Maternity pattern tester

A couple of weekends ago I was fortunate enough to be chosen to do pattern testing for an amazing maternity top. It is designd by patterns for pirates and was a very easy top to create and didn't take long time to construct either. A bonus with the pattern is that the only measurement you will need to do is the current chest measurement, I am very happy with the fit as the elastic in the waist does an amazing job and I will definitely make more! :)

If you are interested in getting this pattern you will find it here you will need the maternity add on as well as the regular top version for the layer me up shirt.

bonus photo that my 2,5 year old son took of me and my husband during the obligatory photo shoot.

Travel play mat tutorial

I have come across these amazing things called quiet books, from this I got quite a few ideas on the design of the play mat. We are going on holiday soon and I want something to entertain my son with so thought why not a play mat to fit on the aeroplane fold down tray.

I should start off by saying that I work in an industry where I have access to these seats and went and measured a few to check what the industry standard is. My conclusion - there is no standard! I measured three different types and they varied in sizes a lot.

Tray one width 42,5 cm, depth 18-20 cm

Tray two width 33,5 cm, depth 17 cm

Tray three width 34-30 cm, depth 23cm

This project could have ended there! As I couldn't figure out how on earth I would get something to fit all of those sizes, I however do know what aeroplane type we will be flying with so was trying to figure out the size of that... well nowhere online did I find an exact measurement so made a guestimate! The finished size of this play mat is about 20cm x 40cm plus the overhang car storage.

What you will need

different coloured pieces of felt 

green cotton for background 24x42 cm

backing material for play mat 24x42 cm

two small pieces of velcro
bias binding

embroidery floss

sewing machine 

Let's get started

The first thing I did was draw out the size of this play mat on baking paper and tried to come up with the most interesting road design for such a little space. This is where it was helpful to look up at how other car mats and quiet books were made, I found somewhere that they had made their roads 2 inches wide or 5 cm wide so I did that for my roads too.

Once I was happy with my design I cut it out in black felt and started to hand stitch the road markings. It would have been good to have some embroidery floss but I had run out so used some of my white crochet thread that I use for doilies instead ;) 

Next step that I did was fasten the road onto the green backing material using a small and tight zigzag stitch with white thread (this doubles as the road markings too).

Then I was browsing internet trying to figure out what to put on my play mat! On Fiskars craft I found this amazing idea for a car wash which was instantly added to my car mat, they also have a nice version of a petrol pump but slightly too big for my mat so made a simpler version (for the hose I didn't have any extra shoe laces laying around so took a strand of black thread and wound it double and covered the end in cellotape). I have actually made two of these play mats, one for my son and one for his friend. My son's friend got a hospital and a few houses. 

The one I made for my son has got a fire station and a farm yard with a pond and tractor. The items on the car mat was either hand embroidered,glued on or machine stitched for extra safety.

The eagle eyed will notice the fastener sticking out from the one I made for my son, well I forgot how I made the previous one and did it differently! Both ways work but I think I prefer the first version for that. Another difference is that I added straps on second one for attaching to the aeroplane tray ( I wrongly assumed that Ryanair doesn't have fold down trays). For the four attaching straps I used bias biding each piece 22 cm long, perhaps long but gives extra leeway on attaching to the aeroplane tray.

This is the first version I made, the tab is 12 cm long and 4,5 cm wide. I sewed two of those pieces together and added some roundness to the end of the tab and cut off the excesses fabric on the inside, when I turned it the right way round I added the velcro the rounded end. and fastened to the back piece of the play mat 2,5 cm up from one of the edges and 13 cm in, I sewed this twice to hid the raw edge of the tab. The other piece of velcro was attached 3 cm from the edge and  2,5 cm in. 

The fabric piece I used for the storage pockets was 32 cm long and 40 wide. I started off by folding the piece in half and press with the iron, then sew a seam close to the edge (this is at the top of the car pockets) then turn up 7 cm and sew each long end to close it in to a big pocket, next step was to sew the small containers for each car 6,5 cm from each other. Final step was attaching it all to each other, making sure not to get the tabs and pockets caught up in the seams! Remember to leave a little opening for hand stitching with ladder stitch at the end. Once it was sewn up I added the numbers to the car pockets and glued them on

The numbers on the pockets add on an extra element of learning with the different colours as well as numbers. My son loves matching the cars into the pockets with numbers in same colour as the car!

