Jumper challenge - Part 1

I've made quite a few things out of old jumpers since the Christmas calendar cushion. And I've been trying to get my hands on a tatty blue cashmere one my 8 year old has adopted, but he's taken to wearing it in bed and isn't at all willing to give it up. So instead I bought this bright pink cowl neck jumper in a charity shop for £2.50 and cut it up before I remembered to take a photo...
Not cashmere, but a nice soft wool mix.

There are loads of brilliant upcycling ideas out there - some friends run craft workshops in Hereford, and one they offer is making a cushion and fingerless gloves out of an old sweater. But I wanted to see how many different things I could get out of this particular top.
And I can absolutely guarantee all of them are easy to make, because I'm still getting to grips with my sewing machine. I've already come clean about how mine has spent most of its life in a cupboard.
I'm more enthusiastic now, but find that's not quite enough sometimes...far too familiar with my stitch unpicker. So tend to look for ways round things I'm not sure about. Like zips.
This small cushion cover is zip-free. And using the rib at the bottom of the jumper for the edges of the opening means less hemming.

I cut a square out of the front - 12" plus a little extra for a seam allowance.
The other piece from the back of the jumper is the same width, but about a third longer to make the envelope pocket on the back of the cover for the pillow.

The only thing to watch out for is that this extra bit is folded over and pinned on the right side of the jumper (the side you want to see) making it the same size as the other piece. Then pin the two squares together, inside out along three sides, with the ribbed edge and folded edge matched up and left open. The folded bit will be inbetween these square pieces, so it won't be visible while sewing the sides.

When finished, turn it back the right way, put the cushion pad in and pull the pocket part over the top of the opening, so it's all tucked away.

The heart was cut from a small piece of vintage material, and edged with some purple bias binding.
I used the shape to cut a few more out of the jumper sleeves. The first one looked a bit big so I made the next ones smaller and filled them all with lavender.

The cowl neck is now a snood with bias binding sewn over the raw edge. I've been wearing it out gardening and like it because it doesn't flap about and get in the way.

Part 2 is still at the ideas stage, but I'm thinking pin cushions, mice, a doll's outfit and possibly a pigmy owl keyring?

Linking with Lakota's Ta-dah! Tuesday

The Gallery - Girls

'Please can we go now?'

Not one to ever pass up a photo opportunity, my mum - and no amount of whinging/crying/general complaining was going to stop her getting a shot of her four girls in that field of sunflowers.

Just look at us.

What a bunch of miseries.

Apart from the sister who appears to have mysteriously shrunk.

It was the late 70's and we were trundling slowly through France to the coast; the four of us bouncing about in the back of our family camper - colouring in, fighting over felt tips and watching the world go by. I can just imagine how the sunflower photo stop would have seemed like a great idea. To my mother. And it makes me think of all the times I've done the same kind of thing to my kids - usually greeted with a similar degree of enthusiasm.

'Come on girls! Smile! PLEASE!!' I can hear mum, but I'm the sulky, slightly awkward almost pre-teen one in the tracksuit top, and I didn't do smiling - well not proper smiling, just a sort of clenched teeth, tight lipped scowl. Still, I wasn't anywhere near as grizzly as my youngest sister who was having none of it.  Another thing I found out later on. NEVER wake a toddler for the sake of a photo..

This week's Gallery theme is Girls

A Rubbish Valentine

... and that's what it is, but possibly an improvement on last year's homemade Valentine's day surprise, when I drew colourful hearts around a comedy potato. Yes, I really did. And if you can't quite picture it, why not take a look.
It seemed so right at the time, with the irish/potato thing going on, but I'm not sure now. To be fair I was still getting used to my husband being away, and he said he liked it. Bless him. Crazy fool.

This year's is complete trash, of the recycling variety - made out of my son's old birthday cards..

collage heart

Now I did ask first, but he still had a bit of a moment when he saw them cut to pieces, so had to quickly divert his attention with some mini chocolate eggs.

I got the idea from an art show the children watch called Totally Rubbish. It's the sort of kids telly I can sit through - mostly about making things from stuff people often throw away. There was an artist called Robi Walters on this particular show who made the most amazing collages using petal shaped pieces of card, cut out of packaging. He certainly inspired me, and that's when I started eyeing up the birthday cards...

I also found a few glittery old christmas ones, and then cut them into strips, and cut the strips into petal shapes.

It took a while to get my petals looking roughly the same - a pretty monotonous job, but I got into a kind of rhythm and just did a few strips when I had a minute. You need A LOT, and it's also a good idea to sort them into colour piles as you go along. My heart is predominantly red, but there's quite a bit of blue, pink, yellow and gold going on too.

I glued little red squares, cut out of a sugar puffs packet around the outline of the heart, and started sticking the petals on, overlapping them a little.

The collage takes time, so again I did the gluing when I could - quite often in front of the telly, and then left a bread board on top of the heart until the next spare moment.

I'd been following the outline, but it started to look a little wonky - so instead drew ever decreasing heart shapes inside, and used them as a guide until there was a tiny one left in the middle. Well sort of in the middle..!

Just the right size for a teeny heart with a diamante from last year's card. It travelled far that card, so it's pretty special.

And I'm going to be able to give my husband his collage heart on the 14th, which makes a change! He is weekly commuting at the moment, but turns out he will be home on thursday. It'll be our second Valentine's day together in 12 YEARS of marriage. Not that I'm counting or anything...

How rubbish is that?

