My Sewing Related Birthday Gifts!

I've just sat down to type this and realised I haven't photographed two of my crafty related presents because I'm a moron. So in the interest of me not going back downstairs my friends Steve and Ellie also got me some wool and a book on embroidered flowers! 

So it was my birthday on Saturday!!!!! Yay I kept it pretty low key this year, we had drinks with friends on Friday and then the Saturday was mainly relaxing and eating pizza. I was planning on seeing my mum and dad on the Monday BUT i woke up feeling really under the weather and cancelled and instead they came this morning! 

Which works well for two reasons 

1. If i felt ill today they could take lil man to school for me,

2. I got to see them!

As it goes I felt a lot better this morning so after we had dropped lil man off, we walked the dog and went for a lil look in our local shopping centre and had tea and cake. I went for chocolate fudge cake and mum chose carrot cake, which I refuse to think of as a cake because it has carrots in so its more of a five a day thing.....

Anyway here's what they got me. Everything is from my previous "gift for sewists post" so I'm not going to put links here because I don't want to be googling how much things cost. 

Scissors! 

Ive already had these out the box and they seem pretty good! Naturally they will be featuring on one of my scissor review blog posts! 

Finally a tshirt to wear with all of my me made skirts!!! Cannot wait to wear this! 

Wrist ruler! I have wanted one of these for absolutely ages!!! I've had it on all day and I can happily report that its comfortable to wear and  the measurements are accurate.

 It is however an absolute pain in the backside to take pictures of your own hand without it looking like a claw! So I ended up holding some scissors! 

Button gauge, I mean an actual freaking button gauge! *Immediately runs to make all the things with buttons!*

I've not really been in the mood for sewing at the moment but getting these gifts has given me some motivation to get stuff done and to start making things again! I mean I can;t leave all that fabric languishing in a cupboard now can I? It'll get lonely and think no one loves it! 

Whats the best sewing gift you've ever received ????

Much Love 

Frankie 

A Kimono for Chelsey

It was our next door neighbour Chelsey's birthday last week . 

Luckily for me we wanted a kimono cardigan for her holiday and also luckily for me she didn't find one when she went shopping.

I used the simple sew kimono wrap dress pattern to make it. I've made this once before and I love my version. And I figured seen as me and Chels are about the same size then I could use the same cut pattern pieces as I normally use. (I've seen her in it and yay it fits!!!!!)

Construction wise its really really simple just the shoulder and side seams both of which I sewed on my over locker. 

Then I sewed round all the edges with my overlocker so I'd have something firm to turn over for the hems. I always tend to do this with fine fabrics because it gives a really neat finish and a really small hem.

The whole thing probably didn't take more than an hour to sew. In fact the cutting out probably took the most time because the fabric was so darn shifty. I didn't trust my dining room table not to make the fabric stretch and hang funny so I moved the coffee table and the rug and cut it out on the living room floor. 

I added one of my labels to the back because,e I thought it might be a nice touch. As it goes it actually tricked overtone into thinking it was from a real shop!!! 

Which I'm taking as a win because I guess it means my sewing looks super professional! Lol! 

Anyways it went down really well and I think she liked it! 

In other news : 

Polly is still settling in, so far she likes me and Marcus. She likes Rikki most of the time unless he makes any sudden movements or raises his arms above his head (which leads me to believe that a man used to hurt her, she also won't walk near men and cowers away from them which backs my theory up)

It's bloody hot! I've been enjoying to chance to wear my summer dresses gut the rest of the time I've just been lazing around trying not to sweat.

I went to the abakhans fill a bag sale this morning!!! It was awesome and I got lots of fabric (I'll do a separate post on those). It was a bit stressful though, Rikki was on nights so I was terrified that Polly was going to bark and wake him up!!! And I had to take Marcus with me which meant I was worried about loosing him. Luckily my mum dad and sister came with me so they did a lot of the Marcus watching whilst I did a lot of the burrowing for fabric. 

And he did some choosing of fabrics of his own!! Fabrics for me of. Purse but I let him pick s few things and he actually said he had fun so that's a win!

Much love

Frankie 

Xxxx

Vendula London Sewing Shop Handbag

Birthdays are the best! I mean boo to getting older but YAY for presents [I realise as an adult I;m suppose to be like "oh yeah I don't need presents, its just another day..." But no......]

This was my birthday present from my Mum and Dad! I'd actually mentioned wanting one a few weeks ago on here but I had no idea they were taking notes! [ I'D ALSO LIKE A PONY!]

Anyway I thought it might be nice to do a lil blog post looking at the bag after which I would naturally pop it back into its protective outer bag because well I don't want to ruin it now do I !? 

So the front closes with a twisty catch thing, I have no idea what this is called but it stops it popping open and your phone falling out , which yes has happened to me before. 

