My Busy Craft Life

Hi again all, No sewing for me today as am recovering from bizarre emotional drama of visiting the optician for contact lens appointment. It was the first time since I was 3 years old that I tried them and after having some bad experiences with them (I was three, so duh!) I was just way too scared to stick my finger into my eye. The fact that my only good eye was blocked by my rather large finger (or so it seemed) didnt help as I really couldnt see what I was doing. So spent the evening cooking and surfing. Tomorrow the dress will be continued. Only a week late so far... OMG... But now for the reason of this blog. As I only have three followers, I dont really want to have a giveaway yet because there really is no point yet LOL. BUT Dreamy Whites is having the coolest giveaway! Check it out here : http://dreamywhites.blogspot.com/2010/03/well-dressed-home-and-very-generous.html The prize is a designer duvet worth $253. It's so pretty! Just follow the instructions and enter :) Go...

OMG it is nearly April already and the Mombi deadline is fast approaching... So last night I actually continued the dress a bit after work. I worked on of the sides of the dress, having found a phone that shows it quite well and even finding two hidden patches on it! I bought this gold fabric on Saturday for the wrist bits and it was jsut perfect for this large bit also. Now you must realise that everything sewing onto this dress is done by hand, even the large bits as I dont want any mistakes. My biggest worry at the moment is flying cigarettes at the fair as last year someone just flung away his cigarette and burned a hole into my dress. But fingers crossed that wont happen this time... I wanted to quickly post this picture before heading off to work. Now that one side has been embellished like this, the other side must quickly follow. I will still need to sew sequins onto this side but other than that I think it is pretty much finished. I'm thinking one more patch on the other s...

Another weekend has gone by and more progress has been made with the Mombi dress. My intended deadline for the dress itself was Saturday evening. I had planned to have everything on the dress, the fleece inside bit made as well as the sleeves, and to have started to cloak by Sunday morning. Oops... that sure didnt work out. But a lot of progress has been made anyway and the end is nigh. Of the dress at least. The cloak has yet to be started. I've taken progress pictures starting from where I left off last week. So check it out: The patches I made while on the plane to Germany and New York: Wednesday evening status: Friday evening status: Saturday evening status: Sunday evening status: And a view of the full dress so far: Now I know it's not perfect yet, but it's getting there. I'm just glad I have so many references (book, movie, trading cards collection) as some of this stuff is really tricky. But next weekend I have 4 days so I'm hoping to finish the dress this w...

The crafty part of the trip involved many trips to sewing, ribbon and trim places like M&J Trimming (often featured on the Martha Stewart website or in her magazines), Joyce Buttons and Trims (great for rhinestones which I need for the Mombi dress), and.... MOOD ! I had to wait until Monday morning to go there as planning wouldnt allow me to go there any other day and they are closed on Sundays. So many ribbons and items to make hair accessories in M&J Trimming.... :) Check it out, I went to Mood!!! It was on the 3rd floor so I couldnt get a photo OUTSIDE the store... BUT: I also bought a bag there (the one they have on Project Runway) but I dont have a photo of it yet. I even left the store saying 'Thank you, Mood' LOL. I just couldnt resist ;) Then I walked back to the hotel via Fashion Avenue: In the end it turned out quite crafty after all :) So now that I have finished blogging everything, it is late and I havent worked on the Mombi dress at all tonight. Only thr...

It was my birthday last Sunday and as I am trying to be frugal and not buy stuff I dont need, I didnt want anything materialistic. So my present from the bf was a long weekend in New York! Isnt he the sweetest? It was so cool! I always wanted to go there just to check it out, and now I could finally go! We went from Friday till Monday (landing Tuesday and going straight to work, I was so exhausted!), stayed at a lovely and quaint hotel, and saw the sights of NYC such as the New York Library, Bryant Park, the Flatiron Building, the Empire State Building... the usual really... (the above is an extremely NY picture I think LOL) So it was really a weekend of much walking, visiting, and looking around. Extremely little shopping actually :) With the exchange rate it really wasnt worth it anyway... On Sunday, my actual birthday, we went to Moma to visit the Tim Burton exhibition that I found on several blogs (I actually commented on one of them but forgot which one it was sorry). It being ...

It's been a while but I have been super busy and also on the go a lot. A few days before the New York trip, I had to go on a business trip to Stuttgart to our office there. So three days of no sewing, lots of travelling without a chance to prepare for NY, but also the chance to buy some Easter goodies in Germany which is always a treat :) Met my colleagues again which was also nice (the girls are big Twilight fans I noted, I took a photo but not sure if they agree re the publishing), and had great German food. Why am I blogging this? Because I just have to share this picture that I made after I did all my food shopping: A lot of Easter stuff and many many sauces as they were on offer and they dont sell these in the UK outside of the German shop which is way far from my house. I also spent lots of time on the plane sewing my patches for my dress, much to the amazement of the person next to me :) I didnt take a photo of that though, but have also prepared many patches for the flight ...

