders of Double-Sided Fusible Interfacing.  You don't need the stiff stuff, or even the light fabric stuff - you need the stuff that looks like paper. 



Right.  Gimme a list of stuff I need to forage for.
1m of lightweight Double-Sided Fusible Interfacing
Lots of pretty strips and scraps and scrippy scrappy bits of fabric, motifs from old clothes etc
Larger fabric triangles, approx 7" sided
Card Templates of hearts, or little birds, or whatever shape you'd like on your bunting
Pinking shears if you have them
Iron and Ironing Board
Sewing machine and threads, optional

1. Start by sorting through lots of lovely bits of fabric and iron them all.  Or even, don't bother ironing them.  My mum wouldn't.  She says she never irons anything before she sews it.  Shocking!
2. Cut a piece of dsfi, say 8"x14", although it doesn't really matter.  We wanted to make loooooooads of hearts for our bunting, but once you have a project in mind - you decide.

3. Now arrange and then iron the fabrics onto the dsfi with a cotton hot iron.  I'd advise laying some old bit of cloth on top, so that if any cheeky dsfi is exposed, your iron won't touch it and get goo on. 

4. Choose your template and draw round it on the reverse of your ironed fabric scraps.  Don't throw away any bits left over - keep every last bit; I'll show you what you can do with the tiny scraps later

5. Cut out, and carefully peel away the waxy paper.  This will be quite flimsy, so have your bunting triangles handy, ready to place your shape onto, the mesh-like sticky stuff facing down

6. Iron onto the bunting triangles
7. Now the fun part - find a really bright contrasting thread - or black, which looks amazingly effective with pastels and pretty cottons, and zigzag stitch along all the fabric joins, and round your shape.  Oh my word how great does that look?! But hey - if you don't have a sewing machine, look at the hearts above - they weren't stitched along the joins - you could just iron them onto your fabric triangles. 

8. Once you've done them all, stitch lots of torn scruffy strips of fabric about 1" wide together, and using zigzag stitch sew your bunting triangles to the wrong sides of the strip.

What I'm saying is, I suppose, be creative - it might be hearts on bunting, or these lovely birds, which I'm actually going to turn into little Bannister Birds - two stitched together with a ribbon out the top, and stuffed with old tiny scraps of fluff, and hung from my bannisters.
Or, and here's what you do with all those little leftover bits of ready-dfsi'd fabrics - make card art.  Give as cards, with a message inside telling the recipient to get a frame and stick it in!
Or even, do that yourself.
It's just that I was too lazy, so I made it into a birthday card for a dear friend, and told her she could find the bleedin' frame for herself.  Nice aren't I?
Ahem.
And on that note - I'm on holiday for a week!  We are going to sunny Devon, to frolic in waves and lick ice-creams and eat lashings of scones and cream and drink multiple cups of tea and then have fish and chips by the sea....
Save you some, I promise.

Eco Tip 1 - Party Bunting!

Oh boy have I been having fun with plastic bags! 

Ok, so that's not an auspicious start to any article, but hello there - what, more school holidays?  Yes, in the flash of an eye we seem to be upon another one.  So OriginalStitch has had to cast its creative net wider.  The Daughters just weren't up for uploading images of our up and coming Office Collection onto the website.  (They will have to soon.  'Bout time they started pulling their weight.)

But I can assure you we found a project that is good clean eco fun, with a healthy does of potential ironing injuries and possible asphyxiation via the means of toxic fumes.  Which I think we can all agree is an acceptable level of daily danger.  I mean, you think about it - what have you got in your workroom?  Pins....scissors....rotary cutters....one heck of selection of glues and adhesives and 14 tones of dangerously towering stashes of fabric.
So, all in all we're talking stabbings, prickings, amputations, toxic poisoning and squashings.
Never let it be said that craft is a gentle art.
Oi!  Health and Safety!  Got a live one here!  Well it IS half-term, so one needs to find child-appropriate activities, and they're just not fun unless they're a bit dangerous.  It was either this or climbing the apple tree, which is hugely fun, but we needed something to show for our efforts.  I like a result.

