Fabric stash

I cut into my Denise Schmidt stash last night to make some grocery bags. Can't wait to show you.

Box Pouch

Box Pouch, originally uploaded by MandyMade.

Another gift finished. This one is for AJ's teacher. When I asked him what he wanted to give his teacher this year he thought about it for a while then asked if I could make something round, tin shaped. With a bit of probing I got out of him what it was he was thinking about. Apparently his teacher has a tin for her white board markers but its not big enough and they go everywhere. So he was trying to think of something to replace it. Once he'd thought about it a bit more he said I'd made what he was thinking about before, so I showed him some photos and he picked a pouch I'd made a year ago. So that was picked, yay. I had a different box pouch pattern that I'd pinned and wanted to try, perfect. He picked the fabric and this is the result. A bit bigger than I thought it would be but he loved it so all is good.

I boxed the corners by cutting first instead of making a triangle and measuring. I find this technique easier. I also used really thick interfacing so it sits in its box shape really well. I think there may be more made!


I used www.sochickhandbags.com tutorial.

Gift making

The gift giving season has begun. But before I can start on chrissy gifts there are a few birthdays to gift to first.

And I am of course behind in my making so this gift was gifted yesterday instead of the beginning of the month!! Sorry about the photos, late night photo shoot, no amount of photo styling could help!! This was a gift for my craft buddies eldest. She turned 12 and has a mild obsession with the moustache at the mo.

The pattern is Michelle's Zip Pocket Pouch. This is the small version. Great for cards or coins. I added a loop and hook. If you would like to make one too pop over here, it's not too late to start the handmade Christmas!

Oh yeah, this thing is cute.

Oh yeah, this thing is cute., originally uploaded by michellepatterns.

Michelle has a new pattern out. It's a re work of her pleated pouches pattern. It has some new sizes and new techniques. I have a dilemma on my hands. Do I buy the new pattern or experiment with different sizes myself? It's on sale this weekend so I better decide quick. If you want a pattern there is a button on my side bar linking to her shop or click here. Happy sewing.

Blog make over

I've done a bit of a blog make over. Tidied a few things up. Created headings. Very easy to do I found out! What do you think?

Another quick gift

What do you get someone that has almost everything they want/need? A gift voucher for their favourite book shop.

What do you put the voucher in?

A fabric envelope of course.

Complete with Paris and Bikes, a favourite of the recipient.
Very quick and easy to make, and can be used afterwards for all sorts of things. I used my mum's gallery invite for the photo. Another perfect use.
So if you are giving gift vouchers for Christmas this year, why not whip up something special that can be used as wrapping and a handy pouch for later.

TTFN

Inset Zip Clutch

Inset Zip Clutch, originally uploaded by MandyMade.

I made this clutch so long ago but only just got it off my camera. I've started to become such an iPhone photo taker that I forget about my poor beloved Nikon. It's a faze I'm sure it is.

I made this clutch for my craft buddy's youngest for her 4th birthday, so she can carry around all those little toys girls play with these days.

I added a strap so she can pop it over her head to carry.

This may look like a tricky pattern with the zip inset like that, but it really was easy to make. I love how the zip turned out. I'd like to make more of these. If you would like to make one, pop over to Michelle Patterns (button on the right side bar). It also includes a smaller pouch version. If you would like to know how I added the strap, just let me know.

TTFN

The idea pouch

Source: Michelle Patterns on Flickr

Michelle has a new pattern. The idea pouch. Cool name. I made myself an iPad pouch a while ago (and I just realised I didn't blog about it here!! You can go to my other blog though). It has a pocket in the front I can put pens into but they are just swimming around in there. This idea to have pen pouches seems a lot more sturdy and things will stay in place for easy reach. I still love my cover, but I may make this one as a spare if its all I'm taking with me. Love the closure too. The pattern is on sale at the moment so better pop over and get it.

Source: Michelle Patterns on Flickr

Open Wide Pouches

Open Wide Pouches, originally uploaded by MandyMade.