I am sooo sleepy!! Spent all weekend sewing the Mombi dress again and have made some good progress, although didnt reach this weekend's deadline unfortunately. That could have to do with the fact that I had to take care of the usual things like groceries, banking, and more fabric shopping before actually starting this weekend's endeavours. I did notice a few things though. On this website http://www.waltdisneysreturntooz.com/Props_Mombi.htm it is said that this is THE Mombi dress. However, after watching the movie several times, and referring to the book and the trading cards that all contain images of Mombi and the dress, I noticed that some of the patches on the dress are not the same. So now I'm wondering, did they have more than one dress? Is the dress on the website one of many or maybe a really good recreation? Either way, I have decided to use this picture as my main reference anyway as it shows the dress from all the right angles. So now I guess you want to see my ...

I skipped the sewing today and went for the cooking instead. Sainsbury's had plums on sale, so there I was, stuck with two punnets of plums and I dont even like them that much! Cue for plum tart recipe that I kept for unknown reasons. They were AMAZING! So this is what you need: 200gr (7 oz) plain flour 100gr (3 1/2 oz)unsalted butter, cut into chunks 2 tbsp granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 4 tbsp cold water 8 ripe plums 50 gr (2 oz) chopped nuts the zest of half an orange or lemon 1 egg white Pre-heat the oven to Gas 7, 220C, fan 200C. Place the flour in a bowl, add butter, and rub it into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in one tablespoon of the sugar and the cinnamon. Then add 3 tablespoons of cold water and mix to a soft dough. Turn out onto a well-floured work surface and shape into a ball. Cut into 6 equal parts. Roll out each piece into a circle with a 14cm (ca 6") diameter. Cut the plums in half, remove the stones, ...

I made it! I finished my planned work ahead of the deadline. Well, the deadline was a little vague as it was 'Sunday evening'. It is now nearly 10pm and I have just finished tidying the remains of the fabric explosion in my apartment. The dress is looking good. At the moment it is still very simple and some people would probably not see the difference between this and any store bought dress. Well, the difference being, I made it! LOL. It is also not 100% perfect but it's a costume and all areas with tiny (really really tiny) mistakes that no one sees anyway really will be covered by either the cloak or the patches so in the end it will all work out. But I finished the basics and now I can spend the rest of the next 4 weeks to handsew all the patches on it. The dress is completely double stitched, for lack of an overlocker (really, one day when I have £400 spare I will buy one. Also when I am finally sure enough that I can just sew and cut at the same time and not think ...

Today I finally started on the Mombi dressed. Having barred myself in my apartment, my fabric stash at the ready, I got started. It is now nearly midnight and I have been creating since 8am. When you see the results (pics below), it might not look like much but just remember that I am not a professional seamstress and I ALWAYS make stupid mistakes... This morning I actually realised that I didnt have an exact pattern for the cloak, even though it's a basic pattern that I got from this really cool website a few years ago ( http://www.amtgard-wl.com/library/howtos/how2clok.pdf ) so I had to measure everything first. Then I was smart enough to cut 3 the same pieces instead of 2 and 2 (I needed 4 so this actually makes sense in a minute). Luckily I noticed after cutting the 3rd piece (it would have been better after the 2nd of course LOL) so I could still fix the 3rd piece and cut the 4th without any problems. Yes, for a change I bought pretty exact fabric and not the usual double-in-c...

Ok, you might have guessed it, I still havent started on the Mombi dress... Even with all my good intentions and the fact that it looks so easy and not at all time consuming, I'm sure this is going to bite me in the end with all the hand sewing and the spikes I still have to make. And so I am betting everything on this weekend and am planning to have both the dress and the cloak sewn together at the very least so that I can spend normal weekdays handsewing all the deco on it. Today I had to work late, yet again you might think, but yes we're always busy around this time of the month and the quarter end is coming near so I really have to put the energy and time in. So by the time I got home, did the dishes of the last four days *shame*, cooked dinner and had actually eaten it, it was past 9pm so by then my sewing motivation had nearly completely vanished. I would love to start something now but sadly I have to get up early tomorrow morning so I just dont have the time. Anyway, b...

Remember the Valentine Cookies ? I brought those and many similar ones before to work and ever since then people have been asking me about the recipe. So I finally took a minute to write it all down. :) They're very easy to make and can be used for all occasions. So here we go: You need: 1 pack vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 75 grams of sugar 270 grams of plain flour 140 grams of cold butter 2 eggs decoration materials Whisk one egg. Mix with sugar, vanilla, flower, and butter to a smooth dough. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to a thickness of roughly 3 mm. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes from the dough. Whisk the second egg in a separate bowl. Place the cookies on a baking tray and brush them with the egg. Bake the cookies in a pre-heated oven on 180C/350F for about 20-30 mins or until golden brown. Decorate and enjoy!