It's a Creative World

JUBILEE

 

Hello, Eleanor here, and I'm here with my everlasting paper chain, ready to party. We will be enjoying Jubilee celebrations up here in the Scottish Highlands with a fun day at the Loch, and I wanted to make something from fabric, yes fabric, now there's a surprise!

Do you remember I made red white and blue bunting a few years ago:

and also trimmed a skirt with mini bunting:

Well, time for something different, so I made a red white and blue paper chain. Except I made it from material, so that I can bring it out again and again. 

I started with strips of fabric, ideal for using scraps - at the time when the Queen was crowned there was much make do and mend still going on, rationing was still in place and everything was used and re-used.

I folded each strip down the length, and stitched all the way around.

For speed you could just stitch the one long raw edged side. Fraying is good, in fact, fraying is desirable, so if you like the well worn shabby look, pop each strip in the washer and dryer when you've finished them.

Next I tried out the buttonhole foot on my sewing machine, and was very pleased with the result. 

(but ideas for non buttoned strips follow below)

Finally I sewed on a button,

buttoned up my chain,

and stored it safely in a cloth bag, waiting for its outing this coming weekend.

Think it would take too long? No problem, try one of these alternatives:

1. Sew on light plastic poppers

2. Or velcro dots

3. Or a loop and a button

4. Or ribbon at both ends to tie together

or even

5. Simply stitch each strip to itself to close the circle as you add it to the long length (not a choice for me, as I want to be able to switch out the blue for green and use my everlasting FABRIC paper chain at Christmas time).

As it is the Diamond Jubilee, I've made 60 strips! 

And unlike 'PAPER' paper chains, if a playful puss cat pulls it down,

it's not spoilt, you can simply hang it back up. 

That Mango is such a funny boy, I lay down with him for a while and we looked up at my chain (which admittedly looks tiny strung on that enormous tree, but it will be hung round my front door, and is more than long enough for that!)

Think it's too much effort? Take this short cut, and you'll make 60 in one hour:

However you are spending this long weekend, have a wonderful time.

I made the fabric page below for a round robin a few years ago.

Cheerio

x

 

 

 

 

Use Your Hanky

Hello, Eleanor here. I’ve been tidying out cupboards (just a little, don’t let’s get all excited at the thought of a tidy cottage, it’s not happening) and found some vintage hankies I collected over a few car boot seasons. The sewing machine was out, threaded up and ready to play, so I refashioned my hankies into envelopes, and then I made a quick, clean and simple card to go inside.

Here is my hanky:

Step one of the transformation is to iron the hanky:

So very  easy to make, you  just fold hanky in half,

and stitch from the edge to the fold, fasten off,

and open out.

Bring in the third corner (I have already stitched from A to B, now I will stitch from A to C:

And stitch:

Shape and press,

and then measure to get the dimensions for your card.

This was a surprisingly quick project, the actual stitching is minimal, 2 straight lines, (didn't even need to use the sewing machine) and if you keep the card simple, the whole project is done in half an hour.

Bye for now

x

 

Sewing Inspiration

Hi there Kerry here

Around a year or so ago I found a fabulous place for sewing tutorials and inspiration called Moda Bake Shop. 

I hadn't been into sewing for very long but I had some jelly rolls I had a huge urge to use.  I found this pattern and followed the directions.  It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination but I was so pleased that I had finally managed to create something from the jelly rolls that were shouting at me.

 

They have so many fantastic patterns on there that I could spend all day just looking.  I'm not really into making quilts or blankets  but the little projects like this bag are so inspirational.  They break them down into all the different packs you can buy with names like jelly rolls, charms, layer cakes.  All those names are explained here with links to patterns using those types of pack.

 

Happy New Year from the IACW Team

Hiya everyone.

We all want to wish you a Happy New Year & hope 2012 will be a Happy year for you all. One thing I can guarantee is it will be a Creative New Year here on Its A Creative world. We are all staying on to keep the Creative juices flowing & hope you will follow us well into the New Year. We have lots planned from Sewing projects, scrapbooking, Jewellery making, Card making & much much more. The posts will be up and running as normal from Jan 1st.

I also want to thank personally the Design team you are very Talented everyone of you, I love the mix of crafts being made & I get excited when a New post pops up on my computer. Thankyou Thankyou thankyou xxxx

                                ..........................................................................

If you are a little unsure what you want to craft as your first project of 2012 check out the link below to make Pillowcase dresses for girls in poverty in 3rd world countries (theres more details & links on the blog too)

Sew Scrumptious Every girl deserves a pretty dress

The link for the directions to make a dress is here

Happy New Year Love Jayne & the Team.

Mobius Wrap

Time for some pretty maths:

The mobius strip or band is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. You can make one with a strip of paper, giving it a half twist and joining the ends together to form a loop.

