Hello Sugar Cane

Zig Zag Mad

2012-02-25T13:49:00.001Z

Hello :D

I've really got into zig zag or chevron fabric lately. They are so colourful, vibrant and spring like and have inspired me to come up with some new designs for a flex frame pouch and shoulder bag.

The wonderful chevron pattern : Half Moon Modern by Momo for Moda

Zig Zag fabric by Ann Kelle's Remix Collection for Robert Kaufman

New Zig Zag Flex Frame Pouches

New Zig Zag Shoulder Bag : Spring Ready

I will be listing these colourful beauties over the next few weeks, and I have other pouches, wallets and clutch bags to sew using these joyful fabrics.

E xxx

Pin It

Handmade Zipper Pouch Tutorial

2012-02-14T20:27:00.007Z

Hello :D

I really want to share with you my method of making a zipper pouch. It is not very different from many others tutorials but has a few more added tipbits to help you make the perfect pouch.

I hope you find it easy to follow, this is a guide on how to make a zipper pouch. Its up to you what size, shape and pouch design you would like to make.

Supplies or What You Will Need

♥ Exterior Fabric

♥ Lining Fabric

♥ Interfacing

♥ Zip/Zipper

♥ Sewing Machine

♥ Zipper Foot

♥ Thread

♥ Wonderweb or similar

♥ Pouch Pattern (with seam allowance approx 5 cm)

1. Cut your pattern from the exterior fabric, lining fabric and interfacing and decide on your zip length.

2. Attach interfacing to exterior fabric. I use stitch and tear and attach interfacing to the fabric with wonderweb at the top only.

3. Place your zipper teeth faced down onto the rightside of your exterior fabric.

Tip: always make sure your zipper works and that it is long enough that the zipper pull will not get in the way of your zipper foot when sewing.

Then place your lining fabric on top of the zipper. Your zipper will be in a fabric sandwich. I tack the layers together rather than using pins. When sewing it gives a much straighter stitched line.

4. Once the exterior and lining are tacked in place on the zipper. Use your zipper foot to stitch about halfway between the teeth and the edge of the fabric and zip. Any closer to the zipper teeth and the zipper will get caught in the lining fabric.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with the other side of the pouch. It should look like the pictures below.

6. Open the zipper about 2/3rd down before you pin it together.

7. Next bring the two exterior layers together and the two lining fabrics together. At this point its important to match up all the edges of the fabric and also the straight edges sewn to the zipper. This will make the zipper more even when right side out later.

Before you pin everything together make sure that your zipper teeth point toward the lining fabric.

With your edges of the fabric and zipper lined up with each other pin through the zipper and fabric layers, then pin each end of the zipper together so they stay flat when sewing.

Pin the rest of the pouch leaving a gap in the bottom of the lining fabric so you can turn it inside out later.

Start at the beging of the gap use a backstitch to secure the thread, sew around the pouch (red dots as a guide) ending with another backstitch by the gap.

Tip: Sew slowly over the zipper, and try not to catch your needle on the pins as this is the place where your needle is most likely to break!

8. Remove the pins and trim off the excess fabric and zipper ends.

Through the gap turn the pouch right side out, then undo the zipper completely.

Sew up the gap in the lining fabric.

9. Before you put the lining into the pouch give it all an iron. Then put the lining in and iron the lining and outter fabric attched to the zipper, to give it a neat flat finish.

YAY!! there you go one beautiful handmade zipper pouch :D:D

List of Suppliers

♥ Zips : Zipit for a fantastic selction of zippers. Every size & colour you could ever need.

♥ Interfacing : I use 'stitch and tear' stabiliser, I find with iron-on interfacing it can pucker up the exterior fabric when ironing. I attach the interfacing with wonderweb or other similar products at the top of the fabric only. Go to Barnyarns for a good deal on interfacing.

♥ Fabric : I buy a lot of my fabric from Etsy and the following online stores

Fabric Rehab

Fabric Worm

Hawthorne Threads

I hope you have found this very helpful, please contact me if you have any questions or you would like to show me what you have made.

Have lots of fun :D

E xxx

Pin It

Rainbow Blanket

2012-02-08T12:55:00.004Z

Hello :D

I've been working on crocheting a rainbow granny stripe blanket over the past few months. This rainbow wool is self stripeing, it has such love depth of colour and is easy to crochet too. It was a happy accident that the original chain was the perfect length for the stripes to come together so well.

