Summer Bunting Tutorial

We've recently been experiencing fabulous weather in the uk. The kind of weather that inspires outdoor parties, picnics and gatherings at the park. Bunting has received something of a resurgence in popularity and it always makes such a welcoming summery sight. But rather than plumping for the easily ripped paper type how about making your own fabric version! It's remarkably simple and is a wonderful reason to use up all those fabric scraps that creative people tend to accumulate.

You'll Need

Bias binding (length depends on how long you want your bunting)
Fabric
Carboard
Pencil or tailors chalk
Scissors

Step 1

Draw a triangle on a piece of cupboard, I used an old cereal box for this. Cut it out and ta-da you have your template! Remember to leave a border of about 1 1/2cm to be your seam allowance.


Step 2

Take all your fabric and draw around your template using either a pencil or tailors chalk. If your wondering on numbers, I think about 6 flags per 1 1/2 metres looks good. So for this length you would need 12 triangles.

Step 3

Lay your bias binding flat and space your triangles along it to make sure you've cut enough and to choose the order of patterns.

Step 4

Take 2 triangles and sew them together with the right side of the fabric facing. Leave the top side of your triangle free.

Step 5

Trim your seam allowance if required. If your fabric is likely to fray edge it with a zig zag stitch. Then turn the whole triangle the right way out and press with an iron.

Step 6

Repeat steps 4-5 for all your triangles. I like to sew the open edge closed, but it is not essential.
Lay your completed flags along the bias binding.

Step 7

Fold the binding in half over the top of the flags and pin or tack into position. I also press with an iron to make even easier and crisp.


Step 8

Sew along the binding making sure you catch the flag tops.

Step 9

Stand back and admire your brand new summer bunting!

To London & Selvedge

Yesterday morning both members of Angel Eden plus one daughter/grandaughter got up at a very unreasonable hour and made our way to the train station. We were off to London to visit the first ever Selvedge Magazine Summer Fair.

Once we had walked back and forth several times trying to work out the tube (the Northern line wasn't running from St. Pancras) we made our way to Archway tube station. We had a map book of London which quite cleverly showed everwhere apart from where we were and none of the locals seemed to be able to help. We were getting a bit desperate when finally a European tourist pointed us in the right direction.

We arrived with 15 minutes to spare and the queue was already building. The fair was being held inside an old church which had white balloons tied to the railings. Up the stone steps were jam jars holding pink roses (I made a special effort not to knock these over, but I wouldn't be surprised it they hadn't lasted the day).

The first 200 visitors received a goody bag. We were a bit over excited when we both got one. It had in it a Volga Linen Company teatowel, a burt's bees pack, a Burda badge, pen and measuring guide and some bath scrub.

By this point we'd been awake & travelling so long that we had an unreasonable need for a cup of tea. So we headed straight for the stage area which had been transformed by 'Vintage Party' to look like a village fete. We had to make the difficult choice of which cake to have.

Then we sat on a pew and talked to other visitors who came to sit near us. I loved the decorating, it was like something from my childhood (I grew up in a quaint country village) mixed with tea at Grandma's. The decorations and flowers were all beautiful & I congratulate everyone who put hard work into the 'look' of the event.

Once we made our way back down to the stalls it got ridiculously busy, completely understable of course, with so many wonderful artists under one roof the guests had piled in. Unfortunately this made viewing all the stallholders a bit difficult. My daughter led us determindly to The Black Rabbit, she seen them on the way in and we had to buy two 'blobs' I'm not sure of their real name, but they are now affectionately nickednamed the lavender blobs in our house.She also wanted a hair clip kit from RoseRed & Blue.

We spoke to many of the stallholders and they were all very friendly and relaxed. I wish I could have bought more, but it was a bit difficult to see with so many people. However I grabbed all the exhibitors cards as I compiled my mental Christmas list (I hope Santa's feeling flush this year!) If Selvedge hold another fair make sure you visit, although hopefully next time the venue will be bigger with even more to offer!

