I’ve just completed my first ever commission!  How exciting!  So I decided to make a little step by step guide for you to share it!

I was recently persuaded to take my stock box into work to show the girls what I make.  They were very complimentary about my bits and pieces and bought quite a few things which was really lovely.  I do find it hard taking money from people I know but as they said I can’t just give things away and I don’t charge over the odds for them.  I really just cover the costs of materials and not much more.

Anyway, my friend at work was telling me that it was her neice’s first birthday was coming up when I was showing her the little embroidered pillows I’d made.  She said she would love one with her neice’s name and stars on it, so I set to work.   Here’s how I did it…

What you need:

• Felt – for main body plus different colours for decoration
• Embroidery needle
• Embroidery thread – matching and contrasting shades
• Stuffing / wadding
• Buttons – 2
• Ribbon – 1.5 x width of cushion

What to do:

1.  Cut two pieces of felt to the finished size you want the cushion to be (this one was approx 15cm x 11cm)

2.  Cut a variety of stars in contrasting felt in different sizes

3.  Lightly mark the name / text on the front side of one piece of felt

4.  Using back stitch, embroider the letters in a contrasting colour (I separated the floss down to two threads) 

5.  Embroider one of the stars to the back of the cushion

6.  Place stars around the text until you are happy with the layout and colour placement

7.  Embroider the stars in place using a variety of stitches and colours of thread

8.  Join front to back with running stitch, adding ends of ribbon at top right and left corners between the two layers (don’t worry if ribbon isn’t very secure, you’ll fix that later)

9.  Fill with stuffing before joining final edge (you could add lavender at this stage too)

10.  Sew a little button to each corner where the ribbon is joined, making sure you go through all the layers including the ribbon.

11.  Hang up and enjoy!

I can be excited about my website again, because it works again.  You may not have noticed at your end, but at my end I have been very, very restricted in use of my own website, behind the scenes and even the front end you’re looking at now.  I have spent about two months tinkering with bits and pieces on my laptop and netbook but nothing worked.  Other sites and functions were fine, but not frou-frou.  Only after about 20 minutes did anything eventually load so trying to write posts and upload pictures over that sort of timescale just wasn’t going to work.

Various friends were consulted and advice given, tried, tested and ruled out.  There was only one thing for it – practical hands on technical support!  And there was only one person for that job - Warren!

After lots of tea, a few cakes (well, it was hard work) and three hours, I present you with a fully working and fully restored frou-frou service.  And to go with it a re-invigorated blogging me!

‘What’s been the problem?’ I hear you ask! (OK you may not be but I’m going to tell you anyway.  Actually, I’m not going to tell you – these are Warren’s words below!)

‘Here’s pretty much a summary of what I did to fix it.  I think the firewall and winsock ones were the most likely to sort it, but here goes from the top:

Go to a Command Prompt (start / run / cmd) and then type:
* netsh winsock reset
* netsh interface ip reset
* netsh routingip  reset
* netsh firewall reset

Once all done, restart the PC and then check the site access.  I also enabled routing and remote access in Services (services.msc) but possibly that wasn’t necessary to do.’

It seems that this may be caused by an Orange mobile broadband dongle install that somehow corrupted the winsock interface or the firewall settings.  When we  then turned the Windows firewall off, as the settings were persisting and stopping certain items from downloading quickly, it seemed to be cured!

The most annoying thing in it all was that the site that it had the most impact on was the one I own and run.  I probably wouldn’t have been so wound up by it if any another site affected!

So now you can look forward to all the posts that I’ve had in draft in various forms awaiting pictures, editing and publishing.  I shall try not to splurge all at once, got a craft fair this weekend to get ready if nothing else. 

Oh, and see those green crochet coasters in the pic above… watch this space!

Until the next time, which I am already looking forward to, ta-ra!

Ooooh the cutest little owl arrived on my doormat at the weekend.  All the way from Idaho from Tracylea at Homegrown Insanity as part of the Foxs Lane pincushion swap.

He’s so cute – I love owls and I love colour so he’s just perfect.  (Yes, I do think he’s a ‘he’, don’t ask me how I know, I just do).  Tracylea makes lots and lots and lots of owls but this is her first pincushion so I am very privileged to have him.

After mailing him ages ago then him being returned to her, Tracylea was rather concerned that he wouldn’t make it this time again, but he has and I am very happy that he’s now found a safe home.  Big thanks to Tracylea for making him for me.

I emailed Tracylea to say he’d arrived and that it didn’t feel right to stick pins in him, but as she rightly pointed out he was made as a pincushion so he should be properly used.  As a result, I have now put him to good use.  Tracylea stuffed him with steelwool as she’d researched that as a good pincushion stuffing to keep pins sharp which is a great tip I haven’t heard of before.

Tracylea included some pieces of my favourite types of fabrics in my parcel too – cotton prints.  These may become lavender bags – my fave make of the mo!!

Now, all I need to do is work out why Anka’s pincushion hasn’t got to her yet - its now been a month since I posted it and I fear it may never arrive – and then this swap will be complete!

p.s. I just noticed when looking at the preview of this post that the owl’s colours match my website colours brilliantly!!!

I’ve been having (and think I still am actually having) some very peculiar technical problems which have been preventing me posting much recently as every page is taking ages to load and trying to get images up is virtually impossible.  I think the live pages are fine for most people viewing my site, but behind the scenes it’s been grinding to a halt.

However, I’m persevering and now trying Firefox, which appears to be marginally quicker… so far!!

So what have you missed?

Lots and lots of making.  I’ve been doing lots of new things and some experimenting and looking forward to sharing details.

A craft fair which was very quiet in punter terms but still a great day as I just love the chit chat and meeting folk and hanging out with crafty types.

I’ve also been really inspired recently by a particular project I’ve been involved in which is going to include a whole new website.  This may sound mad given current techie issues but I’ll sort that out or use alterative services as necessary.  I’m not going to spill the beans yet as it needs a lot more work but I’ll give general details soon.

Lots of reading.  Since I’ve not been able to write much online I’ve been reading lots online and have found some great sites and great makes.  Lots of inspiration and ideas!

Here’s a taste of projects to come, now that I’m determined to battle the technical problems.  We’ll have coasters, necklaces, hair bands, flowers, bows, purses, lavender bags and bracelets.  I sure have been a busy bee!!  Oh, and there’s been a little owl twit twahoooooo!