NEW :: Upcycled wool fabric needle books

You may remember a few weeks back I showed you a lovely wool fabric skirt I picked up from a charity shop £1 rail. Although I didn't know exactly what I was going to make with it I knew the lovely fabric would lend itself well to a variety of projects and the colour offers the perfect backdrop for many different colours

The first thing I made was a cute little needle book as a gift for my dad who loves to do cross stitch.

I used some lovely ribbon from my Jane Means stash for the button loop and decoration. If you watched the Great British Sewing Bee you might recognise the narrow grey stitched ribbon - it's the same one Anne used to great effect embellishing her blouse in episode 1 .  I adore the simple red, grey and white stripe ribbon too - a decorative touch without making it girly!  The button came from Nan's button box.

I lined it with a pale blue and white striped cotton and made the 'pages' with black felt.  Then I finished off the gift by filling it with a selection of gold plated needles.

He loved it!

So did I!! In fact I loved it so much I made a couple more...

This one uses Jane Means stitched gross grain ribbon in sage and the same narrow ribbon as before but this time in green. The lining fabric from my stash matches beautifully - right down to the stitched lines as part of the pattern!

I have used pale green felt for the pages and another vintage button holds it all together.

On this needle book I have used Jane's beautiful red ribbon with grey polka dots - it looks like it was made to go with this fabric!  The narrow stitched ribbon comes in red too and once again has been used for the button loop. A lovely etched button and matching red top stitching finish this one off nicely.

Inside I have lined it with gorgeous Lama Love by Monaluna Organics sold by one of my favourite fabric suppliers Seamstar (stay tuned - I have an upcoming blog post all about their great new monthly craft club!) It's cute and quirky and goes with the grey and red theme perfectly! Bright red felt pages hold your needles safely.

Both these needle books are available now from my Folksy shop priced £8.00 each. I am still offering free post and packing on ALL UK orders through Folksy so why not go take a look?

I feel there are few more needle books to be born from this fabric/ribbon/vintage button combo yet - perhaps you have a colour combo you'd like to see? I may have to create some matching pin cushions too...

Competiton wins!

Do you ever enter competitions on blogs or posted on Twitter or Facebook and then forget all about them? I know I do! Most of them require no more than a click to follow and a retweet or a comment left and then, as I never win anything, most of them get forgotten about!

One I had completely forgotten about was run by Yorkshire Lavender (you can follow them on Twitter @yorkslavender ) to win a kilo of their fabulous dried lavender. So as you can imagine I was thrilled when the congratulations tweet popped up in my mentions column on Tuesday :) My box of lavender arrived on Friday morning. Do you have any idea what a kilo of dried lavender looks like?

...yes that is a carrier bag full!!!

...and it smells divine :)



I use dried lavender a lot in my designs, usually homegrown and dried so I have limited stocks, so this prize was much appreciated!

We will be holidaying in Yorkshire later this year and we may even fit in a trip to the award winning Yorkshire Lavender farm and gardens and buy a few plants to add to my own garden.

As if that win wasn't enough on Saturday night I was notified that I had won another!  This one run by one of my favourite online fabric suppliers SeamStar . Their competitions are always popular and as this as a bumper giveaway open for a month I knew they would have A LOT of entries and my chance of winning would be minimal. But it didn't stop me hoping...

When Courtney at Seamstar tweeted that I had won one of the three amazing hampers I was over the moon!!!

It arrived yesterday. I hope you don't mind if I share...

Beautifully packaged!

It was my birthday last week - this was like an extra special birthday present :)

I mean - just look at all these lovelies. Who could not be inspired by this selection?

There are even a couple of lovely owl prints by one of my favourite designers Saffron Craig. This one might become the netbook sleeve I have been meaning to make...

Riley picked out this funky bright print 'Lollipop Dreams' by Patty Young as his favourite.

...and just look at this selection of gorgeous cotton voiles by Anna Maria Horner I really don't know what I am going to make with them yet, but whatever it is, it will be special!

There was also a big bag of grosgrain ribbons in just about every colour you could ever need!

Not to mention some habdash extras - pins, buttons and zips.

As competition prizes go this was pretty darn amazing so thank you once again Courtney and SeamStar for making my birthday week one to remember :) I can heartily recommend that you visit the wonderful 'Seamzine' blog for all the latest products, projects, competitions and giveaways.

And good luck...next time it could be you!