This is the box bag which is the second largest size they do and pretty much perfect for day to day use. Its got a zip pocket on the back and a zip pocket on the inside. Funny story, for years I thought the inside pocket on a handbag was officially called the tampon pocket because that's what my mum called it........ Bit embarrassing when I realised other people keep other things in it. The inside is also lined with a cute london print!

The bag is made from faux leather and some of the details on the front are sewn on by hand. The details on this bag are crazy guys, there's a sewing machine, a shop front sign that swings, rolls of fabric which are made from ACTUAL fabric and a little mannequin! 

I mean guys as far as handbags go this is pretty freaking adorable! I could look at it all day and still find something new! 

The back has a bicycle and a cat on because lets face it you can never have too much twee! 

It comes with a shoulder strap but I'd say you could use it as a clutch bad as well as the strap detaches. 

You can view the whole sewing range here!

But I would definitely recommend taking a look at the whole website! I'm now lusting after the music shop bag, the diner and the bookshop as well as the whole of the cinema line!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

Thoughts on Shopping

I went shopping.

Yep, me that girl who's sews her clothes, she went shopping!

Now back in the day I was quite the fan of shopping and I was pretty good at it, however after so many years of saving money for weddings and babies and then making a lot of my own clothes my thoughts on shopping have changed a lot!

For starters let me say I had a great time, I had a voucher for my birthday so I didn't have to stump up the cash and I went by myself which was BLISS! There is nothing quite like having an afternoon to please yourself without having a small child or husband whinging about how long your taking! 

And I enjoyed this a lot more than my last shopping trip trying to find swimwear! 

So here's a list of the good and bad points of shopping compared to sewing!

THE GOOD!

- There's no wait time, you think of something you want and its in your hand instantly. You don't have to find fabric, find a pattern and cut it out!

- You can try to see if its looks good. There is nothing worse than spending hours sewing something only to find you look like a big bog of poop in it! With shopping you pop to the changing room and decide without parting with any time or money!

- I can buy shoes! I LOVE SHOES! The bottom of my wardrobe is filled with shoes! In fact on my shopping trip I brought two pairs of shoes a pair of black flats and a pair of Minnie mouse trainers , now I could learn to make shoes but the amount of walking I do means they would all be wrecked and I think that would break my heart a lil bit!

- I can buy other things I have no interest in making like basic tshirts, slips and pants!

- Band tshirts! I can't make band tshirts so its nice to pick one up every now and again! 

THE BAD!

- Why so many crop tops? I must have found about 10 tops that I LOVED but they were basically bras! I mean cmon! Would it be so hard to create tops in two lengths? one for people who want to flash their tummy's and one for people who don't?

- One sleeve , the same goes for the one sleeve trend! I dunno if its just me but I love my arms equally and want them to both be the same amount of warmness, I mean what do you do if your exposed arm gets cold? Do they sell half a cardi? I need answers people!!!!

- Changing rooms! I MEAN CHANGING ROOMS! EURGH! Its the worst thing about shopping. Having to remove your clothes in a small room with a questionable floor and worse lighting whilst a thin curtain separates you from a group of teenagers who would have no issue with ridiculing you should the bloody thing start to flap and reveal you in your shopping pants, standing on one leg, trying to cram yourself into a pair of jeans that your not sure are sized accurately...... Changing rooms eurgh! I would love a clean changing room, with multiple mirrors, lots a hooks to hang things, a chair to sit smalls on and a door! A REAL DOOR! none of this half sized door crap just a full sized lets not flash the public door! 

which brings me nicely to my second point!

- People in changing rooms. I'm not sure whats worse having to hear people use the word fat to describe themselves "I look so fat in this I'm huge!!!!" or hearing people slag off other people in the changing rooms "OMG did you see her in that! She looked awful!" I mean cmon! Really? Women shaming other women? Not cool and shaming yourself even worse! I mean your not fat! You have fat, fat is not who you are! 

That said I really did have a great time and I got some awesome stuff!!!! Plus I got some great ideas for things to make! 

So I can't wait to get sewing next week!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

Hobbycraft Haul

You may have noticed that I dont actually do many Haul posts and well that's because I don't really buy much stuff throughout the year. Instead I tend to rely on kind family and friends who are getting rid of fabric #GIVEMEYOURCURTAINS!

And birthday and Christmas money and vouchers! Luckily for me I got two hobbycraft vouchers for my birthday and I finally found time to email Hobbycraft and get them combined [fun fact, you can only use one gift card at a time on the Hobbycraft website however if you message them on Facebook they will combine them and send you a new gift card with the full amount] and spend them!

So without further ado here's what I got!

