Today I had a bit of time, and after a crappy week I wanted to make something nice and bright for a bit of cheer.

After a quick trip to Ikea I found this fabulous Swedish fabric and got to making a 30 minute skirt.

This skirt has an elastic waist so is incredibly simple to make.

I took the instructions from my Sew What! skirt book.

My mate just had a baby and I wanted to give her something crafty for the baby but have been a bit strapped for time.

So I picked up a project that I started at one of our first Den sessions.  Mrs B brought along a pattern for a dinosaur softie that her aunt gave her and I copied the pattern.  Unfortunately I did not write down any instructions (because I have this false sense of craftiness that I can create anything – which usually ends in failure!)

So I was guessing as I went along and like most Ikea projects ended up with some bits left over and had to restuff it after I realised I had left its bum open and stuffing it from there and restuffing would leave a messy… well bum.

Plus the fabric I used is curtain material and was fraying badly as I stuffed around with it.

If you don’t look too closely it turned out ok although I have had to give instructions for Raff not to play with it due to the small parts and some dodgy  sewing but looking at it, its ok.

Tips for young players – curtain fabric is not the best for softies – the fabric looked like it was going to pull and fray so more research into curtain fabric and sewing is needed (I have 5 mtrs of this fabric because I loved it!)

Anyway… dinosaur.  A cute little project that with different fabric, time and patience could be much better!

Its the Cath Kidston shop from the book Make It!

It was lovely – she really does have a thing for roses though.

Saw a gorgeous dress in there but was 140 quid so I left it…

Also saw some tops craft books in Tate Modern…

So clever and so stylish… a new project for the Den girls?
http://tumblingblocks.net/blog/index.cfm/2008/9/22/Honeycomb-Smocking-Tutorial

Lis says, “I would like to thank Sophie at Materialise in Nedlands for the inspiration and the recipe to make this skirt.

It uses panels of scrap (or in this case special-favourite) material, sewn together leaving most edges raw to fray.

Make two skirt layers as one will be an under skirt to give it fullness. Then a gather stitch at the top, and then binding sewn on top of that. Gorgeous!

Sophie is more than happy to direct clueless sewers and she also takes students for craft/sewing tuition. info@materialiseyourlife.com

My mum has made a bunch of them for friends’ daughters who have recently had kids and they all rave about how useful they are.

Mum gave me the pattern and I spent a lovely day last week with PG at Calico and Ivy looking at fabric…a dangerous move as I now have a new favourite shop!

This feeding pillow is so easy to make – with the overlocker and sewing machine it took about 10 minutes.

I love the fabric with the red flowers and the tiger,  owl and birds on it and I used a lime green fabric on the back for contrast.

I think this may be the new gift for new mums coming from the Den!

I  grabbed a couple of hours and finally got to sewing.

The pattern came off a Mixed Tape pattern that was sent with the last craftzine and I made them for little Parksie.

I sewed in some ribbon so the three sized dolls stay together when the little girls want to play with them.

So this week the Den girls got together and crafted up some these darling birds to give to Mrs B when her baby comes.

Well LRB came this week so bird production went into overdrive and today we presented her with her little bird mobile.

I also found a bunch of bells that we had lying around the house (don’t ask me why) and we included them so the birds jingle when you move them.

This was a fabulous project that we created together – and made a beautiful and original gift that  hopefully LRB will cherish (and doesn’t give her freakish bird nightmares!).

I loaded up a post about baby cloth shoes last week and this week I had a crack at them. They turned out to be a bit fiddlier than I thought and I had a little trouble with these ones so I am putting them down to being the prototype (even though they are someone else’s design)

Check out the result, so cute…

Lis told us how she did it.