Behind the Scenes: Making Mini Campervan Mobiles

Do you ever try and set yourself targets to beat whilst doing something boring? I do... such as,

'Last time I had to draw around and cut out 24 small 1/3 of a triangle funny shapes it took me 35 minutes....' (for the Celtic Knotwork Penny Rug Pattern)

These funny little bits made up the trinity knots on my new Celtic Knotwork Pattern

'So next time I'm going to try and do it in 30 minutes'

Well, that's the kind of bet I have with myself when I'm doing something repetitive, so this morning, when I had to cut out and sew up 12 mini Campervan bodies, I wanted to see how long it would take me to sew up 5 (the number I use for the baby mobiles I make:

So I paused to quickly take an action shot (to make the post more interesting!)

And off I went.

13 miniutes, to sew up 5 mini campervan carcasses.

6 pauses in the 13 minutes:

1 to take a pic
1 to refill the bobbin
4 to umpire in rows between the children... despite there being 3 other adults in the house it seems it's still my job to stop whatever I'm doing and run in to prevent WW3 taking place in the playroom over who's turn it is with the remote control/barbie and her horse/the loom band gizmo/etc!!!

So, now that's my target to beat for next time!

And finally... a gratuitous shot of my messy desk, my gorgeous Benedict Cumberbatch calendar and the drama I had to pause on BBC iPlayer as otherwise I'd have done no sewing at all!!!

Campervans for the Cushion Competion

A while ago a very nice lady called Suzie contacted me from a company called Terry's Fabrics and asked if I would be interested in getting creative with some of their fabrics, in return for blogging about it... Would I?!? Erm, Hell Yeah!!

This is the range that she sent me:

LOADS of choice (in fact it was hard to restrict myself to less than 25!)

The 4 I chose in the end (it could have been smaller pieces of 8 fabrics, but I had a couple of projects in mind so I went for larger pieces of these materials:

And of course the one I HAD to have.... the Campervan material!








I then discovered that there was a bloggers competition running to make an 18" x 18" cushion cover, using Terry's Fabrics and the winner will win £250 worth of vouchers to spend on the Terry's Website!

So, in super quick time I have put together my entry - inspired by the Blur pop art album cover, with the different quarters being different colours, I give you the Family Campervans:

Each Campervan is personalised with the family member's name

Being shown off on my living room sofa

A collage of the close up shots of each Campervan

The fab campervan material on the back in an envelope style

Side view showing off my neat sewing!!

I really enjoyed coming up with the design and suspect that this will probably be quite a popular item, so keep your eyes peeled for it in the shop soon!

I will be keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the Terry's Blog to see the other competition entrants and more excitingly, who wins all those lovely vouchers :-)

Edited to add: I'm cheating a bit today - I'm going to add this to the Handmade Monday post as I've been so busy this weekend and not had a chance to get on the laptop till just now (6pm on Sunday evening!!)