Highlights of 2015

It's 2016!  How did that happen hey! We thought we would reflect on our 2015 using our #2015bestnine as a starting point.  You may have seen many of these posts on instagram and so we were no different in wanting to find out what you guys thought were our best nine instagram posts of 2015.

What better time then to share some of our highlights of the year!

First up would have to be working with Mollie Makes on some great projects this year including Hot air balloons and fabric houses and Sammy got to do some great stuff with Simply Sewing for her shop Sew Crafty, did you see her Quick gifts to sew booklet? and look out for something else great soon - no spoilers!

Getting to go to Renegade twice this year was pretty cool too, all the craft fairs we go to are pretty ace, but I think I can speak for both of us when I say that Renegade has a special place in both of our hearts.  Just seeing all the very cool designer/makers work out there is brilliant and a great excuse for a few presents for us!  You seem to really enjoy our haul posts on instagram and so this just gives us the best excuse to keep shopping!

Our tutorials are also a highlight for the year, we have made some amazing things, even if we do say so ourselves, Unicorn hobby horse and Yoga Mat seem to be a couple of favourites.  We love to come up with new ideas and help you to make things of your own.  We have got some great ideas coming up too, so again, watch this space!

Our holiday to Barcelona was pretty epic too.  We had been as students way back in the 90's and so it was great to go back and explore.  Next up would definitely have to be a bit more of a relax holiday though I think.  We love cities, but sometimes you need a bit of time with a good book or 5!

We worked with some great brands this year too, from Paperchase and Zazzle through to B&Q and Turtle Mat to name but a few.  Some great bloggers worked with us too and these are all things that we want to do more of in 2016.

So, it looks like some of your favourite instagram posts match our highlights for the year, lets roll on 2016 and see what is in store for us.  Do let us know if you would like us to feature something in particular as we are always happy to find out what you want to learn more about.

H, xxx


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Make it: Yoga Mat Tutorial with Zazzle

It's summer, we are all about the healthy living right?!!  So we thought that a tutorial to make your own Yoga mat would be a great idea!  It can also be used as a blanket for a picnic, don't worry.  It really is a simple project that can be done in a few hours, it just needs a bit of space to lay it all out and to use it of course!  So lets get H to talk us through it.

You will need:  Fabric for your front and back (I used my fabric I got printed from Zazzle, see the post here & some neoprene I got from The Cloth House - a great remnant find!), Something for padding - I used an old blanket, but old towel or wadding will be good too, Scissors, tape measure, air erasable pen, Webbing or anything to make a strap, a sewing machine and thread of course!

First thing you will need to do is make sure your fabric is all cut to the same size.  As I mentioned above my neoprene I used for what will be the floor side, was a remnant, so it's always good to check that the size is correct.  Also this restricted the size of the mat, but you can make it as long or wide as you like.  Mine comes to 50cm x 132cm and so a little smaller than normal yoga mats (roughly 170 x 60cm) but it suits my needs.  I doubled over my blanket for extra padding as I find yoga mats are not quite as thick as I would like and so I thought it would be useful to have double thickness.  That's the great thing about making things yourself, you can get them to suit your needs.

Once they were all cut to the correct size, I layered them together.  As I will be turning this through to get a nice clean edge, you want to get the layers in order.  So, both of your eventual outside pieces need to face each other right sides together.  Then on top of one of these pieces (doesn't matter which), you add your padding.

Then all you need to do is pin or tack all your layers together so that they don't slip when you are sewing.  This is where starting out with all your layers the same size really helps as then you can keep it all straight along the way.

Now, it's off to the sewing machine to get started stitching.  I opted for a zig zag stitch as I felt that it would keep everything together better and be a stronger stitch.  I also used a heavy weight needle (see our sewing tips basics for further information on choosing a needle) as I had to go through 4 layers of fabric including that blanket!

All you need to do is make sure one end of your yoga mat is left free so that you can pull it all through the hole.  I sewed halfway along the last end and so I already knew where to tuck it all back in once it was pulled through.  I also then cut off the corners of fabric, so that for the next stage the corners would go to a point.

So, the fun part.  Pull it all through so that you have it all right side out!  Use a crochet hook or something to poke into the edges to get crisp corners.  This is where those corner cuts will come into play as there will be less fabric to go into the corners so you can get a crisper point.

I then laid it out on the floor and so I could tuck in the end that I had not sewn and pin it in place

Time to sew it up!  Also I added a strap here so that you can tie it up for storage/carrying.  It's just out of shot here which is super useful I know.  I just added some yellow webbing into the gap and then sewed it all up together.  I opted to use a straighter stitch for the edge here and then I decided to do the same on the other end of the yoga mat so that they matched up.  You could also use an invisible stitch so that you cannot see the stitching here or anywhere on the mat as it will all appear to be inside.  Check out our Sewing Machine foot guide for further information.

Then I pressed everything - my most hated part of sewing - hate ironing!  Just to make sure that it all sits in place and I am all present and correct before thinking I am done.

The last thing I did was to finish off the webbing, by folding it over and using a zig zag stitch to keep it from fraying.

Then, that's it done!  You can now use it or give it as a gift if you know someone who likes yoga or wants a small blanket for out and about.  You could always make a squarer version which would probably be a bit more suited for that.