Um, anyhoo - so, inspired by this excellent tutorial here, which nearly made me hyperventilate with excitement (you can see from my comment on there how excited - it has made-up words in it and everything.  My level of excitement can almost always be measured by the number of neologisms contained therein) I decided to have a crack at making some party bunting, for a party we're having for me and The Husb's birthdays.  Sorry, The Husb's and my birthdays.  The Husb and mine birthdays.  Our birthdays.
Ok, I don't mean to criticise the language of Shakespeare but there are times when English just doesn't cut it.  How ARE you meant to phrase that??

As you can see we dug out a load of bits of spangly glittery loopiness, and we had an afternoon of fun making these.  The daughters got involved, and it was really quite an artistic endeavour.  You could get seriously arty farty with it because you layer up your plastics and then melt it all together and get some great results.  You could use different coloured plastic bags to make patterns or even pictures, including letters to make personalised bunting. What a great present that would be!  If I'd thought ahead could have done our names, but you know, hindsight and all that blah, so we'll go with whatever.

We used garden string for ours for a rustic look, and didn't need a needle because it's pretty prickly stuff anyway.  Worked perfectly.
When the girls were making theirs I gave them piles of ready-cut triangles and they combined them and stuck little bits of stuff in, ready to hand over the to their mother at the ironing board.  We hole-punched the finished flags and then I threaded them through, with a knot behind each hole so they can flip and flap in the wind, but basically not move around too much, or overlap.

This, for your information, is where the excellent Broadband will play - how fun is that?  They will sit 'neath spangly party bunting and play toons for us to dance to (yes, people, a barndance) and when I've had enough of the dancing, I shall take up me fiddle and get in there under the bunting and give the tunes a punt myself.

A perfect English summer garden party!  Bunting and fiddles. Whatever you use it for, I implore you - give this a go, it is SUCH fun.  Go, go - dig out those plastic bags!

Petits Fives

When my girls, or gargoyles as we lovingly call them, started being at school and preschool more and more, and I thought, ooh, more time on my hands, brilliant, I shall start a business and have loads of time to do it in, I did of course forget about holidays.  School ones.  There's a few aren't there?  And as I teeth-grindingly point out to The Husb when he talks about me having more time on my hands, you will find that the hours of available porportedly 'full-time' time fit themselves only into 31 weeks a year.
Goodness.
How do they learn a thing at school, I wonder?!
31 weeks.  Of which 2 have just occurred.  And pop an Easter, a holiday abroad and a 5th birthday into that melting pot, and the convoluted point I'm getting to is that OriginalStitch has been cruelly abandoned for 3 weeks.  2 of which consisted of the ankle-biters being around, and 1 of which consisted of the carnage-clearing from those 2 weeks.

Don't get me wrong, we had a lovely, lovely 2 weeks off, even if I did mercilessly exploit the daughters by treating our entire holiday like a Mallorcan Photoshoot, and screaming inanely "Logo on the outside!  Turn it round!  The Backpack!  Logo on the outside!" as The Husb advanced across airport concourses to the toilet with a small Hetty in tow, but I was able to dedicate little time to the rigours of running my business.  So I sit here thinking, well, Blog, what shall we do?

Nothing for it but to digress and talk about party bags.

So, Isla was big fat 5, which I think we can all agree is a Very Big Deal in the Life of a Person of that Age.  And having just started school, she is getting to know her little pals, whom she will grow up with for the next um, however many it is years until secondary school.  So, I thought, it's our turn to go to the bar - we will do the whole class party thing, sans parents, but I am not, repeat, not being the party entertainer and putting on crafts and games and puzzles and so on.  Oh no.  So in came Dazzling Dave as The Husb refers to him, but whose name was actually Oscar, to entertain 28 nippers in a church hall.
And thank all that is good in the world for Oscars, for he performed miracles, and not a single child cried.  The Husb and I were fairly appalling waiters but the children got fed, several poured drinks down themselves, there were minimal toileting necessities and, thank heavens, none who needed assistance in the Number Twos department, and all in all a jolly good afternoon with plenty of hilarity, shrieking, letting off of steam and massive giggling was had.
But with investment into Oscar, I made a decision, which was that I was not going to then also spend a fortune on party bags, party bag innards, tablecloths, plates, cups, straws, party poppers, balloons and so on.  You know, the fun stuff.  No.
Nice aren't I?