And best of all, it folds up small to not take much space when travelling! Hopefully it will help keep your kids busy during long and boring times. x

Floral easter egg

My son got given a yarn ball in a shop today when we went fabric shopping. He is very much into eggs and the shop owner was more than happy to give him this "egg". My first thought was "what are we going to do with this thing then" but when we got home it hit me!

 I had bought some roses earlier in the week so took them out of their vase and got a pint glass out, put it under the "egg" and let my son stick the roses through the holes (just make sure that the stems end up in the water) and voilà a master piece! As usual the photos don't really make the arrangement justice.

There are plenty of tutorials around on how to make yarn lanterns / ornaments. Have fun crafting!

Birthday card for Andy

This week it is my son's friend Andy's birthday so I have made him a special card and gift. I'll show you the gift at a later time, now we will concentrate on how to do the card.

What you will need

Printer
Black paper
printer paper
cutting mat
scalpel
coloured paper
spray glue
glue stick
toothpicks
patience

How to make it

My free drawing skills aren't the best so I had a look through google images for the perfect image. I came to the conclusion that colouring pages for kids are in general pretty good for using for the base. Once I had found this image of George with balloons I went to photoshop to add the text, when doing text with papercutting it is important to make sure that the letters join up. Once having figured out my design I mirror imaged it before printing out (this is an important step!)

Now we are ready to transfer the image. I used a pen and carbon paper to transfer the mirrored image onto the black piece of paper. As it was quite a few lines to copy I stuck my pieces of paper down with a couple of pieces of cello tapes, after all the last thing I wanted was for my papers to move and lines not join up! The second image (excuse the flash, it was late at night) shows what it looked like once I had copied it all onto the black paper. I had to do some adjustments to the text as I was copying it all to make sure that they were joining up with each other.

So then when all lines were copied the slow process of cutting out all the little lines started. The first image shows mid cut when I was trying to figure out which colours to use for George. Second image shows when it was all cut out. Then after that is when all the fun stuff started and I didn't have a chance to take photos. The system that worked best for me was using a glue stick for attaching all the minor pieces but spreading out with a tooth pick! This is because if you use the whole glue stick you risk breaking your pretty cut out shapes, this I learned the hard way! I cut out squares in the colours i wanted to approximately fit the hole they were going to fill and then cut off the excess past the black lines using my scalpel. Once all the colours were done I used my spray glue and pastened the image to the card! The only thing on the image that isn't cut out in paper is George's facial features as I deemed it too tricky so I hand drew them onto his face instead.

Happy crafting!

Dining chair remake

Our dining chairs that we bought at the same time as our dining table broke a while ago so I started searching around the charity shops and online to see if I could find some chairs to go with our table. Eventually in a charity shop I found some that were good enough and at a good price. The problem was only that they were too pale to go with our table and the seat cover was rather naff looking.

So our first attempt of acquiring paint for the chair wasn't very good but on our second attempt when we went to a proper paint shop

we hit the jackpot! Finding the fabric for the chair covers was the easy part, I chose a map patterned wax fabric from one of the Danish fabric stores to match our pillow cases in the lounge.

Changing the chair covers

To change the chair covers I had to start with taking off all the old staples, was a bit tricky but came off easier when using a tool to wedge under.

 Once I had the piece of cloth off I used that as my pattern to cut out of the new fabric and the stapled it on. This is the finished result!

I have got to say that I am rather happy with the colour match and I think that the fabric is rather fun :)

Quite a difference don't you think?

Free crochet ebooks

Last night I was looking for my next book to read on kindle when I ran into lots of ebooks with crochet and knitting patterns. I thought I would share a few of the books with you as they had some cute patterns in them!

Baby crochet patterns

This ebook has 13 cute patterns for baby including a baby rattle, blanket a few different types of booties, cardigans and hats. My favourite pattern out of them all might just be these baby boat booties that could be made unisex easily which comes in size 0-3 months. The creator of these cute boat booties has a blog which you find here. 

Granny squares

This ebook has 16 pretty patterns on versions of the granny squares. My favourite one is the owl ones but I think I am too lazy to do a whole blanket with these owl, instead I would do a few and have a whole row of them or dotted around the blanket. Sarah which also has a blog you find here.

Crochet shawls and clothing 

This ebook has 16 gorgeous crochet shawls and shrug patterns including a bridal shawl. My favourite one is the summer morning shawl by Bernat.

Besides these three books I have mentioned there are quite a few books on beginners crochet and quite a few other pattern books.

Happy crafting :)