Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere to share the ups and downs of starting a craft business, with plenty of tips, mishaps and the odd glass of wine!

Friday 15 July 2016

Creating a Mixed Media Collage with a Group

So a while back a friend of mine, who works for the wonderful charity Art Space asked me if I would run some sessions that Art Space hold for adults with early onset dementia. The sessions are part of the MindSCAPE Project, which is an exciting 4 year Big Lottery funded project for the Forest of Dean.
The project is designed for people living with dementia, their families and carers, and has been developed to enable people to reconnect back to the landscape, through a regular series of meetings and workshops at Bracelands Adventure Centre, near Coleford and throughout the Forest of Dean.
I decided that we would, as a group make a large wall hanging, using mixed media (paper, felt, cotton & inks) and a variety of applique methods - stamping, gluing and stitching.
The sessions I ran were held over 6 weeks (one class every other Tuesday) and as the theme was nature, I chose to get the group making a large flower.
This was one of my example pieces:
Each person (or pair if more assistance was needed) had a petal template (which were likened to hot air balloon shapes, so watch out for that next time!) and a host of smaller nature inspired templates that I'd drawn for them. They then got creative!
In the first session, most people spend their time going through the materials and papers, choosing colours and patterns that they liked, cutting out their petal and their smaller images and starting to glue them in place:
Then the middle and last weeks, at their own pace, each person, or couple, got onto the fun part of making their petal really stand out. We had some special ink stampers, some googly eyes and 3D bug stickers, lots of stitching, especially by the men who'd mostly not done any sewing before.

A couple of the chaps didn't have the fine motor skills needed for working with the patterned fabrics and chose to do some stamping instead to decorate their petals. With some help they both achieved some wonderfully creative work:

Ultimately the whole group did such amazing petals and when they were all put together, they looked fantastic!
We had more petals than I originally expected, but it didn't matter, they all worked so well together. I'm over the moon for the group at how great it looks.
I took it home and stitched down the petals that had so far just been glued down. I also wanted to add a date to the piece, so I made a yellow centre for the flower and stitched 'MINDSCAPE 2016' on it. To give it a bit of a 3D element I also stuffed the center. The last thing to do was to add a dowel rod at the top so it can be hung up in it's new home at ArtSpace.

The group all said they'd really enjoyed the sessions and as if to prove it, they've invited me back to run some wet felting sessions next Spring! I can't wait!

Monday 11 July 2016

Sew A Softie Day Tutorial - How to Start Sewing With Kids

Welcome to Grace's Favours' Sew a Softie Day Tutorial for 2016!

If you've stumbled across this post, you may not be aware of the Sew a Softie Day movement. There's a wee post about it here but in a nutshell, it's the brain child of Trixi Symonds who authors the Coloured Buttons blog and she's also the author of the book Sew Together, Grow Together.

Because kids generally love sewing and to stop it from becoming a lost art, Trixi decided to create Sew a Softie Day (the inaugural day is officially on July 16th 2016) and in the run up, for a host of bloggers to post tutorials and inspirational projects to help get people started.

I decided to get my kids involved as they both love sewing, they've both grown up seeing me sew almost every day and from a very young age, have been shown the basics.

I asked Seren (7.5 yrs) to draw an outline of her chosen animal (a cat) and we decided we could use it for Patrick's (big 5 yrs - that's how he puts it as he's almost 6!) dog too.

Based on what Seren drew, I created a pattern for them, with pointy ears for her cat and floppy ears for his dog.

To make a similar animal you will need:

- fleece or felt
- stuffing
- embroidery thread to mach your material (we used pearl cotton as it's not stranded so gets less tangled than the 6 stranded embroidery thread)
- 2 buttons for the eyes
- black thread for the mouth and nose
- pins, scissors and a pencil

How we did it:

1. The kids pinned their paper pattern pieces to two layers of fleece.

2. Then they drew around the animal shape (minus the ears) with a pencil onto the fleece.


3. Next they pinned around their drawn shape (we pinned on the outside of the shape so that they would have a seam allowance and wouldn't cut too near to the line they'd drawn)

4. Then they both cut out their body shapes.


 5. Using 1 strand of pearl embroidery cotton in the same colour as their fleece, I showed Seren and Patrick how to do running stitch and they stitched round their shape, leaving a gap between the legs of their animal for stuffing. Patrick got bored about half way through this step and had me take over, but Seren carried on and really enjoyed herself. Patrick came back and started each of the next steps, but didn't want to finish any of them, which is fine as you need to keep children engaged, but if you make them finish it they won't find it fun.


6. Then we carefully clipped nearer to the lines, so that the seams weren't too bulky and turned them right side out, through the gap we'd left.

