From Russia, via Leigh-on-sea with Love - the Matryoshka Skittle Tutorial

OK, dear reader you know that above everything I am totally honest with you... and today I publish one of six skittles to go with the Pentagon ball for tots.

So what inspired this... was it the lovely cotton Matryoshka fabric, the dolls from a Moscow market or the tweezers... you've worked it out, haven't you?

Yep, it is the tweezers.. this morning I lightly swept my hand over my chin and OMG... there was a hair, well step forward tweezers (which my OLDER, yes BIG sister stuck in my Christmas stocking) and, yes, it was my tweezers, in concert with my hairy chin that inspired this week's tute!

You will need - to make six skittles:
3/4 Yard of cotton fabric - I used Moda
Scraps of fabric (I used left over pieces from the ball
Felt - brown, cream and pink
Buttons
Thread, pins, sewing needle, scissors (pinking shears would also be handy)
Ribbon - I am using Jane Means ribbon
Toy stuffing
Paper, ruler, compass and pencil
Liquer glass and champagne flute
Iron and ironing board... I use an ancient Morphy Richards and a huge John Lewis board!

We are going to start with creating the three pattern parts, draw a line 4" long at the bottom of your paper, then draw a perpendicular line 7.5" tall at the centre (at 2" in).  At 4" up the perpendicular, mark and 1.25" on either side, 6" mark a point 7/8" on either side... now join the dots up.  Place the champagne flute so that the rim sits on the top of the perpendicular line and draw around it to create the curved top.  To create the shawl, draw an horizontal line 3.5" from the top of this pattern piece, trace around it and you have your shawl piece

Next comes the base, you are going to need a combi oval / circle or indeed a circal with a 4.5" diameter widthwise and 4" height wise - to achieve this set your compass 2.25". Now draw a line 4.5" long, find the centre point and put the compass .25" above it and connect the ends of the line with a semi-circle, repeat this for the other side and thus you have your circal.

Iron your main fabric and pin the skittle sides onto it and cut four.

Now if you are cunning you will use a fabric which does not have a repeat, so you can save on the amount of fabric that you use.  Cut out one base.

Now, cut out four short tops... now this is where I made a mistake, but so you can see and also so I can demonstrate another thrifty technique I am going to share it with you.  Iron over a very small hem and sew it... you will notice that my shawls are joined together in one continuous line of sewing, this is call chain piecing and saves on the amount of thread you throw away.

Pin the shawl to the body.

Sew around as close the edge as you can... and then sew over hem you have created... bang goes my saving!  So in future just iron it rather than sewing an extra hem.

Pin two sides together and sew up to the top using a 1/4" seam allowance.

Around the curve, cut out small triangles to ease the fabric around the curves so that it will sit nicely.

Turn the body and shawl right sides out and press open the seam.  Place a small wine glass over the shawl, to ensure that it fits, now draw around it on your cream felt.  To make the hair, repeat this on the brown felt, chop it in half into two semi-circles and trim to give your doll the Anne Stallybrass hair style from the Onedin Line... Did I mention that like Helen Mirren, she also went to my school!

I satin stitched the brown felt fringe onto the face... don't sew the top of the head... I told you not to, now just do as you are told... sighs.  If you prefer, use a small blanket stitch like we used in the embroidery tutorial last year.

I used small blue buttons for the eyes but if you are risk averse, then large french knots will do the job.  For the cheeks, I tried a 5p but that was too big, so I found a smaller button to trace around for the cheeks

Sew the cheeks in place by sewing up through the centre, and down through 12 o'clock, back up through the middle and down to 6 o'clock, back up through 3 and then 9 o'clock, repeat this for the space between 12 and 3, 6 and 9, 3 and 6 and finally 9 and 12.  Finishing touch a line of back stitching to create her cheery, peasant smile.

Pin the face over the seam of the front of the doll and use cream cotton to zig zag around the face and brown to go over the hair.

 Pin the back and the front together, leave a 2" gap below the shawl and the sew down to the base, this will be our hole to turn it through and stuff it.

To cover the join between the shawl and the body use ribbon - I used about 18" and trimmed it to fit.  Start by leaving a long end just below her mouth and use a small running stitch to hold it in place and sew back round to the front.  Fasten off securely and tie a bow, trim the ends... this time I used pinking shears to trim off my Jane Means ribbons.  You have to hand sew this as the aperture is too small to fit and sew with your machine.

Get the iron out, turn the skittle inside out and press the seams open, the take the base and fold it in half lenghtwise and width wise and press those creases into the base.  Pin the crease against the seam on all four sides, the ease the fabric between the seams... you will find it easiest to have your pins horizontal than vertical as this will help with easing.  Remember easing is a battle between you and the fabric to make it fit into a curve, and you will win!

