Birdy goings on

Just a flying visit to my blog today! I've been making some bird cards with the new Tonic Studios range of craft goodies. I'm also in the middle of making a cushion using one of their bird dies to cut out the felt. Here it is in progress. More to come on that in the future.

By the looks of the two projects above, it seems I am in a colourful mode at the moment. I hadn't realised!

One man's shrunken sweater is another (wo)man's hot water bottle cover

 I've just completed this fun little sewing project. My friend Tony gave me his very nice soft woollen jumper that had shrunk in the wash - he was thinking it might fit one of the skinnier members of our family, but nobody really suited it. Never mind, I needed a new hot water bottle cover, and so it has now been re-purposed.  But what could I  do to jazz it up a bit....Tonic Studio's Bouquet Boutique Flower Dies to the rescue!

First I adhered some fusible webbing to the felt before cutting with the dies. The dies I used were the anemone for the petals and leaves, and the cornflower for the centre. 

I prefer to use a wool blend felt for my crafting. Wool felt will withstand higher heat from the iron and so can be used with fusible webbing. If you try to do this with acrylic felt, the lower heat needed when ironing will not be enough to get a good fix with the adhesive - and if you try to use a hotter iron the felt will melt and stick to your iron - not a good scenario really! - not that I would know ;-) 

I stitched around the flowers for two reasons, 

• 1. It is decorative.
• 2. The heat from the bottle might unstick the glue. 

I attached the rib from the sleeve of the jumper to the top of the cover, and made use of the ribbing at the bottom of the jumper for the reverse opening, (so you can get the bottle in and out for washing the cover.)

Do you want to see what's left of the jumper?

Any suggestions what I should make with the remainder?