I needed a toiletries bag for work and noodlehead had just blogged about some open wide pouches she'd made. So I made some too. Using hers as inspiration and changing things slightly (I have to fiddle!). Now I have a large toiletries bag for work, a smaller one for girls weekends and a makeup pouch. I think the smaller one needs some work, I don't like how angled it is at the sides, that will teach me for fiddling!! I used ikea fabric, it's a good weight, I didn't need to interface. I want to make some with the laminated fabric inside. I'm on a no fabric buying month so it will have to be another time!! They look kind of Dr Seuss don't they?!

Owl coin purse.

Owl coin purse., originally uploaded by MandyMade.

Feels so long since I've made something from Michelle's patterns, but it hasn't. I just keep forgetting to blog about it so I can record and remember it! Too much sewing not enough blogging? No, that's the way it should be!

Very cute and easy to make. I think this will be my go to pattern for girls birthdays for the time being. I added a snap instead of Velcro ( I hate sewing with Velcro) but I think its going to be too hard to open and close and may have to use Velcro. It's too small for a magnetic snap.

If you would like to sew one too click on the button for Michelle patterns on my side bar.

TTFN

Owl coin purse pattern from Michelle Patterns


This post contains affiliate codes.

Work pass holder

I made myself a holder for my work swipe pass, you know, one of those white plastic things that would get lost if not in something. Just need to make a lanyard to go with it. Much harder to loose now and looks snazzy to boot!

Back on the hook

And hopefully back into blogging. So many things have just got in the way, like life maybe?

It's school holidays here at the moment and we have all been sick, yuck. Seems like everyone in Melbourne is at the moment. Sewing at the machine while I'm sick usually spells disaster, so I've picked up the hook again.

I've been eying off Planet June crochet patterns for ages, waiting for the right time. Well the right time came so I bought and made a few! Here they are.

First up a few of her free tutorials, just to make sure I wanted to start again and my fingers would cope. So I made the baby whale, apple and pear. These are now sitting on my desk at work.

By the time I'd finished the pear I was hooked (get it!!) again so I bought a set of dino patterns and the lemmings pattern.

Baby Brachy

Baby Stegy

Oh no! Lemmings

I've also been playing with a few photo editors for the iPad and iPhone. Haven't found my "look" yet. It's all flickers fault, I had a look, oh well.

I think another reason I haven't been blogging is I've been having trouble loading the pics from my camera onto the big computer, so I've been iPhoning all my pics. I guess its a certain look, just haven't found one I like yet.

I've got one dino left to make in the set. AJ has already put an order in for a T-rex! He wants a bucket full of dinosaurs!!

Well hopefully this will be the start of blogging again. You can always find me over at Ditto Crafts too.

Happy Hooking

TTFN

Been too long

So busy making for others I haven't had time to blog.

Here is what my son is now into. Making scarves on a barbie knitting machine my sister had as a kid.
He wants to make one for everyone! Teddy is the perfect size.

New purchase

Bags the Modern Classics by Sue Kim

I'm always on the lookout for new patterns to buy. There are so many talented pattern makers out there. One day I hope to have the time to design some of my own. But for now I'm cuddling up on the couch with my new book. Have you bought any good patterns lately?

Edit: I'm trying to load a photo from instagram. Please excuse me while I feel totally lost in todays social media, and I used to be so savvy! Any clues would be wonderful.


Edit again: Ok worked it out I hope, let me know if you can't see a photo!

4th blogiversary

I've made it to 4 years! I have never been able to keep any type of diary. I always have the best intentions and eagerness but they never last more than a month or so. So to be blogging for 4 years has just amazed me no end. There has been times when I haven't written a post for months but I've always gone back to it.  Having a blog has enabled me to meet some amazing people in person and online, and I would never have met one of my best friends if it wasn't for this blog. I've been able to connect with like minded and crafty people that I would never have met and grown my sewing ability and range. It has though encouraged me to spend a bit on fabric and the like but that may have happened anyway!

