I Was a Winner.

Boy, oh, oh, boy, I was a winner in a blog giveaway run by DragonflyCrafts. Look at the lovely goodies I received.

The parcel with lovely photo card.

The contents. The sewing on these is just so even and the colours fit together beautifully. Thanks very much, Fiona.

On the creating front a few felt softies have been created. The first was an elephant - made as a sample to show a group of children. the pattern came from the very useful book on my bookcase - My First Sewing Book Hand Sewing by Winky Cherry. The patterns in this book have been ever so useful over a long period of time.

The eyes are split pins and the tail has been plaited on after the sewing was finished. The idea for the split pin eyes came from the kits I have purchased from Paper and String. The elephants sewn by the children were then decorated with glitter and fabric paints whereas mine was left very plain.

Second on the felt softie creating spree was a little car. This time I created the pattern myself with some help from some images found trawling the web. Again this was a model to inspire a group of children.

When I worked on this softie with the children we left out the split pin idea. I had tried this to see if it would look like a door handle but in the end decided the car looked fine without this addition. I did wonder about adding buttons for the wheels but have not tried out that idea yet.

Last on the creation line were some Perching Doves from Fa La La La Felt. I purchased an ebook copy of this great little book of felt Christmas decorations and chose the doves to have a go at first. I tried out several different variations before settling on the way I like to make these. They are a little addictive - I couldn't just make one!

With these two I followed the directions in the book to stitch the wing detail but I added the curve at the top of the wing and a second row of decorative stitching inside the first.

With these two I experimented with stitching on a wing that I had cut out with pinking shears but in the end found this to be a little fiddly. I also experimented with both blanket stitch and running stitch around the outside and decided that I preferred the running stitch. I love the way Amanda Carestio has designed these to be sewn onto pegs! Instead of buttons for the eyes I again resorted to split pins.

The ripple blanket is still slowly growing - lucky for me the recipient is so relaxed about when she will get the finished item!

Happy Crafting