When I joined the group last year, I arrived just in time to participate in one of their monthly challenges. That one was to make the Made by Rae pattern for a Buttercup Bag . I duly took part and created this little bag:
I used some fabric that had been in my stash for well over a year but I'd considered far too pretty to use for something really mundane. This photo was taken inside, at night using the barely brighter than candlelight wattage in my dining room, so you can't really appreciate the lovely pinks in this fabric. It's from Amy Butler's 'Soul Blossoms' range and this particular one is called cherry laurel dots. I added some piping to my bag too, for a little extra interest. It's a really easy pattern to follow and this took me a little over an hour to put together, despite my hands being badly arthritic that night.
Following that challenge last year, we had another one in February. This time it was a little more complicated and involved participants making a mug rug (an elongated fabric coaster that allows for a cup of tea and room for a biscuit!) for someone else, and then posting it out and sitting back to wait for the postie to bring them a mug rug in return. The swap was done anonymously to begin with - with one of our 'chief bums' doing all the address and name swapping for us. Each person made for someone else but then someone different made one for them. We also had a document where people could put suggestions for their maker if they wanted.
My swappee had disclosed that she had a bit of a gnome obsession so I gleefully dug out some fabric I'd had kicking about for a while. The range of fabric was called Better Gnomes and Gardens (do you see what they did there?) and I went browsing on Pinterest to get some ideas for mug rugs...Several weeks later the emergency services found me emaciated and dishevelled on the sofa, having pinned 1000s of things on my sewing related boards ;)
Having decided to go with a circles theme, I chose a suitably gnomey fabric and got to work. This is what I ended up with:
This is a photo that my recipient took, having decided that some of her gnomes needed to use it for a picnic rug! She really liked it, so that was a relief! In hindsight I wouldn't have used linen for my main fabric - it was really awkward to work with. What the photo doesn't show very well is the fancy stitching that I used around most of the circles. I'm trying to work my way through each of the (over 100) stitches on my machine and so I used a different one for each circle here.
The mug rug that I received was really lovely too. My maker also included some little felt flowers to have a little impromptu game of noughts and crosses (tic tac toe). Here's a little pic:
Isn't it really gorgeous? She obviously read my comments about liking purple too!
Some of the other lovely ladies in Crafty Bums Sewing Group have kindly allowed me to share their mug rugs here too, so here they are...
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| By Laura Bremner |
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| By Sonia Spence |
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| By Magdalena Kurek |
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| By Sarah Murray |
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| By Gemma Jones |
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| By Amie Freemantle |
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| By Antonia Gorman |
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| By Leah Glen Day |
(Sorry about the ecclectic photo layout, I really struggle with the Blogger niggles!)
Some of these ladies have blogs of their own:
Sarah can be found at Sew Now We Are Four
Sonia has her blog at Fabric and Flowers
Leah 's blog is Sew To Bed
Magdalena has a Facebook Page over at Magda's Felt
I'm sure they'd love it if you popped over to say hi!
