Panel Pocket Tee testing

I was honoured to be chosen to do pattern testing of the new Duck Butt Designs Panel Pocket Tee! Well let me just start off by telling you that the options are limitless with this top, perfect for those amazing panels, up-cycling, or you know just normal fabric ;) . I did a bit of up-cycling with my testers as I wasn't quite ready to let go of these items and it is nice to see him be able to wear these cute items for a bit longer.

 It is a very quick pattern to make and so fun to put together and come up with the final look of it. I can see many many more of these being made my me in the future!

If you are interested in making your own Panel Pocket Tee then you will find it HERE in Duck Butt Designs shop. Right now there are a few codes about so you can pick up your pattern at a reduced price so I suggest you join the Facebook group :) Currently this pattern is available from 3 months to 6 years but it may be by popular demand extended to bigger sizes.

This is the vector for the top, just imagine all the possibilities!

This lady makes some amazing looking patterns and she has definitely gone to the top of my list for new thinking and fun patterns.

Love to the Martha

I have been doing a bit of sewing for myself recently. I have found it quite tricky to find some nice nursing tops so I started looking for some patterns for nursing tops to sew for myself. So far I have made two but have a feeling more are to come in the future. 

The first top I made for myself was with muslin fabric and one of the more crazy prints I have bought, was surprised to find some matching fabric in a shop. Was a match made in heaven as the orange fabric was the same shade as the butterflies!

The Martha is a german pdf patttern made by das milchmonster and there is a translated version of the pattern about. I like the martha pattern as it gives you options on hem length, collar and hood. My first version I made the long length and second the shorter version. 

Funny how odd the booby holes look like, they do work though :)

My second martha was a really quick sew although as I used a fabric with slightly different qualities it has a tighter fit than number one. I learn something new with each garment I make!

All in all this pattern gets two thumbs up from me for the flexibility of the pattern, both nursing and non nursing options and all the extras, The parts come in separate files so you can decide before you print what you want to make and save a bit of ink plus the instructions have plenty of good pictures :D

Can´t wait to make my next Martha!

First chalk paint job

We started looking for a house back in the spring and at the same time I kept walking past this shop window with a charming table on display. I kept hoping that we would find a house with a hallway where it would fit in well so I could buy it and do it up.Well we bought a old farm house from 1904 and it had a perfect place for it at the bottom of the stairs. A few days after we moved in I drove to the shop and bought the table!

Now I have never worked with chalk paint before and I hadn't seen the famous make of chalk paint in my area of Denmark so when I eventually found an own brand chalk paint I got very happy. I looked up what the best way was to do when using the paint and then went ahead and painted!

So here it is, the table in it's new home. I treated the top of the table with some clear bees wax and for now at least there is no varnish on the table and I didn't distress it at all. I am really pleased with this project!

Retirement gift

 You have to excuse my absence recently, my life has been rather busy (buying house, baby, renovating..). But I thought I would take a moment to show you the retirement gift I made for my in-laws for when they retired back in May.

Shopping first

I found some nice chopping boards in my local grocery store and tried to figure out which one to buy. In the end I chose a long black handled one. So I bought it and took it home to start on the layout of the cheese board we were planning.

Getting a bit cheesy

Now we had come up with some suitably funny names for four sections. I used a carbon paper to transfer the text to the wood and then a soldering iron to burn the text into the wood. This is the wattage I used (I used a less powered one first and it didn't do a thing).

And this is the result after a couple of hours work :)

I put some olive oil on the cheese board as a finishing touch. It was a hit with the in-laws and they have informed us that they use it quite frequently.

A Monty Python retirement card

I made this special and unique card for the in-laws as they are quite big Monty Python fans. The elements are composed and put together from different images I found on internet. Will be interesting to find out in a months time to find out what they think about their gift!

Crochet Pram Mobile

In Denmark it seems to be the in thing to have crochet pram mobiles. Well I'm not going to be any worse than the rest but decided to make my own version as that's more fun!

I thought my little baby would appreciate a sky themed one so I set off trying to find lots of free crochet patterns to go with that.

The aeroplane is from a Danish pattern I found on a blog by Lene Søholm on filikhunkat. The direct link to her PDF pattern is here. Obviously if you can't read Danish you will have an issue but overall it was a really nice and easy pattern.

The cloud pattern is by a Turkish lady (I think) from the blog here. Now my Turkish isn't the best but luckily the pattern is more like a graph, which if you are used to crochet is quite easy to figure out as it just features the letters X, V and A.

The hot air balloon I winged a bit as I couldn't quite find an exciting pattern, the basket is from here and the balloon is from here. The balloon part is actually made from a pattern for a Christmas tree decoration, I made the one half and then I kept going until I got the kind of shape I wanted.

The cute little sunshine is from a mobile pattern but I chose not to do the eyes or other decorations, the direct link to the PDF is here.

I'd like to say thank you to all the lovely ladies sharing those patterns in the first place so that I could make this mobile. To join them all up I used round elastic thread and it is fastened to the pram with two little metal clips.

Wedding season

With wedding season coming up shortly I thought I would show you some of my previous makes on that theme, maybe it will give you some ideas for future events.

The clutch

I made this crochet bridal clutch bag from a free lions brand pattern, to get access to it you need to be a member. I added the bow to match her wedding theme colour and inside I hand embroidered her new initials.

The cake decorations

These lovebird cake toppers I made from a Japanese pattern thanks to some help from a web translator. To differentiate the bride and groom slightly the bride lovebird had just a slightly lighter shade of pink on her body. I added some rice to the bottom of the filling to weigh them own a bit, in hindsight I probably should have used a bit more. The MR&MRS bunting was hand embroidered on Hessian fabric.

The embroidered wedding gift

Embroidering on Hessian was rather difficult I found, started with trying to get the writing over to the fabric. The best way to transfer the writing was to use some carbon paper, I made my design on the computer first and then with the printout I wrote on top of it with the carbon-paper in-between to get my guide lines on the Hessian. Then once finished I added the lace band to get a romantic look. As my friend lives in UK I posted it like this but had made the size so that it could fit into a Ikea box frame. This was also the first time in many years that  I used the embroidery stitch called stem stitch, I found a good tutorial on how to do it at the time too and on one of her pages there is even a video.

The good luck charm

This dream catcher was made to decorate the wedding venue by perhaps hanging from a tree. There are many of them available for sale in different variations but I wanted to make a very special one for my friend's wedding.

The middle of this dream catcher was completely made up by my mind and I didn't make a note of how I made it, it just happened as I made it. My father very kindly made me the hoops out of brass which I then wound satin ribbon around and then did the standard way of attaching the doily to the hoop with thread, after I added decorative beads. 

My friend wanted a dream catcher with pastel coloured ribbons so I bought a variety of different coloured ribbons and lace and added some strands of feathers as well.

Wooden chopping board gift

 My boss got married so I made them a personalised chopping board, this was another project where carbon paper was needed. This was one of the first paper cutting projects I made and definitely the first pyrography project. I found that I needed a high powered soldering iron rather than the low one I first tried and I found a free template for the honeycomb pattern here.

The 4th anniversary gift

The 4th anniversary theme is linen and I found some gorgeous world map fabric for sale that was part made of linen! This I made my well travelled husband a drawstring shoe bag from to keep his clothes clean when travelling. I hand embroidered hearts on all the locations that we have been to together in the world and then I lined the inside of the bag with some plain green fabric. 

Hope you have been inspired for some gorgeous wedding makes :)