is most definitely in the air here today at Sewnaway Towers and its a lovely day to get the washing on the line….. which reminded me of a project from last spring, that i’ve never got round to sharing….

This was a little bit of something different, and you know how I like a project that’s a little out of the ordinary! The brief was to create custom designed bunting for a household store called Bright Ideas over in Yorkshire.  This was to be for their ‘Spring Clean’ Promotion, and was to include ‘washing line’ bunting in a selection of bright colours!

It started off on paper, looking a little bit like this-

And soon became this-

I loved how these little T-shirts and Tops were coming together!

The finished product ended up like this-

And here is how it looked on display in Bright Idea’s window:

Been wanting to share this for a little while now, its another memory cushion with a difference and I do very much like it when a commission comes through that’s a little bit out of the ordinary! So when we were asked to make a cushion from old army badges we jumped at the chance, although when they first arrived I must admit I was a little unsure as to how they would come together, being that these were just the badges, with very little fabric unlike the full garments we usually receive! Luckily a plan quickly formed into the camouflage style, perfectly keeping in line with the army theme. This makes a great reminder of all those tours of duty, and reminded me of the hard work those guys do to keep us safe 😉

On that note, and as its grey and gloomy January, we are offering 10% off all memory cushion orders placed by next weekend!

Enjoy!

Happy new year folks, here’s to a happy and prosperous one for all!

With the new year, we’ve been looking back over the last year in memory cushions…. these are one of my very favourite things to make- each one is so different, they all have their own personalities!

Here are the memory cushions of 2014! Its a pleasure to share them with you…

And in a little more detail- In no particuar order-

Bridie- loves Peppa Pig!

Bridget, Nimah & Orla- A cushion for 3 sisters, which if you follow the blog you may have seen before….

Ethan- Born in 2013! Like a lot of our cushions, this was a first birthday gift.

Harry- For a football mad lad!

Jake- A princely theme for this young man, born the same week as royalty!

Reuben-I loved the grey theme of this cushion!

Scarlet- The lasts of our girls cushions. Pretty in pastels.

And finally….

Theo-with a flying theme!

We’ve got a little behind with posting the photos of some of our latest memory cushions, so in an effort to get up to date, and to get back on the blog (we’ve been a bit slack recently, I’ll admit) we’ll be sharing some of our loveliest creations to coincide with #throwbackthursday over the next few weeks, cos there’s no better throwback than a memory cushion (or canvas!)

Today’s is a little something different…. all our previous memory cushion have been made from baby clothes, for parents to remember the days when their little ones were teeny tiny bundles of joy. This one however was made in remembrance of a beloved, and much missed mum and dad. We were honoured, as ever, to be entrusted with such a special project, and it was lovely to hear the stories behind the items…. I hope we did it justice, have a look at the photo’s and judge for yourselves….

Front side with a bow- made from a beautiful chiffon scarf, worn at one of the last family occasions.

As the items for this memory cushion we a little larger than our usual baby clothes, there was plenty of fabric to make this a double-sided cushion the opening made from the fastening of a favourite blouse.

Trim from a smaller cushion, originally made to commemorate the wedding day of Glad and Doug, who were married at the end of the war- 9/12/1945. A much-loved mum and dad, whose memory will now live on for a little bit longer, and we were so happy to feel that we helped make it happen.

And finally Master Stitch McThimble with 2 of our Lavender bags that were posted along with the cushion…..

So here is our sewnaway birthday giveaway!

You’re probably all familiar now with our little bear, who features in many of our photo’s of our finished products. He was one of the very first things I bought, before the birth of my baby girl 5 whole years ago, I always rather liked his little face, so when sewnaway began, he came along for the ride! After all those years, he’s STILL not got a name…… So I think its about time he had one…..

THE PRIZE:

Your choice of Memory cushion or canvas, to the value of £34.99. This is our standard price for a 40x40cm cushion cover. You can choose to upgrade to a larger size or canvas by paying the difference. If you would like a price for another size or a canvas, please contact us. Please ensure you read the below rules before entering.

TO ENTER:

Please read all the information, then comment below this post with your suggesteted name! This will count as your entry into the competition but, you can also  enter via the rafflecopter link here: a Rafflecopter giveaway , This also gives you additional entries and you can come back to gain additional entries throughout the month!

