A lonely egg sitting in its egg cup slowly cooling while you're waiting for your toast to cook. It's a tragic part of many a morning and quite frankly it has to stop.
You could go out into the woods with a pocketful of rodent meat and a owl call whistle to tempt an owl to come and perch warmly on your egg while you wait or you could sew yourself an owl egg cosy. The choice is yours.
If you go for option two then Lucy Kate Craft Owl Egg Cosy pattern is a cute and kooky owl-flavoured option. Offering templates and a detailed photo walk-through, so you don't have to wing it, the pattern is also free so you can save money and buy yourself dozens more eggs to perch your fibre-based feathered friends on.
Give a hoot about the cosiness of your eggs. Eggscellent.
We all have t-shirts that we love to death and find it hard to part with when they start to lose their t-shirt youth. You've been through so much together why should you throw your beloved tee away? What better way to honour your t-shirt than by turning it into a pair of funky undies and giving it a whole new life?
The Zen of Making's Haley Pierson-Cox quite agrees that loved clothes should be allowed a second chance. The Brooklyn magician of making shares her plan for turning an old t-shirt pantswise to help you 'upcycle' for the ultimate in undie creation.
Haley uses one of her husband's old t-shirts in her tutorial, which suggests he was finished with his tees.
We suggest you ask the t-shirt wearer before you start creating undercrackers, or, if they have one you really like, you can always spill curry/red wine/engine oil on it to make it unwearable and perfect pants material...
After being in the presence of quilting brilliance at the recent V&A quilts exhibition many of us non-quilters have been raring to get in on the action. Once you start looking for quilt tutorials they're everywhere so I'll start you off with a bit of circular quilting fun.
Cluck Cluck Sew offer their Raw Edge Quilt tutorial as a bit of a different spin on your square-upon-square quilting formula. The effect of the quartered circles of fabric on the square background is rather fabulous.
It does look a little fiddly at times but if you're willing to sit down and pour some time into your quilt then why not go the whole way. Cluck Cluck Sew's writer, Allison, suggests you plonk yourself in front of the TV and get sewing.
One thing that really stands out is the way she matches her fabrics. If you're a little lost of what goes with what you can learn some good lessons from the ones she chooses.
One small quilt for you, one giant leap for your quilting skills.
Sewing patterns can sometimes afflict people with sewing-pattern fear. I've seen it and it's not pretty.
In an attempt to lure some of you would be sewing folk out from behind the dressmaker's dummy I have found you a pattern that requires no fiddly cutting out whatsoever. Praise the square!
This simple but effective Museum Tunic pattern, from Anna Maria Horner, is made entirely from humble squares of fabric. The whole thing is utterly square until you get your sewing mitts on it. Its shaping is all down to how you stitch it.
You'll have your seamstress badge squared away in no time (sorry).
Fancy adding a bit of fancy to your fabric creations with a bit of ruffle? Getting the right ruffled look can seem a bit confusing when you're sat down with your fabric of choice so here's a handy tutorial to help you out.
The Confessions of Craft Addict leads you through a simple photo-based how to which goes from flat fabric to ruffled brilliance in easy peasy steps.
See the full tutorial here.
Also worth checking out is her Flowers for Teacher video tutorial too. Blooming marvellous.
World Wide Knit in Public Day is fast approaching and many of us are planning to take our sticks (and our hooks) out in to the big wide world for a bit of a show off. The question is what to take and how to take it with you.
Stitch London have come up with a handy sewing project solution.
Stitch London's Piece of Cake Project Bag, the crafty brain child of Stitchette The Bluestocking Stitcher, is a handy free sewing pattern for a drawstring project bag that will keep your WIP safe while you go from place to place.
For more on what you can do for WWKIP Day in your area see the official website. There are events going on all over the world and if there's not one near you why not organise your own?
If you're in London you can join Stitch London for their annual 2010 Knit Crawl. It's going to be all kinds of stitching fabulousness.
Like a mysterious Cold War spy Stitch and Bitch London has had a facelift, changed its name and is living a new life. It's first big event in a woolly whirlwind of stitching that invites you to get your stitching exhibited in London's world-famous Science Museum this summer.
To celebrate the change newly hatched Stitch London has teamed up with London's Science Museum in a global stitching event that anyone can contribute to.
The Stitch Yourself project calls for people to send mini-mes of themselves, Stitched Selves, which will be part of a stitched science installation as part of the Science Museum's Who Am I? gallery in June.
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