7. We lightly stuffed each limb and firmly stuffed the head. Then I drew a line across each limb and showed the kids how to do back stitch. Seren and back stitch really hit it off and she was going great with it. Patrick had a go and got the feel for it and then wanted to watch me sew the rest up.


8. Then we stuffed the body, not too firmly as we didn't want a fat cat or dog and I showed Seren how to do a ladder stitch to close up the hole. If you want to see a video of how to ladder stitch, there's one on my You Tube channel here.

9. Then we drew a nose and mouth onto our animals using the pencil and with some black thread we stitched these details on.

10. The kids then had fun rummaging through my extensive button collection and chose the buttons they wanted to use for the eyes, which I then sewed on for both animals as this was a bit tricky once they were sewn up.

11. The last step, which somehow I didn't get a photo of, was choosing the material for the ears (Seren used the same and Patrick used part of an old Christmas onsie that didn't fit him anymore!) and we used the pattern based on Seren's drawing to cut out 4 ear pieces. We repeated the same process as for the body - draw around them, then pin 2 layers together, outside your lines so that they didn't cut too close to the line. Then we running stitched the ears up, leaving them open at the bottom and turned them the right side out and ladder stitched them to the top of the head.


And voila!! We have two very happy children with their handmade cat and dog!


They were so pleased with themselves, especially Seren who did almost the entire thing on her own! (Although she did say afterwards that she thought her cat looked slightly like a pig!!)



I haven't done a pattern as half the fun was getting them to draw the animal they wanted.

The whole process took us about 3 hours from start to finish with a break for lunch, so if you were teaching a group it would probably take 2-3 sessions depending on what age the children were and how long each session runs for.

I loved doing this with my kids... I even managed to control my urge to get everything looking perfect... the whole idea is for them to be in control - gulp!

I've loved reading everyone else's posts for Sew a Softie Day and I hope you get some inspiration from them.

Here's the list again, so you can discover some other ideas:

July 1

July 2
Maggy Woodley http://www.redtedart.com

July 3

July 4

July 5

July 6
Sandi Sawa Hazlewood http://craftyplanner.com/blog/

July 7

July 8
Stephanie Woodson http://swoodsonsays.com

July 9

July 10

July 11

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16
Angie Wilson http://gnomeangel.com

Wednesday 6 July 2016

Creating my First Quiet Book

You have no idea how excited I am writing this post!

A while ago a friend asked me if I could make her a couple of quiet books. I had to do a bit of research as although I had come across some on Pinterest I hadn't really looked into how much work went into them.

A couple of weeks later and here is my finished Quiet Book! I'm so pleased to report that my lovely customer is thrilled with it (almost more than the children she teaches, who it was intended for!)



The first page has shapes, with velcro, for colour association and shape matching.
The second & third pages work together - a washing machine, with a velcro door, which has a basket full of washing on top of it. You can take the washing out of the basket, put it in the machine and then on the third page, peg it out on the line or put it in the basket.


The next page is my favourite - the ladybird, which has a zip pocket, containing 6 black spots, which can be poppered onto the ladybird's body.
The next page is Rapunzel's tower and her hair needs plaiting and tying up.
The spotty page has a trainer with laces to be threaded through eyelets and then done up in a bow.
The baby page has a nappy with poppers which can be done up and then you can play peek-a-boo with the blankie.


The last page has flowers & hearts Noughts and Crosses which attach with velcro.



And because you can't get a proper feel for activity books until you see them in action, here's a video I shot of me playing with it!



I'm now making my second one and I'll be back to share it soon!

I'm also writing up patterns for each page, which will be available in my Etsy shop soon!

Sunday 3 July 2016

Sew A Softie Day is Coming to a Blog Near You!

Hello, my poor neglected blog!

I'm sorry for leaving you alone for so long.

But I'm back with some exciting news.... We're taking part in Sew A Softie Day!


Sew A Softie Day is the brainchild of Trixi Symonds of Coloured Buttons and is all about celebrating the art of sewing with children across the globe. For young sewers (sewists?) the easiest thing to start with is a simple 2D softie, like the yellow strechy men I made a couple of years ago, you can find the tutorial for them here



I'm going to be joining in the fun on Monday 11th July with a simple pattern which can be a cat or a dog (as my kids couldn't agree on what they wanted to make!).

Here's a list of the amazingly talented bloggers taking part (I'm really awed to be included!):

July 1

July 2
Maggy Woodley http://www.redtedart.com

July 3

July 4

July 5

July 6
Sandi Sawa Hazlewood http://craftyplanner.com/blog/

July 7

July 8
Stephanie Woodson http://swoodsonsays.com

July 9

July 10

July 11

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16
Angie Wilson http://gnomeangel.com

The first couple of tutorials are already live, so go and have a nosey... don't forget to get your craft stash ready!

Check back here in a few days for our tutorial.

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