Christmas is here!

I have been busy the last few weeks getting lots of Christmas sewing done. I wanted to be able to get a good range of back stock ready because I know how overwhelmed I felt last year sewing all those pom trees at the last minute.

I'm thankful because working where I do, I get the opportunity to spend a lot of it sewing. And with the tourist season winding down, it means the shop is even quieter, a little boring for me, but at least it gives me the chance to do a lot of Titchables work.

Anyway, this post is a bit of a show and tell on what I am offering this Christmas!



Christmas Mini Yarn Wreath - Soft Green - Available at etsy



Christmas Mini Yarn Wreath - Soft Red - Available at etsy 

Felt Feathered Bird Ornaments - Available at etsy and Titchables.co.uk

Felt Spotty Button Stockings - Available at Titchables.co.uk

Rudolf the Reindeer Ornament - Available at Titchables.co.uk

Christmas Pudding Ornament - Available at Titchables.co.uk and etsy

Pom Tree Ornaments - Available in Pretty Pinks, Traditional Greens or Cool Blues, or as a full set of nine. All available at Titchables.co.uk and etsy

Eventually, everything will be available at both shops, as well as a few select items at Folksy. If you are interested in bulk ordering I encourage you to contact me ASAP, same goes with any shop owners interested in wholesale for this Christmas season. :)

New Felt Bundles

New Felt Bundles
Originally uploaded by titchables

With the changing seasons I have revamped the felt bundles. You can now choose from 5 new mixes, that's 10 squares for £5!

We now have Autumn, Christmas (great for your festive crafting!), Winter, Cupcake and Brights.

I really love the new mixes and I hope you do too!

They are now available on the etsy shop and I'll be loading them onto the folksy shop shortly.

Tomorrow I'll be working on the felt section at titchables.co.uk. I'm hoping to make it easier to buy the felt on there which I've been meaning to do for the last few weeks!

Tutorial: How to make cover buttons

I've had a few requests over the past couple of months for some tutorials and I've finally found the time to work on a few. One that I get asked the most for is how to make cover buttons, which is what I'm going to show you today. I've taken lots of photos to illustrate the instructions, but feel free to use the comments to ask any questions you may have. :)

1. First, get your materials. You'll need fabric, scissors, cover buttons, cover button tool and a fabric pen.

2. Okay, find a design on the fabric that you want to make into a button and take the top cover button piece. Draw a circle around it about 1.5cm from the edge as shown.

3. Repeat how many times you like and cut out the pieces. Word of advice, it is better to have a bit too much fabric around the design, than too less.

4. Right, again take the top piece of the cover button and one circle of fabric. Position the fabric so that the design is in the middle and hold tight. (Sorry there's no photo of this, it's a two hand job and taking a photo would prove difficult!) Keeping a tight hold of your fabric, you then need to push this into the cover button tool. If you flip the rubber bit over you can see how your fabric is positioned. As you can see, mine has stayed close to the centre.

5. The first picture shows what it should look like from the back. All you have to do is push all the excess fabric down into the button. If you have too much, just trim some of it off. (This is why it's good to have too much excess. Too little and you'll end up not covering the button properly!).

6. Next take the shank part of the button and position it on top of the folded over fabric.

7. Take the other part of the cover button tool and position it up with the shank. Press down hard (you'll need to do this on a hard surface and use a bit of force!). You should hear a soft click once it's in place.

8. And there you go, one button made! It takes a bit of practice but once you've got the hang of things (particularly when it comes to positioning your design) it becomes pretty easy to do.

9. Carry on with the other circles of fabric you cut out and tah dah - one complete set of quirky owl buttons!

Like I said at the start, if you have any questions, please do ask in the comments section. Hope you liked what is the first of many tutorials I have planned! :D

Sale!

Sale
Originally uploaded by titchables

I have added a few new items to my sale section at etsy. Some of them are up to 40% off and once they expire they will not be relisted so now is the perfect time to get yourself some early stocking stuffers! :D

White Choc Chip Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting!

Decided on a spur of the moment to bake some cupcakes this afternoon, sometimes you just feel the need for cake. :) I've never made anything with frosting before so I was really excited about using some! I did cheat and bought frosting from a can though! Either way if you want to give them a go (and they're very easy to make) the recipe is below!