The good thing about it, is that when it is fully rolled up, it can be used as a pillow too!  Handy to have about for picnics or the odd nap.  You can use so many different fabrics for this too and so it can be thicker or thinner depending on what you use and your plans for what you are going to use it for.  Perhaps use some waterproof material for the backing or use an old yoga mat for the filling if you want it to be a bit more sturdy.

I am going to use mine for the Pilates I have been doing and a bit of restorative Yoga, apparently its good for calming the body and making sure you relax.   Would you use yours for Yoga or picnics, or both!  That's probably the plan for me, gotta love a dual purpose object.

H,xxx

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Make it: Fabric Storage Bin with Zazzle

If you saw our post on Wednesday about designing fabric with the lovely guys at Zazzle you will know haw much we are loving the site, so today I am showing you what I made with the fabric I designed. When I saw that Zazzle.co.uk offered a heavier weight twill fabric in their 'design your own fabric' range I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I had my design printed on the heavier weight fabric so I could have a go at making some cute fabric storage bins.

To make your own fabric storage bins you will need: Medium to heavy weight cotton fabric, felt, cotton to line your bin, thread, scissors and a sewing machine. 

As I always say you can of course sew this project by hand if you don't have a machine. 

Step 1. Cut out a 20cm square of all your fabrics to use as your base, then cut an 80cm by 25cm piece for the strip that will make the sides. Place the felt at the bottom, the lining next then the main fabric on top and sew around the edges leaving a small gap to turn it right side out. 

Step 2. Do this for the base and the side strip, sewing up the gap that you used to turn it through. 

Step 3. With right sides together sew the two short edges together with a large zigzag stitch.

Step 4-5-6. Open out your tube that will be the sides of the bin and position the back seam to the back of the bin, using quilting clips attach the bottom of the bin to the sides. 

Step 7. Stitch all the way around the base removing the clips as you go with that large zigzag stitch as before. 

Step 8. Turn the whole bin right side out and turn down the lip to create a more stable top.

And there you have it, a cute little storage bin for sewing supplies, stationery or well whatever you like really. I am using mine on my sewing table as a handy catch all for my fabric scraps, so much more glam than the plastic bag I was using before! 

Check back to see what H has made with her fabric in the next few weeks. Don't forget to share your photos if you have a go at making some of these with #livelovemake we would love to see your versions and what you use them for! 

Have a lovely crafty weekend

Sammy xxx

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Design your own Fabric with Zazzle

A few weeks ago the lovely people at Zazzle got in touch to tell us about their fabric printing service. Having recently said farewell to the fabric printing service from By Hand London, Sammy was so excited to have a try and see what Zazzle had to offer. They offered us a free sample of the fabric to have a play with so watch out for a tutorial coming on Friday using the fabric Sammy ordered. Sammy has bought t-shirts and merchandise from them in the past so she knew that their quality was great, but we were not sure how simple it would be to design our own fabric with Zazzle or how it would turn out.  

We both started by having some fun in Photoshop and created a .jpg file that we could upload to the site, this is Sammy's above.  H had fun with the background eraser tool on Photoshop so she could use one of the colours from Zazzle - more on that below.

Once on the Zazzle site it was then super easy to upload the image we had designed into their fabric creator.  H used one of the background colours on file, whilst Sammy's was all together on the .jpg file.

Then you get to play around with tiling the pattern, rotating your design and playing with the size of your print.  You can use the tiling options or not, so that's always good for choice.

We love that you can view your design in lots of different sizes, it loads the images with your design on really fast so it is easy to get a real idea of what your fabric will really look like with the handy thumbnails underneath the main picture.

There are seven different types of fabric to choose from, but don't get too excited, some of them are priced at over £60 per metre, which we feel is a little pricey, even for high quality custom printed fabric. The combed cotton is the cheapest option at £26.95 per metre, The pima cotton that H chose was £30.40 per metre and the cotton twill Sammy chose was £37.90 per metre. You can order by the fat quarter though which would keep the cost down for smaller projects. 

When our fabric arrived we were really happy with the quality of the fabric and the quality of the printing on H's fabric was beautiful as the colours were very true to her design. Sammy's fabric on the other hand was sadly not so perfect.

She was a little disappointed because the fabric looked like it had been double printed, it makes the design look a little blurred. She would have been more disappointed if we had paid the £37.90 that it would normally cost. 

When Sammy spoke to the team they said that they would absolutely replace the fabric, if we wanted, as it was gifted to us anyway, She decided that it would be fine for the project that she had planned. Good to know that if there was a problem as a paying customer that they would go the extra mile to sort it out. 

The Zazzle team said:

We have a 100% satisfaction policy at Zazzle, so if a product is unsatisfactory, and the customer provides a photo like you did here, they would be offered a replacement or refund. Customer can call our freephone number 0800-6-929953 10am-6pm Monday to Friday or email us here http://www.zazzle.co.uk/about/contactus.

So overall we would highly recommend Zazzle if you had a special project in mind that you need some bespoke fabric for. We would say that the price makes it a little risky if your not 100% sure you are going to use it for something really worthy of it. 

It was unfortunate that Sammy's fabric wasn't perfect, even big companies make mistakes sometimes but at least they offered to sort it out properly. Everything about the process was easy and fun. Sammy love's designing fabrics and she is looking forward to having a go again soon as she already have a few deisigns and projects in mind.

Have you tried the fabric service from Zazzle? Are you looking to get some fabric printed for a special project? Let us know in the comments below and don't forget to come back to see what Sammy has made with her fabric on Friday.

Sammy & H, xxx

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