Tins, Pins and Red Roses

I can never walk past the Cath Kidston shop in my local big 'town' without having a quick browse, I love the patterns and colour on her products, and whenever my birthday rolls around she is always on my wish list. Last week whilst out shopping, I happened to pass her shop (not really a coincidence) and found myself drooling over her products inside, I spied this very cute red rose pin book. I love vintage tins and the red roses on this tin really caught my eye, when I opened the tin book I was sold.

It was filled with sewing pins! I am always happy to have more pins.

On the same shopping trip I also found this cool vintage tin, I love the old fashioned clothes and scene displayed on the tin. It has 16 plasters (bandages) in it, all with vintage pictures on them.

After my recent sewing project of making a pillowcase dress for the great charity pillowcase dress for poverty, it has spurred me on to think about my next sewing project. Unfortunately my miserable low amount of fabric in my fabric box has stopped me from moving forward with any sewing.
This week I finally managed to order a load of fabric, after finding a great fabric shop online, who sell the most beautiful fabric and haberdashery items in their online shop. I am alway nervous about ordering online to new companies, but I was really pleased with the quick service, and a small gift they put in every order!

 

Roses,roses, roses..how I adore thee!

My fabric stash is now very much 'open for business' again, I have a something in mind for my next project which involves my new fabric, glue, and ribbon, now all I need is to find some time to do it.......

Bxx

Sewing central. A gift for my son.

It has been sewing central here at the Hazel and Blue household over the last few days. The lovely Saints and Pinners fabric I brought just before Christmas has been sitting and waiting patiently whilst I have been busy with other things.
The beautiful colours finally won over and I had to make something with them.

I wanted to sew something for my Son. It needed to be boy-like and not too girlie, (as he is going through a phase of resisting anything pink.) I decided to make a pencil case, using the brown and blue fabric, madly hoping this would appeal to his taste. Although I suspect if I covered it with Ben 10 and footballs this would be more up his street!

                                       
I love sewing Zips on to fabric and I have found a really easy way to do this using the Zipper foot, and clever maneuvering of the zip when sewing on to the fabric. I love the fabric in the lining of this case!

                                    


Being a fair Mum, I could not make one for one and not the other, so I made this lovely pouch for my youngest, using this beautiful soft cord material, found at my local haberdashery.

                            I could not resist adding a pink satin ribbon on the cord handle!

I have such joy when making these for the children. I have a tendency to sneakily take them off the children and display them on my wooden console table in the sewing room and look at them lovingly for days!

I suppose its the appreciation of the work and love that goes into making them.

PS By the way they both loved the gifts. The Pencil case even got a smile!

Just a quick note to say thank you for all your lovely comments recently, they can really make my day and I appreciate each and every one of them!
Bx

Knit Sew Love

There has been a noticeable lack of craft recently in the Hazel and Blue household, and to be honest I have been feeling a bit lost with out it,  so this week I have been making up for lost time!
I have been inspired recently to start knitting again, having brought some yarn recently from the charity shop. But after sitting down and knitting a few rows, I then decided that I need a pattern to follow. So I went browsing at the Charity shops again last weekend. I was delighted to find some very old knitting patterns and embroidery sketches to work from:

I found this fantastic little Swiss 1965 Knitting pattern magazine/book, full of beautiful designs and knits

I love this knitting pattern and the photo of the girl holding her Teddy is adorable.


I also found these retro 1960's knitting patterns and the most fantastic 1960's embroidery pamphlet with tiny transfers inside.
The Man in the shop said they had been in the shop for years hidden away in a Grey A4 ring binder.

With all these to inspire me I decided to do some craft with my little girl, she has been asking me for weeks to join in. She decided she would like to make a flower. We used this flowery fabric some wadding and lavender inside and a pretty pink ribbon to hang it with.

She was so good at hand sewing and she was very pleased to tell me, that 'Mummy, see I can do it'! (I previously been worried she would pierce her little fingers with the needle- doh!)

So with after doing the above with my girl, it inspired me to finally dust of my sewing machine and start sewing again. I decided to make little Lavender bags filled with dried Lavender, essential oil and wadding.

I do feel much better now and I have already had a start at making some hair accessories using wool and ribbon.

I love this saying:  Knit, Sew,Love. I am embracing my creative side this week and I am really enjoying it!

Becky
xx

Knitting love - 7 Things you don't know about me.

This week whilst I was drooling over some exquisite Hand dyed NZ wool over at Knitsch, I had the sudden urge to start knitting again.

