Fairy House

This is for my beautiful niece who turned a BIG 5 today. 

Happy Birthday Belladonna.

These are so easy to make and only take a couple of sittings to do the stitching. To start off you draw up your picture on the centre piece the add all the fabric strips, i don't really measure anything so they are a little off but thats half the charm. Then add some thin batting to the back and do all your stitching. Now you just have to add the backing fabric and the binding.

If this seems too big a project then start off with something small like a coaster or two, as you can see below it doesn't have to be complicated.

Here is Talons Placemat i made him this year and the Placemats i made a few years ago.

Jean Repairs

In line with my Sewing Know How this is post # 4.
Today i am going to show you how to repair the butt in a pair of jeans. Now kids wear out the knees in jeans but men wear out the butt and crutch, i guess its all that scratching.

These jeans were just at the stage where they were not quite holes and this is the time to catch them as it makes it easy to repair.
I don't throw jeans away as they have so many other uses and one of them is repairing holes to give your jeans a longer life span.
The thread colour you use will be determined by the colour of your jeans and ill tell ya sometimes its hard to match. As these were pretty faded i went with a grey thread.
You will also need a denim needle or as large a needle as you have on hand.

Cut up your patches from another pair of jeans, make sure the pieces are not from a well worn part of the jean. Make the patch larger by 1/2 again so the worn part is well covered. Pin in place. 

Using a small straight stitch, go around the patch close to the edge, if you need to go over a thick seem then go slow or hand wind the needle through as this is a place that will break your needle if your not careful. Remove the pins and check the outside to make sure you have covered the whole area with the patch.

Now turn your jeans right side out and you are going to use a small zigzag and go over all of the worn spots.

In the picture below i did one side with blue on the bobbin so you could see it.

I only sewed on the warn parts not all over the patch.

Turned right side out and you can barely see the repair and because of where it is you can't see it at all when worn.

Denim is one of the hardest fabrics to sew as its so thick and you can break a few needles but the results are well worth it especially if you can get another 6 to 12 months wear from your jeans.

Linked here

Homestead Barn Hop # 177

Homemaking Mondays # 19

From the Farm Hop

Homemade Monday # 99

happiness is Homemade # 38

Homemaking party

What you Wish Wednesday # 17
R&R Wednesday #71

Bowl Covers

In line with my Sewing Know How , this is post #3.

From the leftover Table Cloths i made these bowl covers.

You will need leftover fabric i used my table cloths and i also used some leftover duck cloth and some drill from another project. Furnishing fabrics work great as will any medium to heavy weight cotton cloth. Your sewing machine will come in handy as will some matching thread or just use white thread. The last item you will need is some thin elastic.

Old Table Cloths

In line with my Sewing know How , this is post # 2. Today its all about straight lines and re-purposing / recycling.

My cupboard was overflowing with table linen, there were a few that either did not fit our table or were damaged. The solution was to turn them into something new.

In the above washing basket are the ones that are to be made new again.

There was one vintage cloth [below] that had a few holes that were too large to repair so i ripped it up and made 4 food covers, i will use them for cooling bread or pies. I don't recommend ripping up vintage table linen as its hard to come by these days. This one was one of my favourite cloths, but at the same time i still wanted to use it so came up with this idea.

Happenings in the Greenhouse

At the end of summer i took cuttings from some of my fruit trees to see if i could get them to root over winter in the greenhouse. I removed the bottom leaves, soaked the stems in water for a few mins and then dipped each one in rooting hormone and popped them into the grow pots.

Strawberry Lemon Cake

This was originally a muffin recipe but i prefer it as a cake.

 I don't make a lot of cakes, i prefer to make biscuits, cookies or slices, and as i'm the one who bakes i get to choose.