So I got three balls of wool on the three for two offer that they were running and they were £1 each but because of the offer I only paid £2. These are destined to be baby booties and hats.

I picked up a pack of hobbycraft pins for £1 and a magnetic pincushion for £5. this pincushion is a game changer I literally just throw pins at it and I love how neat and tidy it looks!

My first ever set of Washi tapes! These ones are Christmas themed and came as a three pack for £1. 

Some red paint, this was meant to be for my wooden advent calendar, but I ended up using gloss because it covered better. £1

paint brushes, because you can never have enough paint brushes!  £2

I got a pack of assorted sewing machine needles because I always stock up at Hobbycraft, they were £2.50 and I picked up a magnetic seam guide in an effort to make my seams neater. This wasn't the one pictured on the website which miffed me off a bit but I mentioned it to Hobbycraft and they said hemline have changed the design and they have updated the website and for any inconvenience they are sending me a gift card. But anyway the seam guide was £2.50 and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! I love the accuracy it gives me particularly with going around corners. 

A set of measuring spoons, £1. These seamed like an absolute steal! one side is spoons and one sides is cups. They sit inside each other and have a little magnet so they stay together in the drawer.

And this was my big spend, this cost £12 and is a wooden advent calendar. I've been wanting a wooden calendar for a while now and I think this one is going to look super cute sat on our fireplace! Ive already started painting and my only quibble is that it takes loads of layers of paint to get a decent finish and that its super fiddly to do. I think I might have liked it better if It had already been sprayed white so you had a plain base to start with!

and it might have saved me some curse words! FYI if you do buy one of these use acrylic paint! it gives the best finish!

And that's it! 

Hopefully I get some Christmas spends so I can go fabric shopping and do a fabric shopping haul!!!

Much Love 

Frankie 

xxx

Catch up time

So i think i can officially say that September has been a hectic month!

so I'll start from the beginning, we had my birthday which was lovely and i was a lucky girl and was given two hobby craft vouchers, i brought several things including a new pair of fabric scissors and some thread as well as this little beauty.

Ive never tried needle felting so I'm looking forward to giving it a go and seeing how i enjoy it. I especially like that there are three of them , like my little family. and at only £3 its an absolute bargain!

Ive also received some gifts from someone who reads my blog and we've become rather good pen pals! Its nice to have someone to talk to about sewing and knitting. She has been kind enough to send some patterns some of which will be making an appearance very soon, a seam allowance tool which i think will come in very handy for pattern drafting and some fabric. One piece has already been cut and is waiting to be sewn and another i know exactly what i want to do with it!

I also photographed my first wedding last weekend, It was a lot fun even if it was a lot of pressure!!! I'm happy with a lot of the pictures Ive got and i did a better job than i thought i would! sadly theres not many pictures of me due to my photographer responsibilities but here's a blurry on of me and Mr knitwit stood together whilst i took pictures!

and the bride and groom gave me these beautiful flowers as a thank you! It was completely unexpected in fact i didn't even have any shoes on when i went to get them!

You can see a few of the photos once they have been approved by the bride! Hopefully she likes them as much as i do. Even if it was a really long day, we got up at seven, little knitwit threw up in the car on the way down (luckily he wasn't in his suit) I had to clear of the car using a combination of wet wipes and an old asda carrier bag that's been in the car since Christmas whilst trying to avoid getting any puke on myself (i was already dressed for the wedding) then i had a whole day of photography ahead of me! I definitely didn't need to be dealing with sick in the morning that's for sure!

But it was all worth it! i felt very privileged to watch the bride get ready on her special day and it was an honour to e trusted with such a huge responsibility.

In other news!!! I have a tutorial up on the craft cotton website!!! Its my first proper tutorial so pop over and have a peruse of their gorgeous fabrics and give it a whirl!!!



I'm very proud of myself and it feels like this is a step in the right direction for what id like to be doing with my future!!!

And theres two more tutorials to go!!! so keep your eyes peeled!

much love

Frankie

x

Happy Birthday To ME!

So its been a while since I've blogged. It's been a pretty hectic week, ya know with it being my birthday and all. Yeah I'm now the big 23, I'm pretty sure that's grown up territory but boy I cannot wait until I'm 24. I hate being an odd number old.

But enough about my phobia of odd numbers. Here's a small selection of my gifts that are particularly noteworthy, blogwise!

I got small owl print fat quarter's from my mum and dad, they are from the Craft Cotton Company who might just stock the most adorable fabrics in the whole entire world!

I got a wireless remote for my slr camera which hopefully means I'll be able to take better quality outfit pictures. Previously I was using my iphone but unless I took them at precisely the right time they were coming out very grainy.

