We had a cup of tea and something to eat before we looked around – we wanted to make sure that we had the stamina! And also the showground was filling up, so we thought that this was a good plan before the queues got too big. Then we had a good potter around the stalls, and it was really difficult to know where to start! There were so many gorgeous things there, but one of my favourite stalls was Colouricious. They have the most beautiful hand carved wooden stamps, and they were doing some demonstrations of how you can stamp with paint and decolourant and used mixed media for different projects. I bought a set of blocks for printing and some decolourant too – can’t wait to have a go! My favourite stamp is this one – as you know, I just love owls!

Another lovely stall that we found was Farne Designs – they print beautiful textiles in Cornwall. We both bought a little selection of fabrics, and I got an embroidery kit for Mum for Christmas. Their stall was just so inviting – look at these fabrics!

One of the things that I was most excited about was meeting Stuart Hillard from the Great British Sewing Bee! For those of you who don’t know this programme, it has got so many people into sewing and making clothes and Stuart appeared on the first series. He was at the quilt show to sign his new book, and Mum has very kindly bought me it for Christmas so it will be fab to have a signed copy! Stuart was so lovely – he chatted to us like he had known us for years and was so welcoming. It really was a pleasure to meet him!

After we had spent up, we looked around the exhibition quilts. I can’t begin to tell you how inspiring they were – all the quilters are so incredibly talented, and the attention to detail is amazing. I love that people had incorporated different techniques into their quilts (including felting – look out for the planets quilt in my gallery below) and there were so many different styles. I went away with so many ideas, although I’m nowhere near good enough to create anything like these! The first quilt here won the ‘Best in Show’ and was by Liz Villalobos from Newcastle (quilted by Kay Bell) – simply stunning! I tried my best to take photos of all the labels so that I could credit all the quilters here, but I did miss one or tow (sorry). Click on the photos to see the quilter’s details.[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” interval=”3″ images=”5720,5721,5722,5724,5723,5728,5725,5726,5733,5729,5738,5730,5731,5737″ img_size=”large” column_number=”2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1412354012241{padding-top: 30px !important;}”]Very inspiring, I’m sure you’ll agree! We left talking about all of the lovely things we’d like to be able to do with quilting one day… On the way home we met a lovely lady called Jennie at Harrogate station – she had also been to the show and had picked up some supplies for Christmas! Jennie has a Facebook page, so do pop over and say hello! Making a new friend was certainly a great end to the day! :-)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post The Great Northern Quilt Show 2014 appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I’ve seen lots of fabric covered letters around recently and have wanted to have a go myself – this weekend I finally got around to it! It is a project that you could complete on an evening after work (if you need a weeknight craft fix, as I often do!) and would make a great decoration in your home or perhaps a wedding gift. The possibilities are endless! I bought my letters from RE (if you haven’t seen my post about this amazing shop, click here) and raided my fabric stash – a fat quarter is more than enough for a letter. Tom chose this funky grey fabric with little buttons on it for his ‘T’, and for my ‘C’ I went for pink (obviously!) as I thought that the circle pattern would tie them together.

I decided against covering the ampersand for 2 reasons: the first was that I couldn’t decided on a fabric that matched the other two, and the second reason is that it would probably be really difficult…I’m pleased with the end result and think I made the right decision!

You will need:

Card 3D letters
Mod podge and a paintbrush
Some fabric (iron out the creases before you get started!)
Sharp scissors and a pencil

Step 1

Lay out some fabric and place a letter on top, and then lightly draw around the letter with a pencil. Trim the fabric so that you have a 2 cm border around the edge of the letter that you have just drawn. For this letter ‘T’ I cut out one T shape and a larger square so that I could cut some long strips to be able to cover the sides (but that’s in a later step!). For some letters, like the ‘C’, you’ll need to make sure that the fabric is the right way up for the front and the back (as shown in the second photo).

Step 2

Paint some mod podge onto one side of the letter and stick it onto the fabric. Trim the edges as required so that the fabric will fold neatly around the edges of your letter. For curved letters, you’ll need to snip around the edges at regular intervals so that you can fold the fabric around the curves more easily.

Step 3

Repeat step 2 with the other side of your letter. Cut out some long strips of fabric the same width of the letters, then paint on some more mod podge on the sides before sticking on the fabric.

Ta-dah! That’s it – you just have to leave them to dry now before displaying them in a suitable position

The post Fabric covered letters appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I love embroidery and I love badges, so this little project is perfect as it combines the two! It’s also a really good way of using up fabric scraps – I hate having random little bits of lovely fabric left over with no idea what to use them for. I’ve made these badges using coverable buttons – the small one is 29mm and the larger one is 38mm – and they are so versatile. I’ve got lots of ideas for these badges, so look out for more projects to come soon!