Sew the base to the skittle and then trim the excess fabric with your pinking shears, otherwise cut little triangles but do not cut through the seam... it is not unknown for this to happen, even with experienced seamstresses!

You are now on the home strait, pull the skittle through the gap in the side seam and gently fill it with your stuffing... little and often rather than big and brutal as this will give you a much softer finish.  Just like the ball last week, whip stitch the opening shut.

Now look at your amazing skittle... she is rather lovely don't you think?

If you want to just make it as an ornament, I would put some heavy interfacing on the base to stabilise it.  I had another thought that you could reduce the pattern size on a photo-copier and create a proper family of stacking dolls, how cute would that be?

Well, by the skin of my teeth, I have just made Handmade Monday... so click on through and see what this talented group have been up to during the last week.

Stuff The Bunting Christmas Tree Tutorial

Our local fabric shop... the wonderful Belle Fabrics (who still do not have a website... grrr!) had a version of this tree in the window, so with their permission I used it as a starting point for my tree.  I thought you might like this tree which means we can use lots of the techniques from the last couple of years, from how to make bunting, to the Christmas stars we are going to use on top of it.

You will need:

Two contrasting, yet complementary fabrics, two fat quarters will do it with fabric to spare
Cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter or dressmaking shears/scissors
Needles, pins and cotton
Stuffing
Fish knife
Ribbons, buttons, bells for embellishment
Iron and ironing board
Paper, pencil, ruler and protractor or pre-made template

Firstly we are going to create the templates for the tree triangles, I used a template from my patchwork, but if you are making one then I suggest 5" sides and creating an equilateral triangle with angles of 60'.  We will be using the classic 1/4" seam allowance.

Iron your fabrics and cut out 19 triangles in each fabric.

Take a triangle from each fabric pile and pin them together, with right sides facing, start two thirds of the way along the base of your triangle, sew around the other two sides and just one third of the base, which leaves a third open.  Trim the across each of the three corners to reduce the bulk. 

Take your fish knife and pop it into the top angle of the triangle and push it through so that the right sides are now out, make sure you poke the knife into all the corners to ensure that they are sharp and pointy.  

Iron each of the triangles.

Fill with your choice of stuffing, you will find it easier to use small amounts rather than using a quart to fill a pint pot.  

When it is full, over sew the opening.

Set out the triangles as shown, then tack the corners into place, use a knot in between the layers and use a cross stitch to hold them in place.

Now, play around with your buttons and ribbons, and sew them permanently in place.

Right, we need to hang it up so I thought I would use one of the patchwork stars we made a couple of weeks ago and attach that to the top so that you can hang it up, although you could also gussie up a wide ribbon, too.

I did have a thought... how about getting a group of pupils from a class to paint a Christmassy image onto calico triangles using fabric paints and then make it into a tree for a teacher or for a grandma... I can tell you now that it would mean so much more to a teacher than another mug or a candle but possibly not as much as chocolate or wine!

I know that Christmas Pie Crafts wanted to see if I had made any hearts, so this weekend I borrowed Deborah's twig tree and fireplace to see how they looked... so if you look closely you will see all of the quilted and patchwork decs we have have worked on over the last few weeks... hope you like them :)

Stripped Bare for Christmas Action - More Quilted Tree Decs

Back in July we made a cushion to celebrate the Fourth of July, so using the same technique we are going to create some more great quilted decorations to fill your tree.  Yet again we are going to raid the pastry cutter tin to find great shapes to use on the tree, you can use hearts, stockings, hearts, mittens, hearts, parcels and did I mention hearts?  This is another great way of using up scrap strips to create effective tree decs, so let's hit your Christmas stash of fabrics and get started.

You will need:

A selection of Christmas fabric or fabrics in Christmas colours of red and green
Batting
Cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter
Scissors, pins and thread, pinking shears are optional but really useful
Pastry cutters or artistic ability (which I am sadly lacking), pencil, greaseproof paper
Ribbon or hairy twine (if you are going rustic)
A walking foot
Iron and Ironing Board ... yes, they are back

Choose shapes and designs which are clean and not too complex, hence the heart, mittens, Christmas trees and stockings... but you could use snowmen and gingerbread men (but we are going to be using these shapes to create a garland in a couple of weeks).  If you feel confident in your sketching skills, the draw them directly onto the greaseproof or dressmaker's tissue, otherwise trace around the pastry or cookie cutter shapes.  Set them aside until we have constructed the strips.