Here's a list of my favourite exhibitors and their websites:

Caroline Dulko
Mogwaii
Acorn & Will
Andrea Willianson
The Black Rabbit
Ray-Stitch
Elsy & Vine
Rachel Eardley
Ellie Evans
Eloise Grey
Charlotte Macey
The Linen Shop
Gemma Kay Waggett
Gem & Bird
The whole thing was sponsored by  Cabbages & Roses

Simple Pleasures

I've been feeling quite stressed recently, I think when you run your own business some level of stress is inevitable. But how do you combat this when you feel the tension rising? One of my favourite things is to take a walk, no specific destination, just getting outside and clearing your mind for a while. I think a lot of pleasure (and stress relief) can be gained by taking in your surroundings and enjoying the beauty around you. I've taken a few pictures to show you my favourite things that I discovered.

There's something quite romantic about a gate that leads to nowhere. This one probably hasn't been opened in years.

Dandelions might annoy me when they invade the vegetables, but they also remind me of being little and gently blowing the seeds away to tell the time.







If you've looked at our jewellery you'll probably know that I love the beauty in old doorways and houses. Even the woodwork on an old fence post can inspire.

Wildflowers are always a pleasure, I especially love the vibrant summer yellow of buttercups. Another memory of holding them up to skin to see if you like butter.

When the weather is as good as it has been recently getting outdoors seems like a must. What delights do you find near your home?

A final note to say a huge big thank you to everyone who has voted for the blog in the Dorset Cereal little blog awards. We are currently in 2nd place! I'm over the moon, it was so exciting to be nominated and even more so now we're doing so well. Voting ends at the end of the month I believe, so if you haven't voted please do, just click on the button on the top right. It only takes a second and you'll make my smile even larger :)

A Summer's Day & Elderflower Champagne Tutorial

Recently we have had some lovely weather and as soon as the summer truly arrives anticipation builds in our household for my husbands Elderflower Champagne. He makes it every year and it is dangerously delicious and gets stronger and more alcoholic over time. As the elderflowers have been late this year he has only just made his batch. I thought I would share his recipe with you all below:

Ingredients

24-30 elderflower heads

2kg sugar

4 litres hot water

6 litres cold water

A dash of lemon juice

Step 1 

Collect your flower heads, these do not need storing and are best used fresh.

Step 2

Dissolve the sugar in a large container (we use a 25 litre brew bin) with the hot water and stir until fully dissolved.

Step 3

Next add the cold water, lemon juice, flower heads and stir.

Step 4

Cover the mixture with a muslin cloth and leave in a cool place to stand for two days. I also took the time here to annoy my husband by trying to take his photo :)

Step 5

After a couple of days bubbles should start to fizz through the elderflowers, which will be floating on top. If this hasn't happened add a little dried yeast to help fermentation. Leave for another 4 days.

Step 6 

Strain the mixture through muslin and pour into bottles. Fermentation will continue in the bottle giving the champagne its fizz. Your champagne will be ready in about two weeks, but can be left longer.

 

Finally

I end with a warning; the champagne will improve and become stronger over time. Be warned though this will cause more gas to build up in the bottles. If you don't keep an eye on them and rebottle if necessary bottles have been known to explode.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do.

 

 

We've Been Nominated! Plus Necklace Tutorial

Hello dear readers,

I'm in a very good mood today after finding out yesterday that our little blog has been nominated for an award! If you love us as much as we love you please vote by clicking here

So to celebrate I've decided to share a Button Necklace Tutorial with you all, if you've ever met us at a fair you might recognise these from one of our small kits. So if you like buttons old and new and have always wondered what else you can do with them have a go with these instructions which were penned by the other half of Angel Eden 'Anne'.

Button Necklace

You will need

Two lengths of waxed cotton about 90 cms long, (looks good if they are two different colours), small enough to go through the holes of your buttons.

