Introduction

I hope you'll join me in creating memories and sharing the passion of experimentation.

Anything goes, but food, sewing, hosting and DIY are my favourites, what are yours?

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Make your own...

...Oven Mitt, in just a couple of hours!

You may be thinking, why on earth would I make an oven mitt when you can pick one up so easily in almost any store, but I say why not?! Especially when you can make it all pretty and match your kitchen accessories. Once you've got the basic pattern you can go bananas with embellishments, yay!

Here's how, lets get started!

You'll need just a few things to get started:
- Your chosen fabric, four 20x30cm rectangles should do it (2 of these rectangles can be left over fabric as they will be on the inside)
- Thick heat resistant wadding, two 20x30cm rectangles
- Paper to draft a pattern on
- Some binding
- The essentials: Scissors, thread, pencil etc
- Then the fun part, embellishments!! I used a bit of lace trim


First you'll want to take your wadding and sandwich it between two pieces of fabric (one outer and one inner piece). Next pin and tack the fabric to the wadding to secure it in place. Repeat with the other piece of wadding and fabric rectangles.

Next sew parallel diagonal lines all the way across the pieces of fabric/wadding in one direction, and then the other direction to create a diamond pattern. The spacing of lines could depend on your fabric design, mine were about 1inch apart. You should end up with 2 quilted rectangles.



Cue tea break, and a sneaky biscuit :)

Lay your hand on the pattern paper and roughly draw round your hand with a space for your thumb, this takes a bit of judgment and practise as you don't want to end up with a really tight oven glove! Don't forget to add a seam allowance all the way round too (I may have done this 1st time around).


Cut out your two quilted rectangles using your newly created pattern piece. Then pin and sew the two pieces right sides together all the way round, keeping the bottom open. If you'd like a little hook to hang up your oven mitt this is the time to add it in. Pop a little loop of binding inside the two pieces before you sew them together.

Nearly there.... Turn the mitt the right way out and use the binding to encase the raw edges.

Now the fun part, embellish embellish embellish! Lace, applique, ribbon, buttons, anything you like!

All Done :) Well done.

What embellishments did you go with?


Sunday 15 February 2015

First sewing project of the year

Happy Sunday everyone! Here it is, my first real post of 2015. I wanted to tell all of you lovely people about my first sewing project of the year. Better late than never eh?!?


I've had this pattern sitting all sad and unused since London's Makegood festival last May. If you're in London this May you really should give it a visit - it was so good last year! It's one of Tilly's patterns from Tilly and the Buttons which was included in her book that I purchased at the Makegood festival. If you haven't got this book and are new to sewing, I highly recommend it; beautiful images and clear instructions makes one brilliant sewing book!

This is the Megan Dress from Tilly's book. I made some minor adjustments to the pattern after being inspired by another dress I saw online a few weeks ago. I lowered the waistline by about 6cm,  which involved a little experimenting with the darts. The original pattern is designed as an empire waist line, which is lovely, but I thought this lowered waist would work better with the design I had in mind. I also added a self-drafted collar and button placket.



I had to grade between a few sizes (Tilly gives a great explanation of how to do this in her book) and take out a little fabric in the back bodice, which I often have to do, but after that everything went together smoothly.

I was so pleased to give this pattern its first outing and I'm really happy with the results! Thank you Tilly!

I can't wait to make another version of this dress with the original waistline, perhaps with a soft cotton with a little stretch to make a comfy number - what do you think??





What have you been sewing this year? I'd love to hear about it :)
With love -x-x-x-

Saturday 7 February 2015

Hi again.... it's been a while!

Hi there!! It seems my last post was over a year ago, 1 year 6 months and 1 day to be precise...

Since then I've bought my first flat (with a boy no less... eek), spent all my energy, money and sanity renovating said flat, changed jobs and had some great adventures along the way. It's safe to say that I've been a little busy and today is the first day I've opened this blog since the 6th of August 2013.

I spent my New Years day both slightly blurry after New Years Eve antics and thinking about what I wanted to achieve in 2015 (more about that in a later post). I found myself thinking about this blog and realised that I really wanted to get it up and running again. It's great to hear about what other bloggers have been up to, and I hope you'll enjoy listen to me rattle on. I plan on adding lots more photos than before, so I promise to keep my 'rattle' to a minimum.

Please do say hi, I'd love to hear from you!

Hope you all have a cracking 2015.

Jemima, with love.

ps. here's a few of my favourite memories from 2014
Renovation mess, the first time we could eat food at a kitchen table, our first veg and flowers from the garden, celebratory holiday and Forest of Dean