You can also enter by ‘liking’ AND commenting with your suggested name on the post pinned to the top of our facebook . This will also count as an entry into the competition but, you must also enter via the rafflecopter link, as this requires your email address so we can contact the winner 😉 Again this also gives you additional entries and you can come back to gain additional entries throughout the month.We are not allowed to ask you to ‘share’ but should you choose to do so, this is VERY much appreciated:-)

THE RULES (the boring bits, please read them tho, its important):

The winner will be picked at random from all the entries. Our decision will be final.

The winner must be able to provide a selection of items from which to make your cushion or canvas, these can be baby clothes or other items. For a 40x40cm cushion we recommend approx 6-10 items of baby clothing. You are responsible for sending the items & choosing the appropriate level of postage, as we cannot be responsible for you items before they reach us.

Any amount spent over the value of £34.99 can be paid by PayPal or bank transfer.

Return Postage is NOT included. We always post by special delivery and the cost for this on a 40x40cm cushion is £7 and will be payable by the winners by PayPal or bank transfer. You should note that if you choose a canvas or larger size cushion, this may incur additional postage charges.

You are welcome to collect from WN7 free of charge.

Please note that cushion inners are NOT included, due to postage costs, but we can advise on where these can be bought (typically under £3 for 40x40cm)

There is no actual cash value, but should you choose to give your prize as a gift, we can provide a voucher for one memory item to the value of £34.99

Items ordered using the prize will be placed in the first available sewing slot, which will be advised on receipt of your items.

The competition will run until midnight on 31st March, giving you all plenty of time to enter! The winner will be announced as soon as they have been notified by email!

And finally (blimey wasn’t that a lot of old ramble, hope you got it all!)… This competition is not endorsed by or affiliated with Facebook.

Good luck!

Now, as we’ve being making these lovely, lovely memory cushions for a couple of years now, we came to thinking it was about time we did something for us! And much as we like the memory cushions and blankets, we wanted something a little different!

So as our little man approached his second birthday, and left his baby years behind, we felt the time was right to clear out the loft and make a fitting tribute to remember some of his lovely first moments. That’s a few months ago now, as what with one thing and another this project has taken a while to complete, but finally its finished and to co-incide with the second birthday of sewnaway (our other baby!) we are ready to share it with the world…..

And here it is! We decided on a 50x50cm canvas, as we wanted something a little different, as well a something we could see hanging, and remember our little man in all his fresh, newborn teeny tininess, every single day! And as this one is ours, we’d love to share these moments with you…..

Here we have used one of his ‘tiny baby’ sized vests, which you can see him wearing on the right. These didn’t fit for long, but being a few weeks early he was such a little dot at the start, and even these swamped him at first! I wanted to include this, because I wanted a reminder of exactly how small he was, because, as all of you out their with babies of your own will know,  it’s so easily forgotten how small they were to begin with! On the left is one of my favourite of his little newborn outfits, this one just had to make the cut!

Here we have used the green roll neck, sent over from france by his French cousins, loved this with his little knit cardi and bobble hat (he won’t thank me for that in future years I’m sure, haha!) and his very first jeans, there’s no way we could miss those is there?!

A bit special this, I LOVED this little t-shirt, from big sister Orla 🙂

Another favourite piece, handknitted helment made by grandma (so that’s where the creative gene comes from) 😉 and on the right, one of his little baby grows, the blue in this one fits the colour scheme of our canvas perfectly….

Ah, now this one….. on the left is the ‘my mummy does’ bib, this was a freebie from the lovely people at the Breastfeeding Network, and that was something that was quite a journey for us, we couldn’t have done it without their support (but that’s a whole other story) so we felt it only fitting that this made the cut, plus it did fit the colour scheme rather nicely….doesn’t it look huge in the top picture though! On the right is the little monster suit, another one of my favourites, LOVED those monster feet, and another one that literally drowned him the first time he wore it!!

Last one now, another one of his little baby grows, and his first little pair of baby shoes! I always thinks baby shoes are kinda daft when they can’t even walk, but I was super pleased to find a pair that didn’t fall off all the time, and they would get cold feet without, right?! Plus as every woman knows, a good pair of shoes always completes an outfit…..or a wall canvas?