About 19 buttons, can be 2 or 4 hole, except the button for the fastening which needs to be four hole.

All Purpose strong clear glue.

Instructions

1. Hold the two strands of waxed cotton at one end and fold them over and knot to make a loop. This loop will be the fastener going over the end button of the necklace, so its important to make sure it is the right size for your button to go through. Once you are happy with the size pull as tightly as you can.

    2. The buttons are now going to be strung individually on each strand, divide them in half and decide on the colour order. One button will be used to make the end button to fasten the necklace.

    3. Start threading buttons onto one of the strands of waxed cotton by passing the thread from behind through one of the holes of the first button and then pass back through the opposite hole. Now leave a space of about 5 centimetres before placing the next button in the same way. Continue until you have achieved the length you want or half the buttons are used.

    4. With the second strand put the buttons on in the same way but place the first one so that it lays half way between the first two buttons on the first strand. Continue until all buttons are placed making sure each button on the second strand sits between two on the first.

    5. With the last button use both threads to go through it from the back and cross threads diagonally to form a cross and pass thread back through the other two holes. Tie the two threads in a reef knot behind the button. This means to pass the right thread over the left and then pass under it, then pass the left thread over the right and pass under. Pull this knot as tight as you can.

    6. The ends can now be cut and some appropriate clear glue put on the knots at each end of the necklace to make it extra secure.

This necklace can be made with a variety of buttons, they do not need to all be the same size. The two strands could also be two different lengths to make a different design. It really does look attractive when worn but is more difficult to do justice to in a photograph. Depending on the colour and size of buttons used, it can make a very individual present for both adults and children.

I've also joined in with the Welcome Wednesday bloghop hosted by take it from me, take a look here

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day everyone!

We had two father's to cater for here and being a crafty type I decided that homemade was the way to go. As you'll probably all know from a previous post I'm a bit addicted to applique at the moment. So it seemed logical to put this to good use, but can you really applique things for a man??

I was trying to think what might be a useful present to give and remembered that my husband had complained of needing more tshirts. Thankfully good quality plain cotton t-shirts are not that expensive and are usually available at most shops.

Next I had to tailor my designs to suit the recipients. My Dad has quite a few hobbies but none seemed like the kind of thing I could translate into a t-shirt design. Luckily he also has a great sense of humour and is often to be seen doing silly walks to amuse the children, have you guessed where I'm going with this one yet? One internet search later and I had decided on my design. Here is the finished homage to monty python

Next my husband. He's a arty type in his own right so making something to impress him might have been harder. Luckily or unluckily depending on how you look at it, he's been annoying me for weeks by shouting 'Bazinga!'. If you don't know the reference he's a fan of the comedy show 'The Big Bang Theory' and this is the catchphrase of one of the stranger characters Sheldon. End result:

Tips for creating your own tshirts

Remember that if you draw your image and then trace it onto bondaweb you will get a mirror image out of your fabric. If (as in the case of letters) they need to be the right way round make sure you trace them in reverse before applying to the fabric.

Next make sure you use a good quality fabric to applique with, t-shirts are not a delicate piece of clothing and yours should be able to stand up to the daily traumas of casual clothing.

Finally sew, sew, and sew it on until you are sure the design will not crumble, fray or generally get destroyed by your washing machine.

It's a Friday and I'm blog hopping :)

As a change of pace I've decided that as it's Friday I'm going to try Parajhunkee's Follow Friday Blog Hop



Take a look through some of our posts and our website, if you like what you see please follow our blog, be sure to leave a comment to let me know if you found us through the Follow Friday Blog Hop.

The Itch to (Re)Create!

I often wonder if I am the only person who wakes up on a morning, looks about the house and despite vowing to spend the day relaxing actually ends up running about like a nut trying to make some sense from the chaos. I don't feel relaxed if something is niggling at me and the last few days that niggle came in the form of our dining room chairs. I should probably start by saying I have never really liked these chairs, they're large, they have the most grusome colour of stained dralon adorning their seats and the children like to spill things on them at regular intervals and they were passed to us by a family member whose tastes has never really meshed with mine.