There is another blanket I abandoned here its the same pattern but with no change of coloured stripes. I hope to finish the both very soon, I'll show you final colourful wonders then.

Hope you like it,

E xxx

Pin It

Update: this is called Teksrena 100% Wool Yarn Rainbow, I found it here on Ebay

Mushroom Mayhem

2012-02-05T17:04:00.005Z

As many of you might already know I like mushrooms. I would like to share with you some of my collection.

www.solitaireshop.com

Teak Mushroom Jars

Mushroom collective

Decole & Paperchase

Finel Arabia Mushroom Enamel Bowl

QuernusCrafts

Wooden Mushrooms

Vintage Glass Mushrooms

Ceramic Mushrooms

Crochet Mushroom

Decole Mushroom


Rement mini mushroom collection

Large Ceramic Garden Mushrooms

You can never have to many mushrooms :D:D

E xxx

Pin It

Sneek Peek - New Sewing Projects

2012-01-20T15:10:00.008Z

Hello there :D

Back to work sewing after a relaxing but full of cold/flu holidays!

I've decided to spend some time designing and making up proto types of new pouches & wallets. Here's a few close up of my new pouch design, mini puff pouches in plenty of happy fabrics.

To get the shape right I think it took me about 6 attemps and two days to get it just so. Who knew designing a new pouch could take so long. I'm really happy with the result. They will be listed online very soon.

Tiny apples with stars

Linen roses & polka dots

Kokka birds & flowers

Still plenty of new items to be made for the new year and I have a big fancy fabric stash :D Plus a big of list of items I want to make with all that lovely fabric, lucky me :D

E xxx

Pin It

Fabric Stash - for the incurable fabric addict

2011-09-17T16:04:00.013+01:00

Kokka Japan, Scandi Trefle Brown

Having your own business is a licence to buy more & more fabric YAY! So here are some of my most recent acquisitions. I have plans for them all, clutch bags, a new design of shoulder bag, eco shoppers, box pouches and much more. I hope you like them as much as me, I find them all very delightful :D:D

Melody Miller Ruby Star Spring, Bloom Springtime

Big Owls in 4 colourways by Kokka Japan.

Sasha in Spice by

Michael Miller

Sandi Henderson Secret Garden 3 colourways

scratch - screenprinted fabric by Summerville

Retro Circles, waterwashed linen

Kona cotton rainbow sellection, to be used for fabric lining.

I will have lots of fun making up new bags & purses with all these goodies

E xxx

Pin It

Starting Up A New Crafting Business – its one big adventure

2011-08-15T17:37:00.014+01:00

In fact it’s quite an emotional roller coaster ride. There have been times when I have been overwhelmed with excitement and others when I’m overcome with fear.

It is daunting, but is a heady adventure. The first thing that comes to mind is “its mine”, it is all mine I’m in total control, and I’m my own boss. I make all the decisions; I can buy lots of lovely fabrics and sew what ever I feel like. I must admit it only been the last few weeks since losing my full-time job that I feel happy & contented.

So after I decided to make Sugar Cane into a full-time job and business, I signed up to do five Business link courses Business Link They where all local and free. Covering all aspect of starting a Business, a business plan, cash flow forecast, marketing, managing money, your unique selling point or USP, finding customers and making a profit.

It was a wonderful opportunity, to meet others starting up and to gain a real insight into what I needed do as a business owner (I like that, owner). I must admit that my brain physically hurt after every course.

There is a lot to consideration, like what do you want from your business, what are your goals, skills and qualities, strengths & weakness, your financial position. Have you done any research, looked at your competition, the market place, potential customers, and your pricing.

Blimey I hear you say!

This is just the tip of the iceberg, and the results are different for each business start up.

I found working on the Cash flow Forecast really focused my mind, having to take into account all your potential over heads, insurance, banking fees, Paypal & Etsy fees, Income tax and National Insurance. Also doing a breakdown of all my consumables costs for each bag or pouch that I make to see my potential profit and also price up any new designs I create in the future.

The most daunting has been the accounts or book keeping, I have signed up for a Business Link course but its not until next mouth. I have made start with a few spread sheets and I’m just “keeping” everything business related.

Other things I had to do by law was open a business bank account, get public, products liability and stock insurance, register my business with HM Revenue & Customs, pay Class 2 national insurance, and look into data protection.

There was and is a lot to do other than just creating my bags & purses. I know I will have to manage my time, between sewing, photography, listing, accounts, buying supplies, shipping out order, marketing.

