London Mummy

Getting ready for Christmas ...

2009-12-11T15:45:32+00:00

Just popping in quickly to say thank you to those of you that have emailed me and commented here on the blog - I will email you properly soon but am in the midst of some last minute craftng this week for a Christmas Market that I am taking part in, right here in Chiswick tomorrow. Really looking forward to this one as hope to see lots of familiar faces and my fantastic helper will be right there with me. Livvy came along and helped me with another fair last weekend and was an absolute star, as always.

I'm having great fun making up these little festive houses with some of the gorgeous Westfalenstoffe fabric from Germany - love the little horses, just so Christmassy, particularly teamed up with the Christmas tape :)

I filled these little babies with lavender so they smell just gorgeous, as does my workspace.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Re-surfacing after a long absence ....

2009-12-06T17:30:26+00:00

I'm back, although I never intended to disappear for quite so long, Apologies to my poor brother for leaving that unfortunate still of him frozen in cyberspace for months :) It does feel a tad weird , you know what it's like when you haven't seen someone for ages but so much has happened that you really don't know how to start to catch up. I've lost count of the number of times I started a post and then faltered.

It was a much needed break though as there were just so many things I really needed to get to grips with. Still got a long way to go but I think I may just have finally learned to stop trying to achieve the impossible and give myself a break.

So what have I been up to then ......

Well, I have finally got my London Mummy website up, after so many false starts. I eventually went for a Big Cartel store which I customized myself. It's very far from perfect but I had spent so long procrastinating and worrying that it wasn't going to pass muster and being embarrassed by the fact that it was taking me so long and that I couldn't afford to purchase all the stock that I wanted, design and make my own items etc that I was in danger of just never getting it done, quitting London Mummy altogether and then beating myself up about it.

I always knew that it was going to be tough given that I was starting from zero, no capital whatsoever, with a child to support and being someone who is not good at asking for help. I find just admitting that things are tough really really hard but I must and will change - starting with not hitting the delete button after this admission.

Earlier this year I did a fair bit of work in Livvy's room. The work I started on opening up the two void spaces under the eaves is nearly finished.

This is the right hand side void partially opened up - was the original lathe and plaster

Lovely!

Can't tell you just how much dust and muck was involved but after moving some of the upright supports, adding an extra horizontal beam for support, battening out and plasterboarding the walls and ceiling, laying a floor on the joists, sanding the two angled beams and fixing tongue and groove it now looks like this:

Oh and lots of white paint!

This is the little secret box I built for her which sits between the floor joists as I couldn't extend the floor any further there - still have to fit the lid for her.

The left hand void was even trickier - I don't have any before photos as I just wanted to get on with it but here is what it looks like now:

The left hand wall was a real mess, bulging mortar between the bricks, horizontal beams and half beams and of course, nothing was straight.

I boxed in the horizontal beams and built out the boxed area a little so that I could build the shelves under the slope to house Livvy's Nintendo DS games and CD's.

I managed to build in a shelf unit behind the sloping beam for more CDs and books.

Having run out of tongue and groove, I only fitted it to the area under the slope and recycled one of the old floorboards to both cover the gap and fix some hooks to with a little shelf above.

To the right of the picture are more upright supports and some shelving I built in which is to be accessed from outside the cupoard although I'm now changing this slightly to create large bookshelf areas accessible from the room.

There is more to do to finish these but I unfortunately discovered a pretty major problem with water ingress under the window between these two void areas which has damaged both the brickwork and timber beam which runs underneath the window and across the full width of the room. Not covered by insurance apparently and which needs to be sorted out by the Management Company for the building, along with various other leaks! One disadvantage to being on the top floor of an old Edwardian House .....

I'll show you more of her room another time.

Chris Gibbs - One of a kind

2009-02-07T19:28:42+00:00

Spoke to my lovely brother in Toronto today and he has uploaded a couple of his comedy clips on You Tube, this is one of my favourites filmed at the Laugh Resort in Toronto:

We love you and miss the three of you lots Chris, really hope Livvy and I get to come out to Canada this Summer and watch you at some of the Fringe Festivals you're taking part in.

Apparently Chris has also been in an American/Canadian collaboration called Howie Do It with Howie Mandel so off to see if I can track down some clips of that for Livvy :)

Happy New Year with a peek at some of my Christmas sewing and fab tutorial compilation.

2009-01-11T17:53:11+00:00

Well so much for my resolution of keeping on top of blogging and emails, failed already :) Thanks to all who emailed me wishing me a Happy Xmas and New Year, I will respond soon I promise.

