Sewing: A fabric purse

Hello, thanks again to everyone who started following this blog using the google 'join this site' button just on the right bar. It's so nice to see the people that are interested and reading my blog!

I have been a busy bee since my competition getting into the swing of working from home and looking after my toddler. I have also been doing my granny square a day for 2012. I will blog about that at the end of January, it's nice to see all the lovely squares stacking up. I am starting to picture my blanket and working through different colours and patterns as it takes shape.

I recently made a little purse. I had a few cute gifts for my niece for her birthday, ice cream lip balm and little owl rubbers and a star bracelet and I wanted to make a little something to put them in and came up with this very simply made purse. I thought I would share this with you....

1. Cut out a house type shape template using paper or pattern paper. Make sure the square is an exact square, you can do whatever measurement you like depending on the size you want your purse to be.

2. Draw around your template out of your chosen fabric twice using fabric pencils or taylors chalk. I used different colours for the inside and outside of the purse. Then cut out using pinking shears if you have them to avoid fraying and leave 1cm around the edges. Then pin the 2 pieces of fabric together with the fronts of the fabric facing each other.

3. Sew along the lines drawn from your template leaving about a 5cm gap at the bottom to turn it inside out.

4. Turn the right way out through the gap you have left and press flat. Then hand stitch the gap closed. I do hidden stitches for this, there is a great tutorial on the Taffy Talk blog for this.

5. Fold the square part of your fabric in half leaving the triangle at the top. Pin in place.

6. Stitch along the side and then add a snap fastener.

7. All done!

Love Lemon x

Roll up!

So here it is – Love Lemon's very first competition. I was very excited to reach 400 followers on Twitter, it's a small achievement but an achievement nonetheless! I have been blogging for 5 months now and have loved every minute. It has been my time, interests, crafts and mostly my own photos that have inspired and kept me creative over this time. I have loved discovering other blogs too, I could spend hours reading them. They inspire me and I'm always happy to find people with similar interests to me. I hope 2012 brings more vintage finds, auctions, sewing, crochet and many more things I haven't yet discovered!

Check out all the details below and good luck!

For my prize I wanted to offer something in keeping with what I love and hopefully what you also love. Old and New is the theme. The winner can pick a vintage brooch from one of the 4 below AND you also get a bracelet made new by me!

All you have to do to enter the competition is follow this blog and follow Love Lemon on twitter, then just write a comment below letting me know which brooch you would like and contact details. Yep, that's it! If you do both of these things already then just comment below to let me know you want to take part.

The winner will be drawn at random on Saturday 14th January.

Love Lemon x

P.S. A massive thanks to my very talented husband and his company Cypress Designs for my competition poster.

Sewing and Crochet

This year so far has been about a new job for me, juggling a toddler and working from home is a challenge but I like the work. As a family we have been for bike rides and to the beach already and I hope for many more trips.

I wanted to share with you my beautiful antique sewing box that my mum bought me for Christmas. I love it. We saw it together when we went to Vintage Forty Six which featured as one of my Little Gem's.

I couldn't wait for a free moment after Christmas to fill it with all my sewing bits and pieces and get rid of my homebase tool box!! Such elegant legs and curved edges.

A lovely piece of furniture for my craft room that keeps all my things organised. It also makes me more determined to give a little TLC to my antiques sewing machine box. It needs a new lining and new wheels, definitely nearer the top of my 2012 project list!

I also wanted to share a photo of the yarn I got in the post today, especially for my granny square a day in 2012 challenge. Brought to my attention by nomoredisco and started by Mollie Makes I decided it was a good way to keep focused and make the blanket I had been hoping to make this year. I am 6 days behind today, some crochet catch up needed this afternoon.

I am going to do 4 rounds per square and experiment with colours. I want a brighter blue and a green in there too but these white, yellow, blue, orange and navy yarns are to get started with. I bought these from  Cucumber Patch for £1.75 a 50g ball, a great choice of colours on there. I will keep you updated on my progress. Let me know if you fancy joining in too!

Love Lemon x

2012

I have been reflecting a lot over the last few days. I like the start of a new year, a time to make some life goals and aims for the year ahead. I loved the idea of making a mood board to reflect this which blogger notsupermum has started. So here are some visuals of inspiration for my 2012.

Happy New Year everyone!

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Love Lemon x