Circumference=2πr

It was pointed out to me recently that I tend to knock up items, or throw them together. By contrast this week I am carefully, lovingly and with due care and attention, making a bean bag. Not least because I am having to scale up the pattern instructions in order to do so.

It is based on the bean bag in Cath Kidston's "Sew!", but that is designed for toddlers. Which my boy isn't. By quite a few inches. So I have been re-acquainting myself with π and circles. A few calculations later and I have a scaled up set of dimensions to cut out of half a duvet and a remnant, while making sure that the stripes all head in the same direction. Fortunately I got to do a dummy run on plain fabric as it needs an inner to actually hold the beans. So far so good.

Watch this space for photos of the finished article – hopefully within the next week! If it takes any longer it may have to be abandoned in favour of my great cake baking marathon (also known as Cathy’s Birthday – more on that after the event!).

Bake me a robot

The birthdays have begun, starting with my eldest daughter. She had a lovely day, with bunting and balloons at breakfast, along with a very pink dolls house. Then after church we visited Nana and had more presents, a quick swim and then dinner and cake.
Quote of the day: “I really like my birthday”.
Now, little girls like pink, this I know. But this little girl also wanted a robot. So here is the pink robot cake she requested for her 3rd birthday.

The silver sugar spray was a bit of an experiment, but apart from using the wrong paper for the stencil (so it didn’t sit flat on the cake) it worked pretty well. Cue more silver cakes. Not to mention more white chocolate icing with raspberry jam cakes.

Ta-da!

I did it! I really did! I am now the proud owner of a Folksy shop. For those of you who haven’t come across Folksy, or had your ear bent by me recently, this is an online market place for craft sellers. I can now be found selling at www.folksy.com/shops/byGaenor

My first item for sale is a remake of my first apron in a pretty vintage floral fabric. As with all the other aprons I have made for the children this uses my adjustable cross-over straps which means that while they are small we don’t have to tie knots or perform contortions every time we fix them on and as they get taller (and their heads get bigger) their aprons will still fit (yes, even over heads and ears!).
It is a very little shop at the moment, but I plan to add to it amidst all the sewing I have planned for family over the next few months. Watch this (or that) space.

Busy, busy, busy

But I can’t tell you about it.
Partly because we are in birthday season, so I don’t want to include any spoilers (and in our family birthday season segues quite quickly into Christmas…)
Also I have a special project in hand, and I don’t want to tell you about that until I have everything in place. Watch here for the big announcement – hopefully before next week.
In the meantime enjoy this bonus photo of my daughter modelling her cousin’s birthday apron.

New Arrival!

My new baby niece has arrived, and she needs a present. Frankly it was supposed to be ready before she was born, but the postman thought otherwise. However once all the ingredients arrived I created this mobile.
I had done a quick internet search on mobiles and the ones I liked best were very simple and colourful. So with the help of Crafty Ribbons and a florist’s wreath frame I spent a very enjoyable evening sorting out and tying on all these ribbons. Hopefully my brother and his family will enjoy it as much as my children did in the few days it was hanging around the house prior to posting.