Suffice to say I have often wished to change them (ah hem... tip them!). They are based on an antique design, but they are decidely mordern (80s). Motivation finally came in the form of my husband who thought he would use one of the chairs instead of a step ladder. Several seconds and a nasty crash later and the seat was no more. It's hard to see the carnage on this pic, but trust me you would not want to rest any weight on here.

Tip 1

Taking apart and reupholstering fairly modern chairs is usually quite easy. This chair merely had 4 screws in the underside of the seat.

We used a screwdriver to unpick the staples holding the fabric and piping on and hey presto an uncovered chair.

The inside just consisted of a board base and a sponge pad for the seat.

To replace the cracked base piece my husband jigsawed a copy out of a shelf from an old computer table (more recycling and economising). The sponge padding was in good condition so I reused that. I then unpicked the piping to reuse the rubber to make new piping.

Tip 2 - Recovering

Recovering this chair was really easy. In my cupboard I had loads of an old Laura Ashley fabric, it had already served as a sofa throw, table cloth and now would revive my dining chairs.

Next all that was required was a good quality staple gun. These are not expensive, usually around the £5-7 mark. All I had to do was stretch the fabric over the sponge pad and staple to the underside of the seat board. For the corners a quick fold is all that's needed.

Tip 3 - Finishing touches

To really add a bit of elegance some finishing touches are usually required. I had already sewn new piping out of matching fabric. I could have spent hours painstakngly sewing this onto the seat, but instead I lined it up and stapled away. The end result is very convincing and quick and easy.

Tip 4 - If you have children

If like me you have little peeps running about armed with felt tips, drinks, sticky fingers covered in plastercine, food or the remnemts from their lunchbox then you will understand the need to protect your new upholstery. This couldn't be more easy, just nip to your local fabric shop and buy some clear pvc fabric, I bought mine from Dunelm Mill. Cut a piece big enough to stretch over your seat, fold the edges and staple the whole lot over the top. You are left with a completely covered and protected seat, but you can still enjoy the look of your new chairs without the worry.

I am so pleased with the final result, I toyed with the idea of painting the chairs, but I'm glad I didn't now as I think it looks quite grand without it. So the chairs and I have at last made friends. All 6 were completed in a couple of days, so if you have any chairs you've fallen out of love with give reupholstering a go, it's really not as hard as it looks.

Book Review - Cath Kidston

Last Christmas I received as one of my gifts a book called 'Sew!' by Cath Kidston. I've always liked her fabrics and now that I have made a few of the items I thought I would share my experiences of the book with you all.

First of all the book lists 41 projects so I am a long way away from completing them all. They range from bags, cushions, tablecloths to aprons and baby/kids decorations. The book starts you on your way with some basic instructions of various sewing techniques. I think these are well written and fairly simple to follow.

Next the book comes with a large paper pattern piece, this is the kind where you trace over the lines you require and cut out on new paper. I'm not a huge fan of this method purely because I can only ever seem to lay my hands on small and stiff pieces of paper which are quite frankly rubbish for pattern making. But if you can locate something thinner/larger it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The book also comes with all the fabric, buttons and even a label to make the shoulder bag shown on the front cover. So with fabric to hand this seemed like a logical place to start. Overall I loved this pattern, the bag came together quickly and looks pretty much exactly the same as the picture. The only difference is I left the Cath Kidston label off the front, no particular reason for this I just preferred it plain. I've taken a picture to show you the end result:


The book also has some applique templates at the back which could come in very handy. I think I'm going to make the knitting needle case next as mine is looking rather shabby. I would say that most of these patterns are fairly simple, if like me you appreciate the fact this means you can whip something up in a morning then you'll be in heaven. But for some this book might just be telling you what you already know but with pretty pictures. On the other hand if you can pick this up on special offer the fabric contained makes this a good deal in itself so still worth the purchase. So I would definitely recommend this book, it certainly gives you lots of ideas you can run with and of course your not limited to their fabric/decoration choices. If your from the US I did some checking and this has not yet been published, but it's coming in Oct this year so not long to wait.