(image from Wikipedia) 

 Some time ago, back in April 2009 to be precise, there was a lovely pattern in a magazine called Sew Hip, for a cotton wrap, by Tracy Cushing. I loved it then, and I love it now. Yes, only 2 and a half years later, I have made this wrap, from a gorgeous Moda jelly roll called OZ.

A jelly roll is simply 2.5 inch strips across the width (usually about 44 inches) of every fabric in a range by a certain designer, in this case, Sanae, from Japan, and I bought my jelly roll from Patchkits .

This is a sort of step by step, with far too many photos, but I hope it makes sense. (And if you really don't want to see the step by step, scroll to the bottom of the post and you will see me and my Mobius Wrap completed. I love it. )

First of all, unroll your jelly roll and put the strips in a pleasing order. Or not, after all, they all look beautiful, so you could just swirl them around and take whichever comes to hand each time. For a medium size I used 30 strips, if small, it takes 28, if large, then 35. (There are 40 in the roll)

Trim off the selvedges:

Next, cut each strip in half to make 2 pieces, 2.5 x 22 in.

Lay your first two pieces wrong sides together, (the pattern on the pieces will keep changing, but the principle won't, it's just that I took hundreds of photos, and chose the best one for each step):

Next take 2 more strips and make a sandwich, with the above in the middle. Order of pieces is right side up, wrong side up, right side up, wrong side up (a close look at the following should make it clear):

Smooth these together, like so:

and stitch along the long edge, with a 1/4 inch seam allowance, as I have done in this picture, (even though the fabric has changed):

Next lay out one of another pair of strips:

and place your just stitched pair on top, see the order is always the same, right side up, wrong side up, right side up:

and add your second of the pair on top, wrong side up:

Pin:

and then stitch:

Continue to repeat the process with each new pair of strips until you have one pair left.

It's a good idea to backstitch at the beginning and end of each line of stitching, but if, like mine, your sewing machine doesn't like to backstitch at the end of the line, and bunches up the fabric annoyingly, you can always do this...

When you get to the end of the line of stitching:

swivel the fabric around like this:

all the way, and stitch back the way you came for 6 or so stitches before releasing and cutting your thread:

So, when you have your final pair of strips left, add them, and then press one long edge in by 1/4 inch:

Now lay your entire piece out somewhere, and admire them, taking a photo because they look so beautiful (and before the cat snuggles down on them):

Now stand at the long edge, take the left hand edge (the one you have pressed) in your left hand, and bring it to meet the right hand edge, giving it one twist:

lay it down:

Bring the short edges together:

Drop down the pressed edge, away from the other 3:

And stitch once more along the long edge. Here you can see that A is where you have stitched, and B is your last loose edge, with the pressed 1/4 inch. What you now have is a tube, with a twist in it, and a gap to close:

Bring that pressed edge up to cover the last raw edge, and pin in place:

Now handstitch using your favourite invisible method, like a ladder stitch.

Now you can topstitch all the way around the long edge, and there IS only one edge, that's the interesting mathematical phenomena of a mobius strip, so keeping stitching, all the way, one inch in from the edge until you get back to where you started. Add another line, a 1/4 inch in from that, and you have a double topstitch.

 

Your last job (phew), it's taken longer to write this than it did to make the wrap, lol, is to snip those raw edges to make a lovely fluffly ruffly edge:

Then wash (or just pop through your machine on a rinse and spin cycle) and tumble dry to free up the edges, and get rid of any lint:

Wear your wrap with a smile because the colours make you feel happy:

Bye for now,

Eleanor

x

 

What can I do with a broken salt cellar?

I've been staying inside today trying to keep cosy while wild winds have been whistling over most of Scotland. I found a nice relaxing little project to do and this is something that might inspire you to look in your cupboards and see what you can transform.

I own this pretty little silver salt cellar with cobalt glass insert and I will use it occasionally.  I also own another the same, but this one no longer has it's glass - not a whole lot of use. It is not worth getting an insert custom made for it,  so what do I do with it?

Make it into a cute little pin cushion, that's what.

I drew around the cellar and cut two bits of card a little smaller than my drawn lines. One bit of card I stuck into the bottom of the cellar to form a base which will hide any raw edges of fabric. Then I cut an oval of fabric for the top and a straight piece to go around the edges with a bit extra for gathering and turning under, and I stitched it wrong sides together. I turned it the right way around and stuffed it with dried lavender. Then I put the other oval of card on top of the stuffing and made a running stitch around the bottom edge of the fabric and gathered it together around the card and then popped it into the silver cellar. I could hot glue it in, but it is a firm fit so doesn't really need it, 

Every time I stick a pin into it I get a delightful aroma of lavender. I will really enjoy using this now instead of it being pointlessly stuck in a cupboard.

