Busy Quilting Bee

What's happened to all my craft projects? It would appear that I have totally neglected them over the past few weeks. But that's not actually the case - I just haven't been blogging them very much recently. I've been working on lots of textiles, of the quilted variety. You might remember that after my nephew was born, I made him a quilt out of some gorgeous fabric by designer Dan Stiles (you can see it here). 

So I decided to make some more! I've found some gorgeous fabrics over the past few weeks and have really enjoyed putting some of the colours and patterns together. Some of these have already been listed in my new online shop (click here!) and hopefully the others will be listed in the next week or so. What do you think? 

Love the little elephants on this

Possibly the most traditional one I've made - baby blues

OWLS! STRAWBERRIES! How cute are these fabrics? 

And as I loved the first Marine quilt, I thought I'd make another one... 

I seem to have caught a bit of a quilting bug at the moment... at the last count there were six new quilts and I definitely have plans for more. But I might have to take some time out of quilting for a few weeks because sadly it's time to get started on the next projects... I'll reveal more soon! 

By the way, if you are in London this weekend why not come to the Library Bar on Upper Street, Islington on Sunday? It's time for A Glamourous Affair again and I'll be back with some of the others from 12-5pm. And they do Thai food...

Product Review: Funky Diva iPhone Case

Exciting news! The lovely Anna from FunkyDivaDesigns asked me to sample one of her new products for her. In case you haven't come across FunkyDivaDesigns, you really should check out some of her bags because they are gorgeous and I would love to have one. As well as her site, she sells on Folksy  and is on Twitter too. Anyway, Anna asked me to try making one of her iPhone Kits and let her know what it was like. So here you are: my first product review!

A few weeks ago Anna sent me a sample kit which looked like this: 

Looking good hey? I was quite excited to get this and thought the material was quite cute too. Once I opened the packet I realised that all the pieces I needed had been pre-cut to size, including interfacing, pockets and the tag for the keychain. There were also some very comprehensive instructions which included pictures making it much easier to follow. There are 15 steps in all, but they show you how to pin, where exactly to sew and are broken down into very small pieces of information.

On the first page there was a list of everything I should have in the packet so that I could check and then it was merely a matter of following the instructions. Which was easy! Because Anna has broken the steps down into small pieces of information even someone who isn't good at following instructions (like myself) can follow! It was super easy to make!

My sewing machine decided to play up today - for some reason it was like a petulant child and wouldn't get the tension right whatever I did - but even so it still took only about an hour to finish my new iPhone case because FunkyDivaDesigns has put together such an easy to follow set of instructions that it took no time to assemble.

I would definitely recommend these for beginner sewers who want to make something fun and funky but don't have the experience to make their own patterns. They would make good gift ideas and, while they are aimed at adults, I think grumpy teenagers could be inspired to make themselves a cute homemade phone case too. It was also nice to take a break from the quilt project which had been going on forever and do something quickly and actually finish it! So thank you FunkyDivaDesigns for asking me to give it a go - now everyone else you need to go over to FunkyDivaDesigns and get yourselves a cute DIY phone case kit!

Being a Grown-Up Crafter...

Do you consider yourself a 'grown-up'? I've been a teacher for nearly 9 years in total and yet I still don't think of myself as an adult. When kids say 'miss' it's fine, when they say 'Miss Phillips' I get a little freaked out. But I am beginning to come to terms with being a proper grown-up and have taken some steps into adulthood: I now have my own business cards! Yes, I know most people have had them for, like, ever but I've always thought of them as being what proper adults have and I have never really thought that I am a proper adult. But as my craft sales are beginning to take off and my printer doesn't like me very much, it seemed about time to get some. Actually I didn't - the lovely Andy designed and bought them for me. THANK YOU!

I was soooo excited when I opened these for the first time I nearly clapped my hands like a little girl (see I TOLD you I haven't grown up yet!) Aren't they great?

Now that I've got my business cards, I guess I really should start getting busy for a craft fair or some more Etsy sales. Please feel free to look at my etsy store and take your pick!  

But before I can prepare for a craft fair there is something I need to get on with first. Remember all that material I bought? Well it's been going to good use here at Creating Trouble HQ... It's time to reveal part II of the grand project. This bit is looking a little more complete and I guess that some of it is beginning to take shape. Can you guess what the whole piece is going to be yet? 

Granny Mad...part deux

What have you been up to recently? I've been working mostly on the quilt project, but will show you more of that soon... (just trying to keep you all on your toes!) Today's post though is dedicated to Grannies. Well granny crochet squares that is. You can dedicate this post to your granny as well if you like, but it's not obligatory. 

I've said before I'm not sure what I'm making with these grannies - I think I'm just playing around and seeing if I can make interesting designs. I'm definitely not being very speedy with them! The pattern for these could be really easy but I'm not good at following patterns and I got this one wrong about a million times over! But anyway - these are the grannies I made this week.

The pattern was designed by Chris Simon from Yarn Crazy and you can find it here. I love the flowers! I think they have turned out really prettily in the end - so lots of hard work but definitely worth it!

Oooh oooh ooh!

I've been really bad and ordered a whole load of fabrics and felts recently... and they all arrived today! How excited am I? Ridiculously so. So I thought I would show you why I'm so excited:

First up - felt from Lupin on Etsy - I've got 30 squares in my own choice of colours! I think I forgot to get brown which was a bit of an oversight on my part, but looking forwards to some Christmassy felt projects (and other top secret ideas too...!) Hooray! 

Love the batik effect of these blue and purple fabrics from ForgetMeNot Fabrics. And can I just point out that they have FANTASTIC customer service: I had also ordered a blue bundle which they had sadly run out of - they went out of their way to try and get it back in from their supplier and refunded immediately (including changing postage costs) when they weren't able to. Thank you!

And finally I went back to Seamstar for a new red fabric bundle and found this cute blue daisy bundle too. Hooray!

So I guess I need to reveal why i need so much fabric? Well.... here's the beginning of it:

I can't really reveal the rest of this yet but I'm sure you can see what it is the beginnings of. For those of you on Twitter - these are the 'project #' s I've been tweeting about. It's recently had a huge design upheaval but I'll reveal more when I have done more of it...