Caroline and the Machine

Blimey. Near December. As if to underline that fact, my laptop (or rather my finger) clipped caps lock and typed December in capitals then. Shout it at me! I have been trying to make sure I have everything in place for the craft fayres I'm doing over the next couple of weekends and I think I'm kind of there bar the boring fiddly little bits like pricing. I've also had a couple of boxes of tarnished flutes to clean. Then they go and put Masterchef on four nights a week...

So, me and the machine... its on borrowed time, or maybe I'm on borrowed time. Its clattering along, jamming up, breaking threads left right and centre. Every time I sit down in front of it, I don't know whether to sweet talk it or threaten it with a big stick. I was lured by a shiny new (secondhand!) embroidery machine which I still  haven't sat down and got to grips with, but if the old faithful doesn't sort itself out I will be selling up and replacing it. So there.

It did manage to crank its way through some Christmas bags though. Simple things these. Some cotton shopping bags I bought from Hobbycraft, some lovely seasonal fabric and some bondaweb.

Just cut out your shapes from the bondaweb, iron onto the reverse of your fabric, then peel off the backing paper and iron on the the bag. All that's left to do is to machine it on.

I just used a simple straight stitch. The only slight complicating factor is keeping an eye on what's under foot. On several occasions I found I had machined the other side of the bag. Or the handles. Not good. Definitely a case of slow and steady winning the day.

I ordered some ridiculously cheap purse frames last week and when they arrived I was a little thrown. The ones I have been used to dealing with have a channel all the way round to glue the fabric into, whereas these just had one along the top. I did a little old Internet search and found this: Fabric clutch complete with video tutorial. So, so easy, I knocked out a couple of them in under and hour. Now how's that for quick end results?

I'll leave you with one of my key rings. I love these bunnies! Urban Threads, you've done it again.

I am at Bawdeswell Pamper and Craft Fayre on Saturday 26th November at the village hall, 10-4.

Check out my shop www.whatcarolinemade.co.uk

Take care. xx

Quick Update

Wow, Wednesday already. We had a great time out on Saturday night, my first night out quite probably since the girls were born, but will definitely not be left that long again!
Colds and sneezes are hopefully behind us for the moment although they do seem to come one on top of each other sometimes. But for now, normal service has been resumed! Yey. And that means that the neglected old sewing machine has been seeing some action. So here's some pics of what I have been up to recently. All of these are now, or will be- that's my next job; listed on my shop site which is www.whatcarolinemade.co.uk

Plenty of girly bags. Birthday parties have depleted my stock so I thought I'd better whip up a few more. I'll stick a tutorial on for these soon as they are so easy to make, and so cute!

Ice cream apron. Again for the little ones, with two big pockets for useful stuff.

Talking of pockets for useful stuff, I'm always looking for scissors, tape, ruler etc when I'm making things, which are never where I left them (its the small gremlins in the house, they move things when I'm not looking) Anyway, when I got this fabric, I was initially going to just use it for a cushion cover, but it seemed to lend itself to these. A crafty tool belt with lots of pockets. For stuff.

And a couple of bags. Haven't made any full size bags in a while. I'm also on a bit of a mission to use up some of my rather large collection of fabrics.

So that's it. I haven't had chance to use my new toys yet and there's a saxophone that needs beating into working order this evening. Now where's my big stick....?