Anyway just wanted to pop in and say Happy New Year and hello to everyone visiting from The Long Thread. Ellen has compiled an absolutely amazing list of Tutorials and kindly included my Handmade Skittles and Ball Tutorial. For those of you suffering from post Christmas crafting withdrawal go and check out the raft of wonderful tutorials she has featured, many of which I hadn't come across before. She also has a really cute Reversable Skirt Pattern available in her Etsy Shop along with some cute machine embroidery designs for applique - go take a look!

As for me, I've been busy continuing with my DIY, more progress reports on that next week hopefully and trying to upload and edit some of my Christmas gift crafting photos:

Love this Robert Kaufman "Hot Couturier" print and thought the small scale would be perfect for a little doll's bed quilt set for a very special little girl who turned two on Christmas Day and has also just become a big sister to a new baby brother.

I teamed it with some very soft, fine red and white striped cotton/linen blend which was actually a real pain to work with but loved the combination of the fabrics. The binding is the Michael Miller Garden Pindot - I cheated and just stitched both sides on in one go. The quilt itself measures approx 21 inches by 18 inches and I simply quilted 3 inch squares - I like to keep things simple round here :) For the pillow I made a simple calico stuffed one and then made the little patchwork cover using the fabrics I had used for the quilt - have to say I love this little set and will be making more for London Mummy soon.

I also made her this little scarf:

Really simple to make, a rectangle of the pretty blue floral fabric which is a lovely soft brushed cotton, a layer of "Warm and Natural" batting and some dark midnight blue soft corduroy for the reverse. Plan to add a button and button hole but need to double check her neck size first - I have a habit of underestimating sizing :)

A few people asked me for a tutorial on the pyramid fabric shapes, both in the kids play size and door stop size and I will try and post that later on this week, provided I finish Livvy's floor first!

Phew! Time to take stop and take a breath ....

2008-12-07T15:32:15+00:00

Not had much opportunity to take many photos of what I have been busy making lately for London Mummy but as the sun is shining this morning and Livvy is away with her dad visiting her grandparents thought I would grab a few whilst I can!

I absolutely love the Alexander Henry Petting Zoo print, particularly this blue colourway - why oh why did they have to discontinue this one too!! It has a really 50's feel to it, actually I believe the design was an original 50's one, I remember a woman I met via ebay telling me that she had a very similar wallpaper in her bedroom as a child. She sent me a photo but sadly I think it may well have been deleted when I last spring cleaned my Mac.

The quilt is approximately 30 inches by 30 inches square, ideal for a toddlers lap quilt or as a play mat for a baby - plenty of visual interest and great fun to pick out all the different animals at the zoo. The binding is a plain red cotton, why does hand sewing the binding take so long - or is it just me?

Livvy had a demonstration at Stagecoach on Friday night but I was so keen to finish this and some other items for yesterday's Christmas Fair that I missed it. Typically the one and only time I have missed any of her activities since birth, she was presented with her 3 year bronze medal! Oh dear, well at least her dad was there to see it!

I used Warm and Natural for the wadding/batting and machine stitched squares at 5 inch intervals and am really pleased how it turned out. Sounds daft but it folds up nice and neatly which I like :)

In keeping with the vintage style, I backed the little bib and burp cloth set with some chenille and used a decorative top stitch around the edges - I like the fact that over time these edges will fray a little, adding to the charm and the chenille just gets softer and softer each time it is washed.

Making the little tags is fun and a good way to use up little scraps of fabric. Just make them in pretty much the same way as you would applique the onesie but use pinking shears instead of zig zagging around the edges and then lightly iron them onto your tag.

Couldn't resist adding an Anne Claire Petit crochet monkey to the set together with her adorable baby booties:

For the cushion or pillow, as those of you in the US would call it, I use a simple envelope opening and continue the fabric all the way round to the back. Inside the cover is fully lined to add a bit of extra weight and I like to french seam so that there are no raw edges.

As my stash of this print is rapidly decreasing I may well change the back in future in order to save on fabric.

Yesterday's Fair was fun, although I did spend four hours standing in a marquee with my coat on the whole time as I was so cold, despite the fact there were heaters. My stall was right in front of the entrance so a great spot but it did mean a constant flow of cold air. I was next to the mulled wine and had a hard time resisting temptation! As I was on my own I didn't get a chance to take a look around but did get to meet some of the other lovely stallholders as they had a wander themselves. Thanks again to the lovely lady who gave me the handwarmer and to my equally lovely neighbour who covered for me so that I could at least go to the loo!!

Missed out on a party last night, but by the time I got home, lugged all my stock upstairs, tried to put my flat back into something vaguely resembling home and then falling, fortunately not too far, from the ladder as I was putting some stock away up in the attic and wrenching my shoulder in the process it was 8.45 pm and I just couldn't face anything other than a glass of wine and an early night. Hopefully my friends will forgive me but I'm afraid I do rather have a reputation of missing things - one of the downsides of being a somewhat shy singleton in a sea of couples :)