But it was Mr Knitwit who really made my day (althought it said it was from little knitwit too) with this tablet and keyboard which Im blogging on right now! Its fantastic Ive already realised i can hook up my camera to import pictures aswell as play games and keep up on social media! Really its just a big phone but it makes life a lot easier! Plus I've downloaded a drawing app and I've spent the past two days drawing pretty pictures of things I'd like to make.

And that's it really, I got other lovely gifts too, like two gorgeous jumpsuits and some gift cards aswell as the sparkliest belt I have ever since!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Mr knitwits birthday cake!

It's inly a brief one today! It's me knitwits birthday and although he's at work, poor sausage! 

We did celebrate yesterday though, we did presents and had a takeaway and went out and had friends over! It was a really lovely pre birthday! 

But today is for cake! 

It's a design from Disney sweets and treats and I think it's the best cake I've made from the magazines! 

And Mr knitwits loves it too! It combines his favourite thing "gaming" and lil knitwits favourite thing "toy story"! 

I just hope it tastes nice! I made two cakes one where I had to cut off the burnt bits and another where I was one egg short and had to improvise! 

Eek! 

Much love

Frankie

Xxx

Lil knitwit the big 3 year old!

This post comes to you from the past....

Yeah I wrote it yesterday and scheduled it to post today (your yesterday not mine!)

this post was supposed to go out on the 24th January my lil boys birthday but due to a temperamental internet signal it failed to post!

My beautiful baby boy turns three today! He's very excited about the presents and more specifically his BIFDAY CAKE !!! 

Here he is when he was first born! 

My tiny lil 5lb3oz ball of warmth! He was immediately taken to the bro natal ward because of his low temperature and then stated due to his difficulty feeding, (hence the tube!) but he pulled through and is now a lively and lovely lil boy! And a lot of that us due to the support of the neonatal nurses at Leighton hospital, in particular a lady called Anne? Who bundled him up and switched off his hot cot in the hopes that he would hold his own temperature! She took a risk and it payed off for us! We got to take him home a whole month before scheduled! 

This is me in the first days of being a mum! Not too tired becuase I wasn't doing the night feeds, but in heaps if pain and worried about my ickle baby! (And yes he is wrapped in my cardigan to help him stay warm!)

But anyway back to his BIFDAY CAKE! which is going to have CANGLES! For him to BWOW out! 

I didn't have much time so I opted for a toy story one from disney sweets and treats and added a 3! 

Complete with woodsy sheriff badge! 

And his face! 

This was actually the quicker I've completed a cake from these magazines but I'm pleased with the result, I think it's because it's a simpler cake! I've also created a new resolution to bake once a week whilst lil Knitwit is at nursery hopefully this will satisfy my sweet tooth and justify my subscription to disney sweets and treats!! 

Much love 

Frankie

Xxx 

Bless em, they're not as dim as they look

As promised I thought I'd share my sewing related birthday presents! 

First and foremost! I got a rotary cutter and mat! 

I already love it, and have no idea how I survived without out it! Even if mr Knitwit does refer to it as the fabric pizza cutter! This present is all thanks the mummy and daddy, and it came with a bundle of Christmas fat quarters aswell!

I also got this lil book on styling vintage! (Big sister always finds the best books!) and I've already read it cover to cover! I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who likes playing around with vintage looks! 

Momma and daddy Knitwit also added to my book collection with this beauty about vintage fashion! I'm a firm believer that you can never have too many books about clothes, or well books for that matter! I think this is what's called a coffee table book? But I tend to refer to them as mummy time books! 

And it has beautiful full colour images! 

And mr Knitwit really outdid himself book wise! 

I'm a massive marvel nerd so this book pushes my buttons in all the right ways ( anyone who thinks superheroes pushing your buttons is wierd obviously hasn't seen Hugh jackman as wolverine) and due to the HUGE amount if illustrations I think I'm going to be seeing some marvel based embroideries in my future! 

And my last sewing related gift (I got a lot of none sewing related gifts as well including the pikichu onsie I shared yesterday) this is the one I hinted for, it's basically the one I demanded. And it's the one that lovely big sister and brother in law got me! 

Tada! I got it! Yay! Love at first stitch now resides at my house! YAY! 

Now so I don't get over excited and storm in all guns blazing here's what I plan to do! The projects are set out in order of difficulty, perfect for beginners like me who are just learning to make clothes "properly". So I'm going to start at the beginning and work my way through! And the plan is to do one version as the book states, and one variation, so by the end I should have two versions of each piece ! (And after I've finished , which I'm determined I will ! I'm going to treat myself to the coco pattern! But only after I'm finished! ) 

I'm really hoping this book will give me a better knowledge if dress making! 

Now the first project is the Bridgette scarf, so keep your eyes peeled for the original version in all it's glory and my altered style! 

Much love

Frankie

Xxx