You need to cut your strips to the same length but vary the width, don't go thinner than an inch as we are going to use the quilter's classic 1/4" seam allowance... frankly less than 1/2" showing will look like a line of dental floss or what was referred to by my old friend Clint as a greyhound skirt.  If you are using fat quarters use the longest side, usually the 22" side.

Sew the strips together using the 1/4" seam allowance, then iron your work from the back, do not iron the seams open, iron them closed all in the same direction.  Then turn your work so that the front is showing and press again, stretch the work slightly to draw out any excess fabric that may have become trapped.

Place the sewn strips on top of the batting, and pin into place using the longest pins you can find, but leave a good allowance of batting up to an inch around the sewn strips.

Fit your walking foot to your machine... don't worry if you do not have a walking foot, you can still do this but the walking foot will give you a better finish as it ensures that the different textures and thicknesses of fabric will feed through at the same pace. 

Sew in the ditch... don't know where it is?  Remember how we ironed the seams in one direction, you are going to be sewing about an 1/8" away from the seam line through just one layer of fabric and batting, not the three, that is your quilting ditch.  Use a contrasting thread to emphasise your stitching, sew along the ditch of every strip.  When you have completed this, trim away the excess batting.

Pin your pattern pieces onto the quilted fabric, it looks great if the strips match up (yep, sometimes I can get a bit anal about lining up, although you don't have to do this) so remember to reverse it when you cut our the second piece. Or if you want to be economical, use a plain piece of fabric instead of your quilting as it will not be seen.

Place the right sides together and sew around leaving an opening... for the mittens and stockings, leave the top part open.  For the tree, fold over a loop of ribbon, as ever I have raided the ribbon stash for some gorgeous Jane Means ribbons, pin it to the point of your tree on the right side on one piece of your tree, make sure that both ends of the ribbon stick out beyond this point, then lay on the other side of the tree and pin it in to place. For the heart, pop the ribbon loop in the centre of the curves at the top of the heart and use the same method, leaving a gap along the side.

Trim any excess seams and ease the curves by either nipping little triangles around the curves or using pinking shears to achieve this.  Turn the shapes right side out. Use a cool iron to press them into shape - do not use a hot or cotton temperature iron as this will melt/bond the batting.  

With your stockings and mittens, turn under the raw edges and press them into place... for the mittens, join a pair together with one piece of ribbon, tucked into the open seam and pin it together so they look just like the mittens tied into your coat that you could never lose, no matter how hard you tried, they will sit happily over a branch.  For the stockings a loop, pinned at the outside edge of your stockings.  Now sew around your decoration, 1/8" from the edge.

You could make little present shaped decs in squares or rectangle, even I can draw a square or a rectangle (well nearly) by running sewing ribbon in a cross over the square and popping a ribbon in the centre.

And now, a little later than usual, we are actually hopping over to Handmade Monday on a Monday... go look at what is happening in the Craft World :)

The How to Write a Tutorial, Tutorial

For the last 18 months or so, I have written a weekly tutorial and a number of people have said, “Wow, I could never do that, I just wouldn’t know where to start.”  Well that is stuff and nonsense, all a tute is, is a little history of how you made something, so in the immortal words of Julie Andrews and Messr’s Rogers and Hammerstein, “Let’s start at the very beginning...”

Choose your topic, the thing that you can make sublimely, that you enjoy doing... it doesn’t matter that it is not original, let’s be honest very little in the craft world is, after all there are only so many things to make or do, like bunting, peg bags, cook a chicken, put a child on the naughty step.  What matters is that you show how you do it and how great it is to be able to do it your way.

Next the title, I have decided we are going to make pom poms, so I could be very technical and say ”The Pom Pom Tutorial”, it says what it is but to be honest I think it is a little dull (actually it’s deathly boring) so I might go with “Pom Tiddly Pom – Pooh’s Pom Pom Tutorial” hoping that most of my audience had been brought up on a diet of AA Milne.

I love poms poms and they are really easy to make, you don't need any fancy kit but if you follow my instructions, you will get a great result each time... although perhaps not the mega pom pom that Carol Parkinson had in the infants which looked to me to be the size of a fooball (nb this is not an exaggeration).

Start with an intro, or if you are in education, a plenary telling us what to expect together with a picture of the finished item... I want to know that when I read this it is going to enable me to be the bestest pom pom maker in the whole wide world, or maybe just in my house.

