Tablemats for toddlers

Hello there!

I hope you are having a lovely Easter. Over here we've been enjoying lots of family comings & goings.... and special guests deserve special gifts - so the other day I made these placemats for two precious wee guests who were coming for tea

I made them out of raw linen for the front, insul-brite wadding & some spotty linen/cotton blend for the back

The sun was shining, so I sat outside (not normally something you can do in Ireland in April!!!) to stitch in some wee details

I may have got slightly carried away....

....but they were such fun to make

Hopefully they will make mealtimes fun for Evie & Jude.. .

I hope you enjoy the rest of your Easter, whether its inside or out, with family or friends, or just doing something special for you....
Love
Karen x

Bagilicious: the 241 tote

Hello there!

Thank you so much for the lovely comments on the last post. Its great to be back!

Its wonderful to see lots of bunny pouches springing up all over the place! They are super quick & easy to make, so you've still got time to make one before Easter... just click here to go straight to the tutorial. If you do make any, do let me know & I'll post some of your pictures on Sunday.

One thing I make a lot of is bags... & its funny to see how many of you share the same obsession :) 

So, for the next couple of weeks I'm going to show you some of the bags I've been making & let you know how you can too...

First up is the extremely talented Anna from noodlehead. I've been following Anna for about 5 years now & I love her blog which is full of inspiration, tutorials & patterns. Her wee lil cutie pouches were one of the first zipper pouch tutorials I tried & I've been hooked ever since! I noticed a lot of 241 totes appearing all over the place - like this gorgeous one from Leila (wheretheorchidsgrow)

Source: Leila at wheretheorchidsgrow

So here was my first one:

The pattern was easy to follow & I love the scrappy look of each of the sections. I made a couple of alterations - for the straps I stitched a second layer of fabric onto the webbing, just to give them a bit more structure & I added a wee key chain on the inside

I had such fun making one, I made another, this time with a zip

It's such a great bag for the summer - perfect for shopping or the beach.... with lots of room & pockets to keep your stuff safe. If you fancy making one yourself, the pattern is available here

I'm off now to take my life in my hands... visiting a theme park with the children!! But I'll be back on Sunday with some bunny pouches & another bag review, so I'll see you then

In the meantime, try to take time to listen to those birds singing!

Love

Karen x