Linking with Lakota's Ta-dah! Tuesday 

A Grand Day Out

I took the kids cycling in the Forest of Dean last year while my husband was away. It was our first time and I was a bit anxious, because as wonderfully appealing as it sounds, lurking at the back of my mind was the fear I'd end up coaxing them round and pushing bikes up hills. I needn't have worried, it was brilliant.
...ok, so I lied a little to smooth the way.
I didn't tell them how far we were going, and every time they asked if we were nearly there, I said, 'Not long now!' in a cheery voice and pedalled on.
Eleven miles later we were back at the car park - no crying, no coaxing, no pushing - just happy, bright pink faces.
The children loved it so much they wanted to take their dad, which is exactly what we did last sunday.

We hired bikes from Pedalabikeaway at the Cannop Valley centre near Coleford - not cheap for five of us, but they have a great selection for all ages and abilities. Time to get our act together on the bike front I think.

It's a short pedal straight onto the Family Cycle Trail from the centre, and by far and away the best bit of advice I'd pass on is go left! It's a circuit, mainly along old railway lines, and the clockwise route is definitely the easier option. There's a very gentle upward incline at the beginning - hardly noticeable really, apart from a little leg burn; but then again I hadn't been cycling since our last trip here.

The 5 year old was on the back of her dad's on a tag-along. She desperately wanted to have her own bike, but I'm so glad we didn't give into the nagging. There was the potential for untold misery.

Anyway after 20 minutes we broke through the whinge barrier and it was downhill all the way after that. And I mean literally downhill or flat all the way, bar one or two short climbs.

I'd forgotten how much fun it is to whizz along, free as a bird, though I was a lot heavier on the brakes than the boys. A bit of an old scaredy altogether. There are places to stop off if you fancy - former stations and coal mines and a lovely picnic spot near a small lake - but apart from a break for biscuits, we kept going.  Some reviews I've read criticise the lack of clear signs on the Trail, and they could be better, but don't let that put you off. We picked up a route map when we hired the bikes and kept our eyes peeled for posts with a yellow tyre track on them.

The highlight for the boys was the short trails just off the main route for practicing jumps and turns. Complete and utter heaven for them.

There are plenty more demanding bike routes through the Forest for adventurous mountain bikers, but this one was perfect for us - honestly I can't recommend it highly enough. We had tired, happy kids, slightly wobbly legs and a large pile of washing to look forward to!

We also had bacon butties and chocolate brownies at the busy cafe by the bike hire centre. Don't things taste so good when you feel you've earned them?

Linking with Country Kids from Coombe Mill

Decoupage - comic though not always funny..

My first attempt at decoupage wasn't a great success. I tried to cover a wooden chair in colourful flower themed cutouts gathered from a large stack of old Gardeners' World magazines. It looked brilliant...in my head. And I ploughed on with the project, even when I'd pretty much accepted it was over-ambitious, and possibly not the best way to start my decoupage journey.  The finished piece looked like a badly wrapped comedy parcel - there was definitely a chair in there, somewhere...under the lumps, bumps and wrinkles.
It's long gone now, but inspired by some fantastic crafty blogs, my desire to decoupage seems to have been rekindled. And this time I started with something REALLY simple - so simple I wasn't even sure it counted as decoupage, but having looked up the meaning (decorating a surface with cutouts), it just about qualifies - I did a tiny bit of cutting.
The little table below probably looks familiar? I covered it with vintage domino cards picked up at a french street market. They fitted perfectly and give the top a kind of tile effect. I love the table. No one else is allowed to use it.

So, fired up and feeling a little more confident, I decided to decoupage a bedside table I'd got in a surprise BOGOF win at the auction.  Not the whole thing this time.

I painted it chalk white. Quite honestly it turned out whiter than I'd hoped, but hey, it's for my 8 year old's room and he's really not bothered. There was a little more interest in what went on top, so he did help choose the pages he liked from a pile of old Beanos a friend had given me.

I do have to admit to a few Gardeners' World flashbacks - the paper was so thin and bubbled up as it landed on the layer of PVA glue - but I held my nerve, working quickly and smoothing it down as best I could. It didn't look too bad.

Then I used a water-based clear varnish to seal it and nearly died when it all started bubbling up AGAIN! Deep breath. Deep breath. So I just painted a corner to see what would happen. Thankfully as it dried, the paper contracted and it looked better, but there were some obvious places where the comic had come away from the surface.
An important lesson learnt - I should have spent more time making sure the paper was properly stuck down. Preparation is everything, ain't that the truth? But often in my impatience to see how things turn out, I can be a preparation slacker.
The bedside table is fine, as long as you don't get too close. Perfect for an unobservant 8 year old.

I'm on a roll - the 8 year old loves collecting stuff, and it's usually all over the floor of his room - so my next decoupage job was covering an IKEA drawer box for his birthday. Now I'd advise, if you're in anyway offended by the chopping up of perfectly good books, to look away now...

In my defence I'm not in the habit of doing this, but there were piles and piles of similar encyclopedia-type books being sold off for pennies at a local charity shop. And now bits of them are on permanent show. That's sort of a good thing, right? The paper was also great quality and MUCH easier to stick on the box.

It took a while, but I'm pleased with the result. I made it more personal by using some sheet music, because he's my piano player - as well as maps of home and where he was born. I covered the drawers in loads of layers of varnish, and really hope it's something he'll hang on to.

This is next! My sewing machine trolley. I have a nordic/knittingy idea for it...

Linking up with Ta-dah! Tuesday at Lakota's

Ballet Bees and Bumblerinas - 3/2/13

Linking up with SocialPix over at Love All Blogs
and Team Lloyd's Photo of the Week