Cat Cushions, Tea Towels and Gardening Themed Hanging Hearts For Handmade Monday

This week's been all about making things with my latest fabrics... its been so exciting to see my designs in fabric form and immensely satisfying to see the items i envisioned when i first started working on them through to completion!

I have had so much kind support and generous comments from you folks about these designs in digital form (thank you!) and i really hope that you like what i've created with the fabrics... :)

Colourful Cat Cushions

Regular readers will recognise these colourful cats from recent posts about my cat fabrics and craft papers. I'm really happy with how this design turned out on the linen/cotton blend fabric from Spoonflower...

... and i'm also really with the finished cushion covers i made with it! (see photo at the top of this post)

I have used a double stitched french seam internally for strength and a neat finish and i've also added Free Spirit Designs labels which i'm really happy with too!

They will be listed in my shops soon priced £25.50 each.

Colourful Cat Tea Towel

I also made a tea towel from the colourful cat fabric - perfect for a cat lovers kitchen!

This will also be available in my shops soon, priced £12.50.

'Wash Day' Tea Towel

I had a lot of fun with my wash day design and i'm sooo pleased with how its turned out printed onto fabric - really cheery and fun just how i'd hoped!

So far i've made tea towels with it.

As with all my tea towels it comes with a handy handing hook on the reverse...

...and arrives tied up with pretty string and tag -perfect for pressies!

This tea towel is also priced £12.50 and will be available from all my shops soon!

I still have some of this fabric left over... any idea what you'd like to see it made into..? :)

Gardening Fabrics, Hanging Hearts

If you popped by my blog last week you may remember me mentioning that i'd received the sample swatches of my gardening fabrics. Again, i'm super pleased with how they turned out and i couldn't wait to start creating with them!

These two rustic style hanging hearts are what i've come up with so far...

They each have a hand embroidered panel on the front and are stuffed with wool and some dried lavender too for a lovely aroma!

I love the calm stillness of the garden, even though the plants are busily growing and flowering and insects are busily pollinating (and eating my seedlings!) everything is at peace and its such a relaxing environment to be in...

'Peas and Quiet' encapsulates this for me, i hope it makes you smile too :)

Everyone needs reminding to water the plants don't they, especially at this time of year when thirsty little seedlings quickly suffer without a drink. Well, here's just the thing to hang up as a reminder for yourself (or anyone else you've trusted this vital task with!)

They will both be popping up in my shops soon so keep a look out!

That's it from me for this week. Do join me in exploring all the fabulous Handmade Monday blogs over at Handmade Harbour, there's always lots of lovely things to see :)

Have a wonderful week x

Baking With Love Tea Towels, Rose Garden Tea Cosy And Easter Egg Butterfly Fabric For Handmade Monday

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag weather wise we've had everything from brilliant sunshine (allowing me to photograph my latest makes - yay!) to icy winds and snow!  I enjoy coming up with names for some of the snow hybrids... a cross between snow and drizzle is 'snizzle' and a new addition this week has been ultra tiny hail stones - a cross between snow and hail which i have christened 'snail' :)

But enough of my silliness... i've got lots to show you!

'Baking With Love' Tea Towels

These tea towels (see all three at the top of the page) were actually one of my very first fabric designs when i discovered the joys of Spoonflower a couple of months ago. I love tea towels, they are one of favourite types of 'functional art' - the perfect way to add a touch of colour, flair, style or philosophy to the domestic environment of the kitchen.

I wanted to create something simple and subtle without being bland... a bit countryish but no so much it wouldn't fit in amongst other styles. I hope i've struck that chord with these... i'm pretty pleased with them which is i good start i think!

The delay in showing them to you was waiting for the labels which i've now stitched in alongside a corner loop for hanging.

The fabric is 50% linen and 50% cotton - super absorbant (i have tested it!) with a gorgeous and hardwearing canvas like texture.

Each towel measures 35x54cms. I'm selling them individually for £12.50,

or as a set of three for £35.

They are available now from my Etsy shop and will be listed in my other outlets over the next couple of days.

This set was inspired by my love of baking , the joy of lovingly preparing some sweet delight and watching family and friends tucking in :)  and tucking in myself of course! :)

I have another collection in this style which i've called the 'Happy Kitchen' collection. I wanted to see how these were received before i got anymore printed onto fabric but here's a peak at the digital versions... 

do let me know what you think!