But I couldn't stomach sending the children off with no party bag, because you have to be very, very strong to stand there while 25 children look up at you in turn, in a queue, and say "Where's my party bag?"
Don't tutt, you lot - you know perfectly well your child has said it themselves.  And if you're saying, no my little one would never say that, I'm telling you, bet they have.  You just didn't hear 'em.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging - it's just that Party Bags is what we do these days and so the expectation is there.  Hell, I expect a party bag.  I once said to Isla when she was nagging at the end of a party "Well, perhaps you'd better very politely ask H's mummy if there are any..." and she very politely tapped H's mummy on the leg and said "Where's my party bag please?  And Hetty's please?  Thank you?"

One little girl at Isla's got very confused when I said it was pudding time and said she wanted her cake to keep and put in her party bag.  "How do you know there are going to be party bags?" I said. "Because it's a party!" she grinned.  Impeccable logic, impossible to argue with.
And a bit mean on my part actually.  Thank heavens I didn't make her cry, wicked woman.

So.  We melted down crayons in a second-hand petits fours tray (ooh, fancy, no?) an idea taken from this lovely tutorial here.  An activity which, by the way, is masses of fun.  And check out how many we made!  There were 28 kids and they had 5 each.  You do the numbers, coz I can't, I had to get Isla to work it out.  We made colouring cards using some birthday images from this life-saving website here.  We shoved in a load of cheapie sweeties.  And used sandwich packaging from OriginalStitch products, and bob's your uncle.  Party Bags!  And you know what - they loved 'em.

What eco-friendly non-plastic party bag ideas have you used?  Come on, I need to start planning for the next daughter birthday!

My Scruffy Hearts

Ok, ten points for everyone who can spot the name change. Bonney at the Mill was a mangling up of words, by throwing them into a pot and stirring ‘em up a bit; once we decided we were going to start up a business we realised we would need something that was URL-able, easy-to-type-able and easy-to-rememberable. Or memorable, as pedantic types like to say.

Wait, start a business did I say? Yes, I have long been thinking in this makey year of mine, that I love the things I make. And the people I give them to seem to quite like them too.

The real hook for me has been falling in love with recycled fabrics. I do mourn the fact that I cannot have some of the gorgeous new designers’ fabrics, but charity shops yield up some amazing finds, and of course second-hand clothes are often packed to the collars and cuffs with fabulous prints.

Okay, recycled is not the only way to be environmentally friendly - there is a pioneering movement towards eco-friendly fabrics, so hoorah and big rounds of applause to the likes of Ian Mankin, Cloud 9 Fabrics, Daisy Janie, Mod Green Pod, amongst I’m sure, many others. Their fabrics and designs are very on-trend, but eco-friendly cotton production isn’t just about keeping up with the green Joneses – it’s because the production of 100% cotton garments and fabrics is way up there with the worst environmental assaults taking place on this planet. You see a label boasting 100% cotton and you think quality, but you should actually be baulking at quantity - it takes 256.6 gallons of water to product one t-shirt. 2.5% of farmland worldwide is used to grow cotton, but you know how much of the world’s pesticides are used? 10%. And 22% of the insecticides. Eeeww. That’s not pretty maths. And pesticides ain’t good – read more here at my favourite eco clothes store, Peopletree.

The only problem with organic cotton fabric, is that it can be a little pricey. Now don’t be mistaken – organic fabrics are no more expensive than many of the furnishing fabrics from famous named fabric suppliers, so next time you want curtains made, have a think about getting eco-friendly fabrics.
But as far as OriginalStitch is concerned, parting with £45 for a pegbag may smart a little. Don’t misunderstand me, it would really be a very nice pegbag, with great finishing, quirky patchworkyness and you’d be the sole owner of a unique piece of British craft, but yes, that might be a rather high price tag. (Oh, you would pay £45? Darn it you say, you’ll pay £55? Oh well I take it back! For you, special price £50.)

