craft – No Space Like Home

My friend Lenka (who makes the yummy cakes) and I have decided to go to a craft fair together at the end of this month. Well, not just go together. Exhibit together. Sell together!

They don’t usually allow you to share a table, but I begged very nicely as it was Baby Brain‘s first one, and they’ve let us do it if we mix up our stock, which is jolly nice of them (can you tell I’ve been reading Enid Blyton to Scarlett recently?).

I’ve got a bit of an advantage on Lenka in that my stock doesn’t spoil or go off, nor do I have to wait until the days before to start preparing, but I’m still struggling to find the time to add to my little stock collection. I’m also attempting to make some Baby Brain bunting (in the style of my logo!) to go on the front of our tablecloth! Barry’s going to Germany with work next week, which might be the opportunity I need to catch up on my sewing.

Dresses, bags and bibs is what I’ll be selling on the day, and I’m also taking along my baby birth details prints and an example of a button monogram for the table (but those are obviously made to bespoke requirements); Lenka has a list as long as your arm of delicious delights, including something I haven’t tried before: cake in a jar. Pinterest it. It’s going to be amazing!

I’ve already made Scarlett a little Baby Brain dress and nappy cover so she can run round like a mini advertising board! She models so well!

Come and say hello if you’re in the area, full event details are here. We’d love to see you!

No, it’s me in a monster mood.

When I bought my Supergirl costume (eBay, of course), I was warned that the boot tops were small. In my opinion, childlike would have been an understatement. This photo does not show what the boot tops are like, and she must have been sewn into them – there’s no way even the hottie in the picture could have got these bad boys on. Yeah, that’s not me.

I took them into work for sewing advice from my colleague Katheryn. Everyone tried to get them on, but to no avail. Although I do have calves like a farmer’s wife, it made me feel better that nobody could get them on.

About a month ago, I bought a metre of matching shiny red material to sew a strip in the back of the boot tops. Turns out to be the worst type of material to sew – even piercing the material with a needle causes it to pull, and puts big holes in it. I’ve been putting it off a bit, and keeping an eye out on eBay etc. for boot tops. As no appropriate ones have popped up, I’m left with trying to fix this mess.

Katheryn advised that I strengthen the seams with wundaweb, which I think was a really good idea, except I’ve got a strong feeling the material will just rip somewhere else now. Up to this point, I did this all by hand and it took forever.

I’ve chosen some silver wedges because they’re a balance of my most flattering, yet most comfortable shoes. They’re a bit of an awkward shape to cover, but I know that I’ll be able to keep them on all night.

I had to make the actual foot of the boot, because the boot tops just stop at the ankle, and this would look a tad stupid with a silver peeptoe wedge. I’ve tried this several times, and began by handsewing them, and then gave in and used my ancient hand crank Singer sewing machine. I didn’t think it would save time as it takes a while for me to remember how to set it up, but it definitely did once I got going!

Then I sewed some elastic to the bottoms to hold them down. Not sure how that’s going to fare when I’m walking on it.

The boots do look very handmade, but never mind! It was a very difficult project to try and start with – the last thing I did with the sewing machine was hem some curtains!

Need to finish off tomorrow night, but Katheryn’s lent me some red boots in the meantime in case I need a backup!