Handmade Monday 135

Welcome to another Handmade Monday!

First off, I want to say a huge thank you for all your replies to my dilemma last week.  One of the best things about blogging has to be super helpful responses you get from other people.  You are truly amazing! Thank you so much.  It's helpful to know I'm not on the completely wrong track!

I haven't been doing as much sewing as I would like to recently.  I'm going to try and remedy that, as I recently got this fabric from Wholeport.

I just love these little cats, and I know a little girl who might love them even more.  I have an idea to make a kind of moveable "play scene" with them, inspired by the Fuzzy Felt I used to play with myself when I was little.  I was trying to work out if I needed some sort of fuzzy ground and felt backing on the little fabric images for this idea to work, and I figure probably don't - I think the images themselves will inspire imaginative play and story-telling.  But any ideas would be welcomed!

Some of the cats are a little bit bigger.  They'd make a great stuffed toy, picture on a bedroom wall or even a little bag.  I'm undecided on that one, but whatever I make I probably can't go wrong on the cute factor with these images!  Cute factor no problem then.  Time factor - well, that's another story...

I've got a couple of commissions from Craftseller this week, neither of which involve sewing, so I'm not sure if my sewing machine will actually see the light of day this week, despite my best intentions.  I'm going to be experimenting with candles and cookie cutters (more on that soon!) and polymer clay Christmas tree decorations, both of which sound like a lot of fun.

Over to you now! What's been going on in your world?

Wholeport's Weekly Pin to Win Contest

This is something that might interest you if you'd like to get your hands on some free sewing or crafting supplies!

Wholeport are offering you the chance of winning whatever it is you pin onto Pinterest from their website - this is a weekly contest, so you can have a go every week if you like.  In case you can't see the infographic above, this is a quick overview of how it works:

1. Follow Wholeport on Pinterest
2. Create a board called Wholeport Pin to Win
3. Use the hashtag #WholePortPin2Win on your pin
4 When you've created your pin, copy and paste the URL onto the comments section on this pin

Good luck!  Wholeport is a brilliant place to get all sorts of crafting goodies - it's well worth popping over for a look.

Oh, and if you're not on Pinterest, do go and sign up now - you'll either be very glad you did, or become so heavily addicted that you'll wish you hadn't!

Free Sewing Class and Shoe Fabric!

I know a lot of people are really getting into sewing these days.  One of my daughters is teaching herself quite a lot with her new (to her, anyway) sewing machine (I'm impressed with her creative skills so far).  And my 10-year-old granddaughter Keira is really excited about learning to sew.  She's made lots of cushions and a snuggle bag already but wants to move on to making bags.

I mention this because I just found a brilliant free video class on Craftsy that teaches you how to make a tote bag.  I've downloaded the video and I'm going to get my daughter and granddaughter to watch it.  Maybe they can even have a bit of auntie/niece bonding over it!

On the bag theme, Keira has plans to make a shoe bag - with a shoe print fabric (above and below)  The fabric is just amazing, and one metre gets you enough to make a few bags.

the fabric is wide, and the print is sideways on to the selvedge

 (in the image above, the selvedges are top and bottom) so there's plenty 

(there's a 12" ruler at the side of the fabric to help scale the photo)

But I like the idea of a hanging panel too - the wording on the fabric just lends itself to something you could put on a wall!

welcome to my house!

You may remember my dotty denim from this post - it's from Wholeport like the shoe print fabric.  I have more plans for this denim - I want some oven mitts from it and also a cushion.  Unfortunately, I did waste some of it when I got my photo frame wrong when I was experimenting with a design, so I don't have as much as I'd like.  I may have to order some more, or maybe I'll back the cushion with something else.  Either way, I do officially love my dotty denim!  It's quite soft for a denim fabric, and I can imagine it would work for all sorts of things - including bags.  I can imagine it with a brilliant red or bright floral print lining.

the gorgeous dotty denim

It's busy here so all these plans will be put into action sometime in 2013, which isn't too far away...

A Lovely New Sponsor (& Free Sample!!)

I don't know about you, but I think one of the great treats nowadays is receiving and opening a package of goodies you've bought online - in fact, one of the very lovely things about being a crafter, artist or designer/maker is needing to buy in some gorgeous supplies sometimes.  Because some craft supplies are quite specialised, or we're looking for something different for the latest project, the best way to buy them is often over the internet.

how cute are these bunny charms?

Enter Wholeport -  a website which aims to have "all the supplies for your beautiful handmade life".  I quite like that idea!

Wholeport is based on the other side of the world to me, in China.  But the world's a small place these days, when you can click a button, send an email and buy online.  I know the readers of this blog are spread all over the world so it's always great to find suppliers who ship worldwide too.

dotty denim - expect to see me making something from this very soon

There are a couple of things you might want to know about Wholeport:

• they have a free sample service.  How cool is that?  All you do is choose your free sample from this page and it gets sent to you.  Only one free sample per person, which of course is very fair indeed as there are no costs to you at all.  They just ask that you follow them on Twitter or like them on Facebook.  Easy peasy.  It's a bit like Christmas come early!

• they will be running a giveaway on this blog soon. Watch this blog for more info about the giveaway soon - the details are just being ironed out now...

• they are my newest sponsor and will be supplying some lovely things for my makes.  I've fallen in love with a lot of their fabrics, so I'm hoping to be able to show you some makes quite soon!

I love this print on cotton canvas

Go on - check them out.  As well as fabrics, you'll find beads, baking, polymer clay... and more. I think there's probably something for everyone.