With that, here is the finished article again, hanging, pride of place over our sofa…. And not forgetting the little man himself, not quite so small anymore, but still love his little bones, even when he’s up to his usual mischievous self……say CHEEEEEESE!

Happy New Year! Hope its been a good one 🙂

We’d just like to thank everyone who has ordered over the last year, as well as everyone who has taken the time to like and comment on our page and website, it makes it all worthwhile! We’ve been looking back over the last year and here is a Top 5 of our favourites:

No 5: The first of our little Bunnies, still love how this one turned out! Now thinking about what other animals we could develop for 2014…..

No 4: Pantone Cushions. A bit of a departure for the norm, and quite a challenge to find fabrics that we ‘just right’…..

No 3: Boxed Vest & Bib. We’ve done so many of these this year, its seems fitting that the original & first makes it onto the list! And its one for the boys….

No 2: Christmas stocking family. This was our first foray into the world of Christmas, and we were rather pleased with how these turned out. Love em’

No 1: It could only be this, our biggest project to date, Olivia’s memory blanket & cushion. This took forever, but we loved every minute, and what a honour to be asked to make something from so many treasured items of baby clothing!

And with that its on to 2014, I wonder what this year will hold????

THANK YOU once again to you all!

If you’ve been following our blog, you will already have met our little flock, if not, you can find out all about them here.

We now only have one of our baby owls left without a home, and we need some help to find him one!

This is Percy, he’s a little bit lost without his twin sister, Sarah, so we have decided to find someone to love him in our very first sewnaway giveaway!

To enter, follow the link below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The competition will be open until midnight on Sunday the 28th July. Winner will be announced on Monday the 29th.

Good Luck and please share the Sewnaway love!

 

 

Well its been a while since our last post, so we’ve decided its about time we got back into the blog and kept you up to date with the latest goings on here at Sewnaway towers!

Since we made one of these little fellows for Miss Olivia, to go with her memory blanket & cushion, its been all about the little owls. Olivia’s baby generated so much interest, we decided they deserved a bit more attention. So we’re dedicating our latest post to them & taking the opportunity to introduce you to the latest members of our flock, before they are ready to fly the nest!

And here they are, a little family of 4:

The first baby is already named she is Nancy (aka little bird). This one is made as a personal gift, made by special request for a certain little miss Nancy’s 2nd birthday, after she saw Olivia’s baby owl & wanted one for herself! As Nancy is my neice I have to admit, she does get a bit of special sewnaway treatment! Here she is, enjoying the flowers in our garden….

Our next 3 babies are yet to be personalised, so for now, we’ve decided to name them after the little birds in one of our favourite bedtime stories: Owl Babies!

First up are our twins, Sarah & Percy (I know, Percy isn’t a very girlie name for a pink owl, but we’ll have to blame the authors of the book for that!) Here they are just sittin’ in the trees, enjoying a lovely summers evening in the garden!

Our brown eyed girl (on the right) is Sarah, she’s already sold, but is waiting patiently for a new arrival so she can be personalised!

On the left is Percy, who is going to be a prize in our first ever giveaway, which will be coming soon. This is something we’ve been planning to do for a while now, and we’re looking forward to it, so keep your eyes peeled!

Our final introduction is for our wee baby, little Bill:

Now young Bill is a very special little man, he’s the baby of the bunch, as those who have read the book will know, but for us he has a very important job! He is off to help raise funds for Katie’s Breathe Life Appeal. Katie is a beautiful, full of life young lady who suffers from Cystic Fybrosis and is raising funds for treatment which is expensive and cannot unfortunately be provided by the NHS. You can read more information about Katie & her appeal on Katie’s facebook page. We know that we are truly blessed here at Sewnaway to have 2 happy, healthy babies and hope that Bill will help Katie towards her goal, and make life much easier for her & her Mummy & Daddy!

So here it is, at last, the final part of our memory blanket story!!

We won’t say much this time, better to leave the pictures to do the talking.

Except to say, we’ve totted up and were surprised to find that in the blanket, matching cushion AND the little matching owl which formed this order, we have only used 13 items  4 babygros, 4 vests, 2 sleepbags, 2 dungarees & 1 mummy sized nightie. I thought it would have been much more, and there is still a big bag of clothes to be returned to the owner!