Looking back at the past 4 years I've changed and grown. I first got back into sewing by making softies but I haven't made one for ages. I wanted to get into quilting at one stage and have every intention to go back to it. At the moment it's all about making accessories for either friends family myself or to sell through Ditto Crafts. I find so much satisfaction in finishing an item then being able to share it with the world, doesn't matter if nobody reads it, but it's great if someone else is inspired to make their own. I think that is the biggest thrill. For me it's not about showing off but sharing and inspiring.

I want to have a giveaway to celebrate, but what to give away? I've explored so many things in the past 4 years. Any ideas? After all I will be giving something away to one of you.

Last of all, thank you so much to those who read and comment. It means so much to me.

Here are a few things in April I've made in the past 4 years.

April 2008 - first softie

April 2009 - first bag

April 2010 - library bag

April 2011 - Melly & Me Stitchery

April 2012 - Zip Pouches

New name

Small Zip Pouch

Keyka Lou is changing her name did you know? I did but I'm only getting around to posting about it. She is now called Michelle Patterns. Same look same patterns different name. She's having an anniversary sale on her patterns at the moment. If you are quick you might still be able to get some great patterns for $5. What with the US time difference and all. Just click the link on my side bar, I'll be updating it to the new name soon. So I'll start going on about Michelle not Keyka Lou from now on, pop over to her blog if you would like to know more. I'm not going to update past posts though! She has also brought some of her old patterns out of retirement for only $3, you can find them on her blog. Happy sewing, perfect weather for it here in Melbourne!

Another Jane Green pouch

Another Jane Green pouch, originally uploaded by MandyMade.

My Aunt bought a camera, and naturally needed a pouch for it to go in. Jane Green again but this time with flowers on it. That's her kitchen table in the background!

Pattern by Keyka Lou - Pleated Pouches
Handmade by MandyMade

Another successful sewing week

I didn't post about it but this weeks goal, following Keyka Lou's weekly goal challenge, was to make up some passport covers for our next market. And I did it, I finished them. Now I want to make more!

Finished already

I finished my weekly goal already. Nothing like Little O sleeping for 3 hours, I got some sewing done!

Zip Pouches

You can see here I'm playing along with Keyka Lou's goal of the week challenge and that I wanted to make her zip pouches in all 3 sizes. I've had the pattern a little while and have been hanging out to make them. I cut the fabric out last week then sewed them up yesterday.

Inside the small Zip Pouch

I was hoping the medium one would be big enough to fit the families prescriptions in so they wouldn't be floating around in my bag, but it's not quite tall enough. I think I'll try making another with the width of the medium but the height of the tall, I can do that, surely. The small one is perfect for excess cards so my purse isn't so fat. The tall one doesn't quite fit my phone but I think it would fall out too easily when its opened up anyway. I'd like to make some for our next market. I think the small would be the best seller, what do you think?

Now onto a different topic. You may have noticed a difference in the 2 photos, or not. I'm very grumpy with flickr and picnic at the moment. Picnic for closing and flickr for picking such a bad replacement. I did my best with aviary, the replacement, but it doesn't have the 2 tools I rely on for my "look", rounded edges and the text I used for my watermark. You can only do rounded edges if you also use a filter, the there is only 1 font for text, so I'm grumpy. The bottom photo I tried using a free download on the iPad, pixlromatic. It does the rounded edges, but not much else. Maybe I'll try combining the two or actually start using photoshop!

Have you finished your weekly goal?

TTFN

Weekly Goal

This week I have decided to participate in Keyka Lou's Weekly Goal challange so I can get something finished! This week I plan on completing her Zip Pocket Pouches in all 3 sizes. Do you have a weekly goal?

Dobby the house elf

..has come to live at our house.

Dobby's close up

I made Dobby for AJ for his 7th birthday. He was fun to make, I loved how he came together and his character was there almost straight away.

Dobby

I bought the pattern here from Lucy Ravenscar. I love her patterns. You may recall the Ewoks I made a couple of years ago also from a pattern she designed. Her patterns are very easy to follow with handy hints also. I decided not to crochet Dobby's clothes but used an old tea towel instead.

AJ with Dobby

AJ also had a Harry Potter themed birthday. Here he is in his quidditch robes. All of his friends dressed up, they all looked fantastic. They watched the first movie, well kinda, they were all a bit excited to sit down and watch. They all had a good time, boy the first movie is long!