Linen, Onions and Applique!

With the recent push towards a more eco friendly lifestyle more and more events and shops are doing away with plastic carrier bags in favour of reusual options. Over the last year I seem to have accumulated a few of these from various sources. I appreciate the sentiment and linen does make for a fantastic durable bag. My only quarrel has to be the designs that seem to have come my way. All these bags were free and consequently covered with advertising prints.



This didn't really inspire me to use them on my normal shopping trips so they've found uses in my home instead. The bag above became a handy place to store my onions in the kitchen. But the more I looked at it the more I realised that the design had to go. With the sewing machine out and some bondaweb I set about raiding my fabric store to applique things that seemed to fit my kitchen better. This was the end result.



I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I think my onion storage now looks quite smart. The only problem with applique is it's so fun and easy to do that you start looking about your house wondering what else you can adorn. It's also a wonderful way of using up those fabric scraps that weren't big enough for a sewing project but you couldn't quite bring yourself to throw away. I do think you have to be careful not to go over the top though. With this bag I cut out a lot of shapes and tried different placings before I commited to a final design. Next on the applique pile is a summer top, that is if the sun ever returns after all this rain we've been having.

If you've never ventured into the world of applique there really is nothing to be scared of. All you need is some fabric, some bondaweb, a pencil and an iron.



Draw a design on the paper side of the bondaweb (bondaweb is available on a roll from haberdashery shops or online). Cut out around design leaving a bit of a edge. Place the bondaweb paper side up onto your fabric. Press down with a dry iron.



Cut out your design along your pencil lines. Peel the paper side off the bondaweb.




Lay it down on your bag/top/whatever press again with a hot iron and hey presto it should be stuck!




Next all you need to do is finish off your design. I favour a zig zag stitch running around the outside in a constrasting colour. Of course if you don't have a sewing machine a simple running stitch works as well. Then stand back and admire your handywork!

Tea For Two

When I get the time one of my favourite indulgences is to stop in a gorgeous tea shop for a cake and a relax. I was recently visiting one of our gallery stockists in Chesterfield when I noticed a cafe called the Northern Tea Merchants. To say it's a tea and coffee lovers paradise would be an understatement. The walls are adorned with quotations and the shelves are stacked with related delights to really wet your appetite. The smell of coffee beans wafts through the air and everything is beautifully packaged in gold. My tea was wonderful as was my slice of traditional victoria sponge. I will definitely be visiting again soon.

More information can be found on their website http://www.northern-tea.com.

One of my all time favourite teashops used to be Greystone's in Leek. Whenever I went there it felt like I'm walking into somebody's front room for tea and cake. Of course this is probably due to the fact that the room used to be the front room of a 17th century building. The owners have now taken semi retirement and no longer serve tea in their front room at Greystone's. Fortunately they have taken on a new 16th century building called Time For Tea in the centre of Leek.

The new cafe also serves as a showroom for one of the owners Roger, who repairs antique clocks. In good weather there is a small walled garden to sit in, otherwise there are two beautiful rooms where you can relax.

If customers are interested in the history of the cafe there is a file all about the Parker family who originally built the building. The son Thomas Parker was born in the building in 1666 and in 1718 he became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. He was also a poll-bearer at the funeral of Sir Isaac Newton.


Like the Northern Tea Company the tea here is made with tea leaves (not bags) and there are several varieties to choose from. For me though it is the cakes that stand out, I think they are the best I have tasted anywhere.

If you're in the area I fully recommend a visit to either of these teashops.