You can get a tool to make coverable buttons, but the biggest size on the tool is 29mm. I was worried that this would be a problem, but the larger buttons are really easy to pop together so it doesn’t matter. When choosing fabric small patterns work best, and I’ve chosen contrasting colours so that the embroidery stands out. To mark out the letters you could use an invisible pen (mine disappeared too fast for me to be able to see it!) – here I used some parchment paper and embroidered through it as I find this much easier. This paper is actually baking parchment but it makes amazing pattern paper – this is my top sewing tip!

You will need:

Metal self-cover buttons (I found these on Ebay)
Parchment or pattern paper
A pencil
Some fabric and embroidery thread
Sharp scissors
Needle and pins
Tweezers
Some brooch backs
Superglue

Step 1:

Remove the wire from the inside of the front of the button, and draw around it on the the parchment/pattern paper, leaving a bit of room around the edge. Then write your word(s) so it fits inside the circle (don’t go too close to the edge – and keep your word choice short enough for your button size!). Cut out the paper and pin onto your fabric.

You may wish to use an embroidery hoop to keep the fabric steady – I find it easier to hold a smaller piece, so I cut it out. Do whatever works for you!

Step 2:

Thread the needle with your chosen colour cotton and then sew over the letters. I prefer to use a split stitch, but you could use any you like as long as the letter is clear.

Make sure that when you change a thread, tie a knot and trim the excess as close as you can to the fabric.

Step 3:

Carefully remove the parchment paper. You may need to hold on to your stitches at times! Use tweezers to remove any small, tricky pieces.

Step 4:

Place the fabric face-down on a flat surface, and then line up the front of the button over the embroidery. Hook the excess fabric over the back of the button and adjust as necessary. Once lined up, place the back of the button over the top and pop into place.

Step 5:

Very carefully, use the superglue to attach the brooch back to the button, making sure that it is horizontal in relation to the embroidery. Make sure that you don’t get any on your fingers! Leave to try for a few minutes.

There will be a little bit of discolouration with the superglue, but it is on the back so who will know?! I’ve tried loads of other glues and none of them hold, so this is the best option by far!

That’s it – as soon as the glue is dry, your badge is ready to wear! There are so many options with this project, and the possibilities are endless. I have some others in the making but I can’t share them with you just yet…you’ll have to keep looking out for them!

The post Fabric button badges appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Many, many years ago, I made a bag for our Scrabble letters with my Mum – here it is:

Yes, that does say ‘1993’ and I was 7 and 3/4 (the 3/4 is very important!). Unfortunately, it got a hole in the bottom and I think something was spilt on it, so we had to wash it – so the colourful tiles that I had drawn on were washed away! This lovely faded creation has served us well, but it was about time that we have a new one for the next 20 or so years.

I found this gorgeous fabric and decided that it would be perfect (I did suggest to Tom that I could make a skirt out of it, but he didn’t like that idea – it would be ‘too jazzy’ apparently!). I teamed it up with some neon pink ribbon and decided that I’d make some little Scrabble tiles with some wool felt.

The first thing I did was to draw around a Scrabble tile onto the felt, before copying the letters and points onto the felt too. Then I embroidered the letters on using split stitch.

Then I made the bag (modelled on the old one) – after folding it in half with the right sides together, I pressed seams that would allow the ribbon to pass through the top and then stitched close to the edge of the hem. Then I pinned the sides, stitched them together and then trimmed off the excess with pinking shears. After turning the bag the right way around, I pressed it.

The next step was to attach the letters – I used a small running stitch to do this.

Next, I finished the edges of the tops of the bag, before threading the ribbon through and sewing the ends together.

Ta-dah!

Here’s to many more fun games of Scrabble!

The post Scrabble letters bag appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Many of you will already know that one of my crafty plans this year is to learn how to make my own stamps (see my previous post about stamp-making if you haven’t already!). I have a new found admiration for anyone who can make beautifully crafted stamps – it’s trickier than it looks! Getting a neat edge is really tough, but practice makes perfect…

Last week I had the idea to make a little button stamp. Then I had an idea of what I could use it for! So yesterday, I drew a few little sketches and settled on this button. It took a while to carve it, and I tried to do it as neatly as I could…

It isn’t perfect, but as you can see from the bottom left-hand square, it printed out ok! I’m really a perfectionist, so dealing with that can be hard sometimes…but I actually like the slight wonky nature of this button

I realised that the light was disappearing (come on, British summer time!) so I gathered all of my things and started printing. I thought that this stamp would make some great little notebooks – and as a craft supply hoarder, I had some of these little Moleskine notebooks that were perfect.

Then I got out my alphabet stamps too!

I like this black and white version, but decided to add a little extra touch by sewing in some cotton in different colours.

Make sure you snip any excess cotton as close as you can to the knots on the inside. Ta-dah! They’re ready for lots of crafty notes

The post Stamped button notebooks appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.