You know it all sound quite exhausting, but I am enjoying every moment of it. I love leaning new stuff, new skills, I feel like I’m really accomplishing something, something for myself where I don’t feel I have to prove myself anymore.

Here are some links & reads I have found very useful

Moo has lots of useful tips for setting up

Moo Setting up a Business

This I found very helpful, take a look

Moo Ideas

Lots of super duper tips from Megan Auman

craftmba

A very useful e-book, a highly recommended read

craftmba.com the bestof

I wonderful warm & helpful book, love it

Handmade Marketplace

I bit more nitty gritty, but very good for dipping in and out off for information.

Financial Times Guide Business

The best place to start if you’re thinking of setting up a new business.

businesslink.gov.uk

More helpful information here, and also how to register your business.

hmrc.gov.uk

I great website with loads of super tips

startacraftbusiness.co.uk/

Marketing helps you design email newsletters

mailchimp.com

Tell me about your business start up adventure

Emma xxx

Pin It

The Best Dairy Free Moist Chocolate Cupcakes Ever

2011-07-25T20:47:00.009+01:00

My lovely friend Carol loves cupcakes but her body doesn’t like dairy (oh how horrid I hear you cry). I found this recipe last year to make her a mess of yummy dairy free cupcakes for her birthday. She loved them.

I make them a lot; they are so moist and so chocolaty. I add a few dark chocolate chips just because hehe. Also you can make them if you’re out of eggs, milk or butter. So you’ll always be able to rustle them up with a few basics in your cupboard.

This recipe makes nine lovelies, to share or not!

Ingredients

200g (7 oz) plain flour

200g (7 oz) caster sugar

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

250ml (8 fl oz) water

1 large muffin tin (12) 9 large muffins cases

Pre heat oven at 180oC

Sieve together the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Mix together until smooth. Divide between the 9 cases equally, I use and ice cream scoop to do this. I add the dark chocolate chips last, pop them on the top of the mixture and push down with the end of a teaspoon until covered.

Cook for 30-35 minutes depending on your oven.

Take out leave to cool, eat when you can’t wait any longer. The keep very well in a tin and if you can believe it the texture gets even better the longer you can leave them.

Here is the original recipe

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/4666/vegan-chocolate-cake.aspx

Enjoy

E xxxxxx

Pin It

Pretty Yarn To Make Granny Stripes

2011-06-30T16:15:00.010+01:00

While I'm still planning my business empire hehe :D I've been longing to crochet a granny stripe blanket, not for any particular reason, other than they are so pretty.

I have been inspired by the lovely Lucys blog attic24. Her creations are so mind blowingly beautiful & so happy and colourful.

My only obstacle have been finding some lovely yarn deserving enough to make one. I have been visiting our local Boyes everytime we go into town, and yesterday I struck lucky. I bought 7 100g balls of Life dk by Stylecraft and 75% acrylic & 25% wool, in delightfully named colours like: oatmeal, aqua, heather, duck egg, claret, copperand my favorite zing!

Guess each ones name

I pretty much started making my blanket as soon as I got home I was so excited, progress so far....

Progress so far, about 16 rows of DC clusters

I love this combo of colours

I love to crochet you get result so quickly and this is such a easy, well writen pattern to follow. Thank you Lucy

I'll keep you updated with my progress

Emma xox

Pin It

Joining the world of Blogging - A new handmade life

2011-04-21T16:15:00.012+01:00

Me in my already ready to go craft room

Ok I'm a little late in the blogging game, but I'm super excited. I have loads of ideas on what to do, write about, giveaway and most of all share. Sharing is the best part. I should really write these ideas down, I don't really have the most reliable brain.

In about 4 weeks I will be losing my full-time job in science, it was only a 2 year contract but I was really hoping to stay longer. So not for the first time I have had to rethink what to do with my life again. I've just always wanted to find my niche, something I'm good at, a specialism.

Then one day like Dorothy Gale in the Wizard Of Oz I realized I didn't have to look that far, I’ve had it all the time in my own back yard.

So I’m going into the full-time handmade bag making business. I'm going to build on my knowledge & experience of making and selling bags over the past 6 years on Etsy. Until now it’s only been a very happy hobby, but now I'm ready to step it up.

Over the next few months I’m going to do lots of thinking, planning & coffee drinking to see how to take the big step forward into being my own boss and hopefully make a living doing what I love & enjoy - sewing.

This blog is my first step in many,

Emma :D:D:D

p.s this is sooooo exciting

Pin It