Show ‘n’ tell recycled softie #1

Making a recycled stuffed toy from vintage fabric scraps, a free pattern and a dash of imagination… Recently I got a surprise present through my letterbox, a jiffy bag stuffed with vintage and recycled fabrics – my friends know I am a vulture for fabric scraps so I often get such parcels! I’m making it into a cute stuffed toy that would make a good present for a small child, and I thought I’d share the process. It’s possible to make stuffed toys for next to nothing if you are crafty and use a bit of imagination. First, get some fabric and launder well! Good places to look are thrift shops or even your own wardrobe, and old item of clothing that you’ll never wear again might be made from beautiful fabric – the same goes for cushions, really anything fabric is fair game to your needle and scissors.

I got the free pattern from One Red Robin, a lovely craft blog that has a couple of really good downloadable patterns – all the author asks is that you do not use her patterns for commercial purposes. It’s an easy to make rag doll pattern, and though I like the original I’m giving it my own twist; by simplifying the body and adding some ears I’m going to turn it into a rabbit. This is a show ‘n’ tell rather than a tutorial so I won’t be going into much detail; basically if you are interested I’d just say download the pattern and have a go for yourself!

First off I traced the pattern pieces on to some old wrapping paper – the plain sort that shopkeepers use to wrap around loose crockery, bottles of wine, that sort of thing. If you get hold of any of that stuff save it! It’s strong enough to be used as a template and thin enough to trace onto, so it’s ideal. Because I am making my bunny out of cute recycled fabric scraps it’ll cost very little to make and be environmentally friendly too!  Here’s all the bits cut out and ready to sew…

I haven’t yet decided how I am going to make the face, or any other embellishments I might add; I’ll be thinking about that while I stitch it together. Want to find out how I get on? I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m finished, so stay tuned!

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New Work Added

Dress up Autumn with vintage lovelies!

Find them now… at The Birds In The Meadow!

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Is that the time?

Thank you for visiting The Birds In The Meadow. You are on hold; although your visit is important to us my clothes rail just collapsed, I have that phone call to make to the bank and even if the sun is shining outside and I’d rather be cutting reclaimed wood into beads, I have to go through the ten years worth of admin records that are gathering dust and taking up so much room in my tiny flat that I can no longer get in safely through the bedroom door. Normal service will be resumed whenever the hell we/I/whatever can fight our way through the sordid slew of never ending backed up chores and defeat the terrible creeping sense of ennui that said chores are spawning. In the meantime, here is a picture of a butterfly. Enjoy!

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Pay no attention…

…to the woman behind the curtain, she doesn’t know what she’s doing! Like Dorothy here I’ve been wondering lately what direction I’m supposed to be going in. And just as it is with the Wizard himself it’s all getting pretty flaky behind the curtain,  no matter how impressively overblown my last appearence here was. If you’ve never seen or read The Wizard of Oz you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about but that doesn’t matter, all you need to know is that I’m going to have to make some changes to the site. One of the reasons I’ve been so quiet is because I’ve been wrestling behind that stupid curtain trying to find a layout and navigation that suits.

I’m hoping to roll out the changes gradually and with any luck you’ll like them! I’m hoping the site will become more welcoming to people who land here looking for my shop, while at the same time not making the nature blog become too commercial looking. I’ve been agonising over this since ooohhh, forever, and I wish sometimes that I wasn’t so damn fastidious about  the whole thing. By the way, I’m going to start making an effort with replying to your comments again, and I’ve already made a start on the previous post.

So, what can you look forward to on the nature blog? Well, there are still some more tales to come from Wales and the Isle of Skye, and then there’s my more recent visit to the glorious but not-so-sunny Isles of Scilly. As we move on into Autumn and winter I’ll be writing about the changing seasons closer to home. Beyond that, who knows? It’s time to lace up my hiking boots and find a new adventure.

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You spin me

…right round baby, right round!

I’ve been working in vinyl again, and this time I think I’ve cracked the perfect design! These earrings are made from old vinyl records – even the cardboard mount they are sent on is made from the record cover, so nothing gets wasted at all. They look kind of like mini records themselves with that central hole, and the hoop shape makes them timeless yet on-trend. Does the thought of cutting up perfectly good records to make jewellery make you want to cry? Me too! I only use unplayable records as my material – I’m a bit of a vinyl junkie and will never part with my cherished record collection, so I’d never chop up a rare or playable disc. Find these babies in my shop; something tells me they will be very popular!

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