Perhaps you have some small dish or other small silver item that doesn't seem very useful at the moment. Why not turn it into a pretty little pin cushion to enjoy - or even give as a gift. Or if you don't own one but would like to, then keep your eyes open in the charity shops, you might just pick up the perfect thing.

I hope I inspired you today.

Happy crafting

 

BALLOONS

Back in July, I had been so inspired by our new DT member, Katherine's balloons, that I made a card for my grandson, (scroll down a little) as part of Claire's stamping challenge for a weekend workout.

I love the effect of the circles, and decided to use the technique in fabric, to liven up a plain (yes, predictable, I know!) charity shop linen skirt.

I bought a pack of 10 inch fabric squares, in reds and pinks, by Kaffe Fassett, from Cotton Patch , and cut lots (and lots) of circles. I layered them in threes, and stitched them down fairly randomly, with raw edges to allow fraying, stitching the base one around its edge, and the upper pair vertically through the centre.

Here's the 'before':

The 'after':

and here I am:

Now I need to make a scrapbook layout! Thanks for the inspiration Katherine, I just love these balloons.

I wonder where I can put them next - on the Christmas tree perhaps?

Bye for now.

 

Patchwork Paper

Patchwork pages are very popular at the moment in paper crafts so I had to have a go at a page myself and they are great for using up your scraps and odd strips of paper.  I tried a herringbone pattern for my page, as they are easy shapes to fit together with out worrying about them all fitting together perfectly.

I started off by making a template - cut a 1.5" strip of paper, then fold the corner down until it meets the otherside of the paper, making a triangle and forming the point, cut the triangle off.  Then measure down 1.5" from both points and draw a line between them, and cut the paper.  This should give you a nice parallelogram (sounds like school).  Then you can cut some 1.5" strips out of your nice papers and use the shape as a template.  Not always being a perfect measurer myself, I found that you can overlap the shapes a bit as the main thing for this page is that the points look straight, and also if you ruffle the edges of your paper shapes it can hide a multitude of measuring sins.  I do this by taking the edge of scissors and scraping them along the edge of the paper or using an emery board or light sand paper, then I crumple and fold them a bit too.  To make my page look a little more patchworky I machine stitched around each of the shapes, and then arranged and stuck them down on the page.  I added a place for journalling behind the photo on one side, and then a white picket fence I had lurking in my stash on the opposite side.  I mounted the photo on some red check paper, and some green K and Co paper which I edged with scallop scissors, then a little bit of bakers twine too.  The rosette flowers are American crafts as are the thickers, the papers are a mixture of cosmo cricket, october afternoon and my little shoebox as I found these small shapes great for using up scraps of paper.  Here are some more shots of the page.

I hope that has inspired you to have a go at using some scraps and making your own paper quilt.

Katherine

Not forgetting the Oldies :)

Ok we are not oldies but we have been on the DT for some time & are staying, These are the very Tallented ladies staying with us on IACW :) The ladies are lucky I was going to put a photo of them up but my emails are not working so they have been let off lightly (unless i add them later)

CAZ - Creating memories

DEBBIE- Rainbow Poppy

JAYNE- Paper Thoughtz

LYNNE- Lindyloo Crafts

KAREN- Dollys dreamings 

ELEANOR- Highland House Keeper

MANDY- ichthusfish

{image supplied by photobucket}

Girly Ruffles

Hi Dolly here and a quick post today about making girly pages – you know those pretty pastel pages with the floaty feminine feel.

I scrap little girls a lot –we haven’t got many little boys in the family but we have little girls a plenty.

I want to share a page today which has a couple of techniques which emphasise the feminine feel.

 

 

Obviously the colour is feminine in soft pinks, but looking beyond that there are other things that give the page a softer feel.

The main mats on the page are roughed up at the edges to soften the hard lines.

I find the easiest way to do this without ripping the paper is to damp the edges just with a clean paintbrush and plain old water. Once the edges are softened the paper is easy to bend and roll. The occasional tear doesn’t matter, but you don’t want too many.

I also inked the edges lightly to emphasis the shabbiness.

 

The other thing that I feel really softens a page is the use of stitched ruffles.

To make the ruffles cut strips of patterned paper and beat up the edges first as above. Then you fold it so it looks pleated. Don’t make them too even or regular as you want it to look soft and free flowing.

Once you are happy with how it looks (and you may want to use a couple of dabs of adhesive in places) run it through the sewing machine on a simple running stitch.

Once it is sewn you can then be a little rough with it to give it more of a soft distressed look at the edges and then add it to the page.

The same technique works really well for heritage pages too.

Have fun with creating your ruffles and making those feminine pages.