So for now it's sticking with charity shops, and prowling around looking out for half used furnishing and dressmaking fabrics - it's astonishing what crops up. I have found vast quantities of top quality fabrics for literally a few pounds. Three metres of some delicious floral will make it's way in some form or another into loads of products, maybe as many as 25 - you can see when you flick through the things I've made - some fabrics crop up time and again.
So listen, next time you're in a charity shop, do me a favour could you? Have a little look to see if they've got any gorgeous fabric pieces hiding away in a box, and send to me, would you?! I'll reimburse you and give you money off coupons towards a nice doorstop or pegbag or some shoepockets or a bag or a handle heart or tissue holder or some oven gloves or a nice apron or.....

...And talking of hotwater bottle covers and breezebusters, I've only gone and signed myself up for a couple of Christmas Fayres haven't I? This way I can work on my prototypes, finalise the recipes, hone the house style, and get a feel for pricing and which products will sell well. And then, you know, like, have some to sell.
At the beginning of December.
Um. Only trouble is, do I have any stock to sell?
Er.
Not as such, exactly...
Like, not a sausage. Not even a knitted sausage. I've just been making one gift per birthday. And that, if you have been following my rants, has not always been at all easy to achieve.
When I asked the husb, who is a good businessman, how much he reckoned I needed, he said, take 12 big things like bags or shoe pockets, and 60 small and medium sized things, like pencil rolls, doorstops, pegbags, pencil cases, hearts and stuff. Something for Mum, somethings for the kids and something for Gran, he said.
So that, by my maths is 72 things.

In 2 months.

In 4 mornings a week free time. At a rate of, at best, 1 thing a morning.

Sensible aren't I?! My heart might be in it, but I'm wondering if my head is. Still, where my scruffy hearts lead, my head will just have to follow.

Tartan it up

Last time I went down to my mum's she overhauled her scraps stash by thrusting lots of bits of it at me. My mother is a little older than me, and has therefore collected perhaps a little more fabric than me in her time, so in went probably a whole generation's worth of little remnants. Little bits of stuff from dresses she'd made for me, both girl and grown-up(ish), leftover quilting bits, and whole little sections of patchwork, which she held up puzzlingly, saying "Well, I can't remember what I was making this for...but I certainly won't use it for anything, so here..."
Come hither, little remnants, come to daughter!
"There - you can stick that on a tea-cosy; applique this onto a cushion; stick this on a quilt border, and bob's your uncle", she was saying, flinging things at me.
They've been sitting there nagging me, these little half-made things. I look at them, biting my lip and wondering how I can use them (I am not good at this beginning bit of the making process) and so I tackled one the other day. Having made a completely bonkers cushion the day before, (I shall elucidate in another post) and worked out the envelopey foldy cushion backy thing (is that its proper name I do wonder?), I rolled my sleeves up and got stuck into turning a log cabin piece into a cushion cover. There are some lovely old floral fabrics in here - gorgeous, but in these days of bright and gaudy, it looked to me a little too insipid as it was.Now, it's times like this that I stand staring at my fabrics, and feel a bit daunted, because it's not easy, this fabric mixing business - I live forever in fear of things 'not going'. (Don't get me wrong, I don't literally quake in my boots during the night-time, when one oughtn't at all to be wearing boots, shivering with terror as two clashing fabrics soft furnish themselves into my nightmares; what I mean is that I have, as I'm sure do many, a lack of confidence about putting together two patterns you'd think shouldn't go, but which then look great, magically picking each other up and blow me down, who'd have thought it. You know what I mean.) Anyway, I rummaged about and found lots of bits of fabric which sort of went, but didn't cast a magic spell, or bits which just looked tired, or bits which which were plain and dull and frankly boring.
And then I found the tartan.
Which is quite bonkers, but I have decided tartan is the new, um, well, the new Greatest Go-er Ever. It is so bonkers it goes with everything, specially this red one, which is a Stewart tartan, and manages to achieve exactly what I was after - it picks up all the colours and brightens them, whilst simultaneously not actually going with anything at all. And now, rather than being too light pink and too light blue to go in my red and blue scheme, it fits like a kilt.