Hogwarts Castle

We made a Hogwarts Castle cake for the party too. I say we cos the hairy bloke made the cake and I decorated it.

It's been a big couple of weeks leading up to this party, I'm exhausted now. Might be re-thinking the whole party thing next year. I don't mind the organising and planning, it's the very excited naughty boy that appears in our house before hand that I don't like!!

TTFN

Lots of making

I do feel I have been making a few things of late, unlike last month, still not getting as much made as I would like though.

Camera Lens Cap Pouches

I made a few more camera lens cap pouches on request for Ditto Crafts. This time making them slightly larger to fit bigger lens caps. I think this larger size came out a lot better. The green one at the top has a snap at the back to clip over the camera strap instead of having to take the strap off the camera to fit it on. The friend I made it for requested this and I think I'll be sticking with it if I make more. Still making it based on this tutorial but slowly coming up with my own way of making them.

Baby Doll bibs and nappies with a little bag to put them in

It was my nieces 2nd birthday last week and on request from my sister I made her doll some nappies and bibs. I used the bib pattern I made up and shrank it. I was worried that it was going to be too small but turned out just right. I had a cloth nappy for my cabbage patch kid back in the 80's. Thats him in the pic, looking ok for a 27 year old!! So I used that as a base for the pattern. I had made a promise to myself, and others, that I wouldn't buy fabric from spotlight for the foreseeable future, not that its bad or anything, just that I have so much fabric I need to use and its just too easy to buy more when spotty is just up the road! But I couldn't resist, look at those adorable owls, and that dolls clothesline fabric, can you blame me?

iPhone cozy

I've also been mucking around with some iPhone cosies to sell, inspired by others I have seen. My felt isn't quite thick enough so I'm going to have to pad it a bit more, what do you think?

I have another show and tell but that one deserves it's own post, until then....

TTFN

Just a bit of advertising

Large Pleated Kindle Pouch - by DittoCrafts on madeit

I sell stuff I make, did you know? Along with another ace crafty chick we sell under Ditto Crafts. Pop over and have a look. Lots of different things in the store at the moment, and with mothers day coming, I'm sure you'll find something :-).

TTFN

New Keyka Lou Pattern

Super Padded Pouch, originally uploaded by keykalou.

Have you seen? Keyka Lou has a new pattern out. It's a new Padded Camera Pouch and comes in 4 sizes. I'm hoping the extra large one will fit a dslr. Use the keyka lou button on the top right side bar or click here to pop over and have a look at the pattern yourself. I'm sure you would like to buy one, I do.

Finally

I'm back on the sewing machine. It's been far too long. I've just been too busy.

Curvy Wristlet

Roses are Red, Tractors are Green. That is what is printed on this fabric. Not my usual fabric choice! There is a very complicated story to go with this wristlet!

My sister's mother in law found this fabric, fell in love, had to buy it. They moved to the country a few years ago along with my sister and her family. She doesn't sew, at least I don't think she does, I do know she knits and makes very nice jam (has her own business). Anyway, she gave this fabric to my mum with the request of making some pj's for my nieces, which she did (sorry don't have any pics, very cute though). Mum had some fabric left over so asked me to make a purse or bag for my sister's MIL. So last night I finally got the urge to make it. I hadn't tried this pattern yet. Wish I had tried it first on something else. The fussy cutting I did on the flap didn't end up being in the right spot, you can kinda read it. I'm pretty happy with the bag. I think though to make it look it's best it would have to be full. Maybe I needed to use some thicker padding in it to give it more structure.

Curvy Wristlet - back

It was gifted to her today at a festival she had a stall at. She had no idea it was being made, I think she was happy. Not sure if she was showing off the material to everyone or the purse!! I think it was a success.

Curvy Wristlet - inside

This is the inside, it has a small pocket you could put a small mobile into. I didn't get a chance to try it!

This is made from a Keyka Lou pattern (click on the button on the right sidebar for more of her patterns). There are two smaller sizes in this pattern too. I think they might be better suited to have a wrist strap, I'm not sure if the large size needed it.