You will need the following:

Wool - Don't bother with the good stuff, chemist shop acrylic will do, double knitting is great for this

Cardboard - Breakfast cereal boxes are ideal

Sharp scissors

A mug and a wine glass

Ribbon, I use Jane Means from my stash

Pencil

After that, I want to know what I will need, I don’t want to be blind-sided by you telling me in the middle of making this that I will need something that is not readily to hand... so you need to tell me what I need from the get go.  If you use a particular brand of wool, let me know, otherwise I could be the muppet who buys a hand dyed silk and cashmere hank costing a fortune to chop into little bits.  Even better if you use a particular stockist, provide a link to them.  Think of this like a recipe, you see the picture of the stuffed boned chicken, then you look at the list of ingredients and gather them together and next you jump straight in and follow the recipe, well a tutorial is essentially the same. 

Everybody has a different style of writing and I am going to let you into a little secret, technical writing is the most difficult to do well and to read, especially if you assess it with the Gunning Fog Index which tests readability... so keep it simple.  Remember you want to keep them reading through till the end, not to be confused and turned off by long technical words and terms.

Let’s get going, you have told your reader what they will need, now let’s get to the method.  It’s easiest if you write this as you go along and take pics... I am useless at snapping but here are the basics, take pics in natural light, keep the background clear so we can see the magnum opus in construction, try not to use a flash and if you can rest your camera on something so you do not get the blurry wobbles so much the better.  Also pics break up a post, allowing the readers eye to rest and for them to get their breath back.

You will need to cut two circles out of your cereal boxes using the mug, then using the wine glass pop it in the centre and cut out the smaller circle.  Place the circles together.

If something goes wrong, tell your reader and show them, if there is a point where it looks awful but it will come right, let them know.  If you have ever boned a chicken, you will understand... there comes a point when you have a very sharp knife in your hands, your hands will be slippery from being stuffed into the chicken’s carcass, one leg will be detached and then you will stand there wondering why the heck you didn’t just roast it?  You need to tell the reader that this will pass a few moments later, you will have released the breastbone and be ready to put in the stuffing and sew up the bird and everyone will think you are just sooooo clever!

Take your wool  and start to wind it around the doughnut shape you have created, you will need to create small balls so it fits through the hole in the middle... you may find that the end will not stay put so tie a knot in it... when you have wound round once snip the knot out.  Continue winding until you fill the hole in the middle.  You could use one colour or to make it more fun, use lots of different colours, it is a great way to use up those scrappy ends that are not long enough to use for anything useful!  Don't worry if you cannot fill it all the way to centre but just be aware it will not look as dense and as fluffy as mine.

I am serious about writing as you go along, as it is really easy to miss out a step or a stage because you know what you are doing, remember back in school when they asked you to write up making a cup of tea... our English teacher took our class to the kitchen and used several of the essays to literally follow instructions... it was carnage, empty teapots, cold tea... and no tea at all.  I have a real bee in my bonnet about getting projects tested so, get another pair of eyes to look over it to see what you have missed.

Now comes the exciting bit, position the blades of your scissors between the two circles of cardboard and start snipping, take it slow and steady, the wool will not fall out but will remain trapped in the centre.  

Cut a length of wool 18" long, slip it between the two layers of cardboard and wind it around the your cut wool, slip a 12" length of ribbon under the wool which you are using to capture all your cut ends now draw it really tight, tying it with a secure knot.  Slip the cardboard off  and fluff up your ball... doesn't that look great?  You can hang it up using the ribbon... or if you are a small child it makes a marvellous weapon to hit your siblings without bruising them.

Use you final paragraph to suggest ways in which to use the item, cheaper alternatives and if it takes a long time tell them this too.

Making a pompom is a great mindless task to do in front of the TV on a cold evening and should take you about an hour.  Get the kids to join in and you will have a set of new decs for your Christmas tree or make smaller ones to attach to the ends of laces on sweaters etc.

Paste in your pics onto the blog, tie them up with the relevant description – don’t be tempted to state the obvious under the pic – use them to move the story along.  Next spell check and then look at it in preview... you will see where extra lines have crept in, tidy it up ready for your public.  Once you have written it, don’t leave it there, share it around, tweet it, facebook it, tag it and send it out to other people... you have worked far too hard to let it be a Billy No Mates Make!

In short the principles are as follows:

• Title
• Opening
• Ingredients
• Method
• Options
• Check and Share

And that dear reader, is how I tackle a tutorial... if you have other ways of doing it, please share.  And here is the ultimate musical tutorial, easy to follow, easy to understand, easily remembered and it comes out well each time.

And in case anyone is interested... no, I have not taken down my curtains to make play clothes for my friends!

So next it's off to Handmade Monday to see what other great crafty goodies have been made this week.