Rose Garden Tea Cosy

I finally got some shots of the latest addition to my rose garden collection this week... a tea cosy! Pictured here with matching tea cups.

It is 32cm wide and 29cms high (excluding loop) - big enough for an average 6 cup teapot and more than adequate for anything smaller... my little two cup teapot is hiding under it in this picture!

The rose garden fabric is beautifully soft organic cotton...

... and the lining is a durable white linen like cotton which is organic too.

(the insulating wadding is also cotton - not organic but i'm working on that one!)

It is priced £19 and available from my now Etsy shop (and will be listed on my website and other outlets very soon).

Butterfly Fabric

Thank you sooooo much to all the lovelies who commented on my last post about my butterfly fabric designs... as always your thoughtful remarks have been super helpful and your support much appreciated! (If you missed out you will find all my butterfly designs in my Spoonflower Shop - they're not for sale yet but they should be in a week or so)

I've added a couple more designs to the collection which i thought i'd finish up by showing you today. There is this one... (image represents a 22x18 inch piece of fabric)

... and also something a little bit different which came about when i decided to enter the weekly fabric design competition over on Spoonflower! (a brave moment for me :))

The coming week's competition theme is 'painted eggs' and once it occurred to me that i could combine the egg shapes from my 'Birds Of A Feather' fabric with the butterflies and flowers i've just been working on...

 ...i had to give it a go!

Here's what an 8x8 inch swatch of the finished design.

And here it is as a 22x18 inch piece.

Only ten submitted designs are picked to be part of the comp so i've no idea if mine will feature... if it does though, all votes appreciated! (the winner gets $100 to spend at Spoonflower :))

Thank you for sticking with me to the end of this lengthy post... :) i hope i haven't given you information overload!

Without further ado lets hop over to Handmade Harbour see what all the other Handmade Mondayers have been up too :)

Have a great week! x

'GB Runs On Tea' Fabric For Handmade Monday

I've had a tricky time trying to decide what to share with you today as i seem to have soooooooo many projects on the go - none of them finished! I have been well and truly bitten by the fabric design bug and in my excitement have been starting new collections here there and everywhere!

Thank you so very much if you were one of the lovely peeps who left one of the wonderfully encouraging comments i got on last week's post about my first ever fabric collection :) I was a little nervous about how it would be received... thank you for putting my mind at rest!

Excitingly, a lovely fellow Etsian contacted me after reading the post and has now become my first ever fabric customer! If you are interested to find out what she bought, you can visit my Spoonflower shop. I must add that i haven't received my own sample of the fabric yet (to check that the colours don't turn out weirdly or anything) - i should get it in the next few days - do contact me for more info.

'GB Runs On Tea' Mug And Tea Towel

As well as developing new design ideas i've also been working on translating some old favourites to the  medium of fabric. My 'GB Runs On Tea' mug is one of my most popular mugs (although it almost always ends up outside the UK which surprises me!)

I felt that the design was perfect for turning into matching fabric accessories - tea towels, tea cosies, coasters etc. I was particularly drawn to the idea of creating a matching tea towel, so this is what i've come up with (i'll show you the finished design in a minute but first i thought some of you might be interested to see how i got there...)

Fabric Design

I don't have any experience with fabric design but i've found that by breaking things down into their component part i've got along quite well (so far!)

I started by drawing each element of the GB Tea design in pen and ink (i could have used a script editor for the writing but i think that this design suits having a slightly 'rough around the edges', hand drawn look... what do you think..?)

The next step was to photograph my drawings, load them up to Pixelmator (photo editor), and change the colours from dull blacks and greys to pretty blue, pink and white!

The final step was to put together the finished design. This involved creating a tea towel sized blank template (brief interlude while i wrestled with DPI, pixels and a 'basic maths' blind spot) and then assembling the component parts.

I ended up with two tea towel designs (which will be sold as a pair) - this one...

... and this slightly simpler design...

It will be a few weeks until they are available to buy but i will of course keep you updated! Alternatively, feel free to contact me to let me know you'd like to be notified :)

What's Next?!

Before i pop over to Handmade Harbour to read about the crafty escapades of my fellow Handmade Mondayer's, i'll give you a sneaky peek of what my next fabric collection is inspired by...

Have a wonderful week :) (and stay warm!)