I think I'll make a few of these for our next market, not sure when that will be.

I've got a few softies on the to-do list next, birthdays coming up. I'll be getting the Melly and Me patterns out I think. It's been a while since I made a softie.

There have been a few softie pattern writers that, in the past week, have decided to let people sell softies made from their patterns (not in a mass produce way), which is pretty exciting for me. I would love to make them to sell but just don't have the time and brain space to create my own. We'll see what happens.

TTFN

Edit: This pattern is from:

Michelle Patterns, formerly Keyka Lou. 

(Affiliate link)

Birthday Boy

Completely forgot to post about my gorgeous one year old. Can't believe he's one already the time has just flown by. It was last week in case you're wondering.

I made a cake, well decorated the cake, the hairy bloke made it, he's good like that.

Little O's 1st birthday cake

It was a robot theme. I didn't get very good photos of the party and the table was a bit disorganised :-( too much going on in my head, next time I'll get friends to take photos, check the table is nice and calm be down! Half the food didn't end up being put out.

I googled robot cake and a Betty Crocker tutorial popped up, perfect. I went to ye oldie lolly shoppe to get all the decorations and the cake mix and icing came from our very ace local cake decorating shop. The robot in the tute had liquorice arms. Not that I was too stressed about sticking with what was in the tute, but it became a challenge, I could not find really long twisty liquorice anywhere, so the good old musk stick replaced it. Talk about out of practice, it has been 2 years since I iced a cake, too long!!

Icing in action

It was sooo yum :-)

Robot cake control panel!

I made a tiny one for the next day too.

Cup cakes

My mother in law made cupcakes for the party. She couldn't find any robots to top the cakes so my father in law made robot rappers to go around them, how cool is that?

I'm now thinking about the 7 year old party coming up. He wants a Harry Potter theme. I was thinking either the sorting hat or Hogwarts castle. I know which one would be easier!!

TTFN

Yikes its all too much

All this social media thingy. It's doing my head in. I just found out that google are stopping google friend connect, I know it's been out there for a while, I've been busy ok? So I've set up a google+ page so people can connect with me that way. Then I was thinking is that the best way to get my feeds now? Soooo confused.

So if you are interested, I've set up a few links on my sidebar. You can now get my feeds through Facebook, through any rss reader you like (not that I'm happy with google reader at the mo but that's another story), via email, and when I get the button to work, through google+ (I've just spent an hour trying to get it on here), oh and I'm on pinterest too, that's on the right.

So this is my google+ link for Mandy Made. And I have attempted to include the button, lets see if it eventually appears!!

How are you going with all the social media these days? As confused as I am? I just want to write my blog in one spot then everything else gets the feed without me doing anything else. Is that possible?

And I wish they would stop changing things, I get used to how it all works and looks then they go and change everything. Maybe I'm just getting too old he he. The 37 grumps have hit me!!

Cup of tea anyone?

Does anyone even read my blog? The stats say that people come here but I'm not feeling the love with any comments. Oh well. Back to my corner of the blogesphere!

Hopefully I'll be back with some crafting soon, been soooo busy.

TTFN

Edit: Sorry I didn't want to sound like I was desperate for comments! I was just a bit frustrated and wanted to know I was going to an effort for a reason. There is little time for sewing as it is ;-)

Thirtyseven

Amigurumi Elephant, originally uploaded by MandyMade.

Yep it's my birthday. Happy Birthday to me. The number 37 has followed me all my life, it's cropped up in all sorts of places. Have you got a number like that? Hopefully this is a good sign and this will be my year.

I made this little Ele while on a girls weekend last weekend, well most of it, finished it off when I got home, too much talking, eating chocolate and popping in the spa to get too much done :-).

Test post from my blogger app

I've got with the times and gone and got an iPhone 4. I found the blogger app and I'm trying it out. Do you blog from your iPhone? What app do you use? Hopefully this won't invite too much spam!

Cameron Baby Sneakers

Cameron Baby Sneakers # 7, originally uploaded by MandyMade.

Made for Ditto Crafts, you can read all about them here.

TTFN