Finally, thanks to all who have followed our little story, I hope you have all enjoyed it as much as we have enjoyed sharing it!

If you want to catch up with the rest of the story you can find the previous parts here: P1, P2, P3, P4

Good Evening Blanket lovers & welcome to part 4 of our memory blanket story. Not long to go now, sniff! I’m really starting to enjoy this blogging malarky, think I’m going to have to find something new to ramble on about when this is all over!

If you’ve missed the previous instalments you can catch up here(part1), here(part2) and here(part3)

When we last left you we had finally finished the rather mammoth task of stitching the blanket patchwork together….. so now that’s done, the next thing is to add the personalisation details.

First we print a paper template to follow, and select fabrics for the name. Sewing the name is a wee bit fidly and as I don’t want the fabrics to stretch I am adding some iron on interfacing to the back. This makes the fabrics more sable and sewing will be much easier! Then I can pin on the template & cut out the names…..

Next is to position & pin the letters into place on the blanket…..

And with that we’re ready for sewing again!

Almost done!

Once the name is added, we need to add a backing fabric. It took a while to decide what this should be, and we considered a few options.

Should we use fleece….or would this be too heavy?

How about a flanalette cotton? Or would this be to thin?

Should we add padding?? Eeek! Decisions, decisions….

In the end we settled on a pretty pink fleece fabric:

Next job is to lay out the blanket & fleece and pin together…..

Finally, we stitch the whole lot together, leaving a hole at the bottom to turn through the right way (at the moment its inside out after being stitched together!)

Once being turned round the right way, we give the whole lot a good iron….

Finally, we handstitch the final hole at the bottom, trim any threads and add Olivia’s birthdate. We do this with a 3d fabric paint, as we like the handwritten effect we can get when we use this directly from the tube.

Once the paint has dried, she’s finally finished and we are really pleased with the result!

The final stage is to take photos for the website, and that is proving to be a challenge in itself! The blanket is so much bigger than our other products it’s going to be hard to make sure we capture all the detail in a fun & interesting way!! While we think about that, here’s a photo of the finished product to keep you going until our final post, which will be a closer look at the finished product….. See you all soon 🙂

Hello again to all of you following the story of our memory blanket!

For those of you who have only just joined the fun, you can catch up with part 1 here and part 2 here.

When we left you last, the blanket was pinned together and ready to begin the sewing!

Luckily for us, on a lovely sunny Saturday, Mr S offered to take the small people out for the afternoon. Not wanting to miss out on the sunshine, we decided to bring the sewing machine downstairs and onto the kitchen table (the kitchen being the brightest room in the house and also containing the kettle of course!) 

So, with an unnervingly quiet house, sewing begins…..and as you can see, sewing at the kitchen table was a good move, as it gave us plenty of space to spread out. Not sure my little sewing table would have quite done the job here!

When stitching the patchwork, we have to take extra care as the fabrics are so stretchy, if we aren’t careful, they can easily get overstretched and leave tucks and puckers in the patches. To help avoid this find it’s best to pin each piece really well and take it slowly!

So glad we moved downstairs, it’s lovely to get the sun filtering in as we work on the pinning!

Another problem with working on a piece this size is manoeuvering around while sewing, it takes quite a bit of squishing to get it through the hole in the middle of the sewing machine….

And on we sew….

Eventually after a good few hours glued to the sewing machine, one broken needle & numerous pinpricks, we are stitching the final piece. Just in time for tea and the return of Mr S and the small ones, who have had a lovely afternoon in grandmas garden!

Stitching done and kids in bed, its time to get the blanket ironed. It needs a really good steam press to get the fabrics back into shape after any stretching in sewing. Once neatly pressed, we trim the threads along with any frayed edges, and we are done- for tonight!

Now that’s finished, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Theres not too much left to do, next we will add the personalisation & a backing fabric, but more on that in part 4 (which will sadly be our last in the series, although we are so looking forward to sharing the final product with you!)…..

Coming soon! xx

It’s been a little while since part one of our Memory Blanket Story, if you missed the first installment, you can catch up here.