 As you may know from a previous post, I started knitting early last year and it all ended badly. The kitten would chase the yarn, the children thought the wool would make a great object to play with and I could not read the knitting pattern, I had brought.
So this time, rather than buying all new kit again,  I walked into my local charity shop, found two beautiful lemon yarn balls for 50p (25cents) and 2 sets of knitting needles, and began knitting that night. I think this is going to be a scarf for my little girl.

                                                 

This week, I have also been lucky enough to be asked to write 7 things you don't know about me from three lovely people, Michelle at Mummy from the heart, SAHMandlovingit, and OhMammy, thank you very much for tagging me!

1. My Daughters Middle name is 'Arwen'  from the novel 'Lord of the Rings'- My OH is a long life fan and this is his favourite book of all time. The Trilogy seems to have followed us throughout our Marriage, we used a reading from the book in our Wedding ceremony, and even went to the Opening Movie in Wellington NZ back in 2001 at the Embassy Theatre. NB (Luckily my Son did not follow suit and did not get the Middle name's Frodo or Bilbo! )

2. I was travelling on the day of September 11th when NYC was attacked. I was actually on the Euro star to Disneyland Paris - and I was so scared they were going to attack us in Disneyland! Lots of armed policemen hanging around when we were there, but all ok in the end.

3. I have a OCD addiction with hand cream. I use hand cream every day, and I cannot leave the house with out some. My current favourite I am using at the moment is the Soap and Glory hand cream - smells divine.

4. I play the piano- not very well, but I have recently started lessons again and have been having piano lessons with a local teacher for about a year now.

5. I love Edward of 'Twilight' I am slightly infatuated with him. I have all the DVDs and books, but I haven't quite stretched to his poster as yet.

6. I appeared on a NZ Children's TV programme when I was little 'What Now' and did the Milo wacky challenge, I remember getting the phone call on Live TV Saturday morning and doing cart wheels around the lounge, because I was sooo excited.

7. I have freckles .... faded now- but in the summer they can come back with vengeance. I slather myself with Sun tan lotion and cover my face with Sunglasses and a Hat. I've learnt to love my freckles, and remind my self that they are a sign of youth. Or as my Grandmother used to say to me 'they are gift's from God'.


As well as starting knitting again, I have dusted off my sewing machine this week, and I plan to start sewing again this weekend. I will post my projects with photos very soon.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Becky
xx

Short list of things to do instantly in 2011

After the excitement over the last few weeks, and the children safely settled back into school. The time has come to plan some projects for this year. I have so many thoughts, and a lot of inspiration from other lovely people in the blog world, that it is very difficult to decide what to do! Craft is never far from my mind and I would like to learn a new one, but which one? I did have a phase of doing knitting for awhile, I even brought some brand new needles and pink wool.. but I'm afraid the phase only lasted a few weeks, hence I have figured out I am definitely a instant person. Instant in that if I cannot see a result, or finished item, my attention span is diminished and I tend to give up! I started knitting a scarf and ended up with a 10cm row of fluff (which our lovely family cat then destroyed). I suppose hat is why I love sewing, you can have instant results in a relatively short time. I think I need to mull this over.

So while I am contemplating the bigger projects, I have put together a relatively short list of my 2011 instant things to do:

1. Follow Louis Spence on twitter (I love him!)

2. Start running again (instant get fit activity) or walk fast which ever is easier

3. Say Hello to people at the school run, who I don't normally say hello too. (some mornings this can be a real effort)

4. Do not wear my track bottoms on the school run unless I am exercising - which to be honest is not often.

5. Keep reading more books. (Am reading The girl with the dragon tattoo - amazing)

6. Hoover/Vacuum upstairs, out of sight, out of mind.

7. Water house plant ( I only have 1 left as I have managed to kill all the others)

8. Stop spending hours looking for grey hairs on my head and becoming obsessed that It's all downhill.

9. Get a manicure and pedicure, there comes a point when you have to look after Nm1.

10. 1 to 1 with the children... trips to the shops and hot chocolate in a cafe with little Nm2 and bike riding and football/soccer with Mister Nm 1.

Actually I am getting quite excited about my last goal, I will have to arrange that asap, maybe this weekend.
Thank you for all your lovely comments recently, I am also so pleased to have some new followers here at Hazel and Blue, I am very lucky!

What are your 2011 plans? Any wishes or things to do? I would love to know!

Becky xx