Of course, pumped up with new-found pride in my fabric matching, I again stood staring at my fabrics, wondering what to make the back from. I have many fabrics picked up from charity shops which don't fall into the Amazing Vintage Fabric category. They are simply jolly good quality lengths of fabric for two quid which were not to be missed. But they ain't gonna win an award for being simply the most gorgeous thing ever. And I was determined to work some magic using them because otherwise, why did I buy them. They're never going to be the centrepiece of a quilt. The backs of things is precisely where these fabrics must come into their own. They're not centre-stage, they've got to stoicly stand in the wings.
Enter my next magic ingredient - ribbon. Somehow, I managed to make these two fabrics look good together, and it's all in the ribbon - imagine the ribbon isn't there and actually those fabrics look weird and un....errm, well just un-great. Ok, maybe you're turning your nose up and squinting and saying, er, hello Catherine, where's your glasses, they still look weird.
But I like 'em.
And I especially like that I didn't use anything new at all - all this is from my stash. Which, if I were to give this as a gift, which I'm not because I seem to have become rather mean, would be a very good thrift gift, and would have involved no new poisoning of cotton growers or chucking of packaging into landfill, which is what this is really all about. My dining room sofa can sit happy in the knowledge that it is not a recipient of an environmentally unfriendly new addition to itself.
So, a big fat round of applause for tartan and ribbon please - go on, find a piece and shove it in something.

Sewing Gone to Pot

Well. I have done very little sewing. My poor sewing machine is gathering dust. What with 10 days of viral tonsillitis and then nursemaiding a husband with the same vile bug (I have decided it is Piggy Fever, or whatever its name is. H1N1 Influenza A I think, in fact...) any spare time I have has gone to pot. Other priorities crowded in - most notably a shady border desperately in need of soil improvement, awaiting its occupants - naughty plants that climbed all by themselves into my trolley at the plant nursery, or be-stole themselves from my in-laws' garden, or threw themselves at me at a village fete stall. Those ones usurped the daughters and rode three squashed in together (a polygonum, a centranthus, and a delphinium, since you ask) in the pushchair, straps on and everything, much to the enormous disgruntlement of an ice-cream covered, fun-overdosed, octopus face-painted two and a half year old. These three and the other plants cannot sit in pots all summer, so I have been hacking away at my heavy clay soil like a coal miner. Some lumps of 'soil' (I use this term loosely) are so huge and hard and rock-like that I half expect some diamonds to come flying out. Not so - rather an old Action Man arm, a toy car wheel, sharp flints, old bent nails, and many bits of old pots. And not enough worms by a long way. Get in there, you worms, where are you?
A n y w a y....all of which very frenetic activity has kept me away from sewing completely. So no gifts of any sort to show off here. However, casting my eye desperately around for an idea to blog about, I landed upon my teapots o' salad.
Aren't these the nicest teapots? They are lamentably without lids, which do rather seem to come a-cropper in my house, much to my sorrow, and after failed attempts to mend them I realised there was nothing for it but a bit of re-use. So out I went into the garden and with the daughters' help, spooned in compost and sowed some salad seeds. And just this week they have really taken off, and grown like billy-o. Now, you could get yourself down a charity shop, and look out for beautiful old teapots, fill them with soil, put the seeds in and give them as a gift. Bonkers, but certainly unusual, and best of all, edible. You could either give them like this, all grown, if you planned a bit, or let the recipient watch them grow themselves, on their own window ledge. In this one is a mixed packet of salad leaves - I believe mizuna, mustard, and erm, I'm afraid I can't remember. But any garden centre will be able to sell you a nice packet of mixed salady seeds.
What I really like is watering them - and what do you think I do? That's right, I put the water down the spout so the roots can suck it up, and they seem to like that a lot. Now, how neat is that? It's a perfect plant pot, is a teapot.