So after much deliberation, we settled on a piece to start the chopping. Here it is after the chop, it was a little denim dungaree in a former life and a good place to start as it has several different elements that could be used in different areas throughout the blanket.

Well now we’ve made a start we are on a roooooolllllllllll!  

Here we are picking out the pieces we’re planning to use, a colour theme is starting to appear in the form of pinks (of course!) with grey and highlights of denim & grey. I’ve got a feeling this is going to look nice! As the memory blanket is so much bigger than the cushions, its lucky that we have been provided with some larger pieces of clothing, including sleeping bags & even mummy’s hospital nightie! This is making it much easier for us to get all the patches we need for an item this size (which, in case you are wondering is 90x110cm, ideal size for a cotbed)

With a bit more chopping & pinning, things are starting to come together! Its a bit of a slow process,  as we like to make sure that each area of the blanket will have a little detail and that the colours are evenly spread….its no good getting to the far corner, only to find all the pink is at one end! If you look carefully, you will also spot the base of the memory cushion, which will go with the blanket. We put this together first to use as a guide for the blanket, and kept it to one side as we went along to keep our little theme in mind….

So after much deliberation, chopping, repositioning &  fair few pin-pricks, the layout is finally done, dusted and pinned into place….. phew!

Next stage is the sewing, but we’ll be back with that in Part 3…..See you soon 🙂

 

Here at Sewnaway, we’ve been following the fabulous lucylovesya on twitter for a good while now, and she also has a super blog full of crafty insipration (AND a sewing room to be jealous of!) So when we saw the call for her montly inspiration challenge, we got a little bit excited….This months theme was  ‘Matroyshka March’!  The aim of the game (as it were) is to take one photo (this month the Matroyshka dolls) mull over, and come back with a crafty make, inspired by the original theme. What better for us than Elsyes new memory canvas, it fits the bill perfectly….so we fired off the pics and waited patiently. On the first of April, Lucy revealed her latest post and we were super excited to see we had got ourselves a wee mention! You can have a look at the full post here:  http://lucylovesya.com/?p=4715   check out  the other items, its good to see how different people have interpreted the same theme….I have to say, our personal favorite is the cowboy hotwater bottle cover, love the way you can add or change the faces…..superb!

So you’ve probably already seen our  memory cushions, if not then check them out on the products tab. These of probably our very favourite product, as each one is made from a selection of treasured yet outgrown baby clothes, the end product is always so unique.

 

Following the sucsess of the memory cushions, we are about to embark on our latest project, a memory blanket, and would like to share the journey with you!

Firstly, we recieved 2 huge bags of clothes, from a very excited mummy. We always get a little bit giddy unpacking the clothes for the memory cushions, but this one was extra exciting, as there were sooooo many! The cushions usually need 8-12 pieces of clothing, but its always great to have a selection to pick from….for a blanket and a cushion though who knows how many we will need?? I’ll let you know the answer later, but needless to say, I think we will have plenty of lovely stuff to work with from this little lot:

 

So we have had a good root through all the lovely, teeny tiny items of clothing, got the backing fabric ready….now we are ready to strart the cutting….this is the slightly scary part, I always feel a little bit nervous wielding a pair of scissors over someones precious items, but it usually only takes a few chops before things start to come together! …just need to decide where to start now….

….this could take some time….

…to be continued….

Spring Bunting #1 (above)

 

Spring Bunting #2 (above)

The sun has been out this weekend and we are starting to feel a little bit of a spring in our step here at sewnaway towers! We have had a spring clean and sorted our fabrics into a brand new set of labelled drawers (i’m sure its wrong to be this excited about plastic storage!!) So to celebrate we have 2 strings of ready made bunting available now. Pretty in pink & green florals, 12 flags over approx 3m length, priced at £9.99+ £3.50 recorded delivery.

Contact us now if you would like one, get it before its gone  😉

Here’s our latest memory cushion in progress. We’ve just added photos of the finished product here… https://sewnaway-gifts.com/ourproducts/memory-cushions/

We also been busy with personalised bunting for girls and boys….check out the pics here…. https://sewnaway-gifts.com/ourproducts/bunting/

Now we are thinking about new products, got a few new ideas, going to try one for a new memory product first so watch this space!