White Choc Chip Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting

Makes 12 approx.
Ingredients:
3 1/2oz Butter
3 1/2oz Caster Sugar
3 1/2oz Self Raising Flour
2 Eggs
50g White Chocolate Chips

1. Mix everything except the choco chips with an electric whisk until smooth, then spoon in the chips.
2. Put mixture in cupcake cases and place in oven on gas mark 5/190c/375f for about 15-20 minutes.

The frosting I used was by Betty Crocker. I then finished the cupcakes off with some pink sugar crystals.

See? Simple! :D

Follow Up!

Following on from my wholesale post yesterday I'm pleased to say the shop owner has received the items and they are now out on the shelves! The shop is called Not For Ponies and is located on the 3rd floor of Afflecks Palace, Northern Quarter in Manchester! The owner, Beckie, has kindly shared a couple of pictures taken in her shop today.

If you live nearby, I hope you can check it out! You can find out more info on Not For Ponies at their website!

Wholesale!

Completed: One wholesale order for a shop in Manchester (more details when I've confirmed they've received it, etc). So excited about getting my stuff into another bricks and mortar shop!

I'm still feeling a bit tender, but I'm back at the day job tomorrow... not really looking forward to it, but my boss has been quite lovely (she sent me flowers!) and has told me to take it easy which I intend to do. I'm about to prepare a big bag of sewing for me to take as I can't do much else. Hoping to get lots done!

Learning to machine sew!

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I'm still not feeling 100% and haven't felt very inspired to write anything here for the past few days. I do however feel the need to talk about my new toy!

My Nan is up visiting (well looking after me, sort of!) and a while back she gave me one of her sewing machines. I never managed to get on very well with it, so this time she brought her newer one and I've had a go and she's agreed to give me the new one which you can see above! I'm so excited. I've already made a few bits for the shop with it and I'm looking forward to encorporating machine stitches into my work soon!

I've also been spending my recovery time sewing up lots of Christmas ornaments. I've very nearly finished the first batch so they should make it to the shops soon. I'm also planning stage 2 of my Christmas products which is fun! It's a bit weird doing Christmas in September but now that I'm seeing festive products in the shops I don't feel too odd sewing up puddings and reindeer!

New Camera!

Before I went into hospital I thought I would treat myself to a brand new camera. I've had a lower spec Lumix for quite a while and I do love it to bits, but I've been wanting one with a bigger zoom and other features for some time so I took the plunge and ordered the Lumix TZ8 above.

I am going to America in a few weeks (October 8th!) and I can't wait to use it there. I've had a little play with it but so far I haven't had too much opportunity between naps and coming out of a drugs haze.

I received a big order yesterday of felt. I've been waiting for ages for it so I'm glad it's finally arrived. I managed to plonk myself on the floor to sort it all out too which definitely indicates I'm on the mend! I naturally forgot to order a couple of colours, but they should arrive next week (doh!).

Yesterday I started sewing on lots of poms for my Christmas tree hangings. It's quite relaxing sitting doing that while people bring me cups of tea!

Hope you're all well and I want to thank you all once again for your sweet words and get well's. I'm getting there and I really do appreciate the kindness. :)

I'm home!

Hi all. Just a quick message to let you know that I'm home and on the mend. I'm very sore and very tired but I'm also getting quite bored of sitting around not doing much so I think that's a good sign. :)

I won't go into too much detail but the surgery was a success. They removed the cyst from my ovary and it was the size of a fist - which is a bit scary. Anyway, they don't see any problems for the future which I'm really happy about - I didn't have the best stay in hospital (had a funny turn, nurses weren't very helpful) but I'm glad to be home.

Thank you all so much for the well wishes. My mum has sent out some parcels already and anything outstanding will hopefully go out tomorrow.

I'll hopefully back to my normal chipper cute loving self soon. :D

Down time

Just a little announcement to say that on Monday I am going into hospital for some keyhole surgery. I have been having uh... lady trouble for the last few months and after lots of scans and tests, it's been found that I have a (still growing) cyst in my left ovary which I am going to have removed.

I've never had surgery before or gone under general anaesthetic so I'm not sure how my body's going to cope. I've been told I may get to go home the same day, or it might be Tuesday - it will just depend on how well I feel.

As such, I am going to keep all the shops open. I won't be able to move around much for a few days but my mum is going to be on post office duty for me so deliveries will be kept up to date - however just to note that there might be a 1-3 day delay in sending orders.

I intend to be able to get online when I'm home (all snuggled up in bed) to let you know how I am and a status update on the orders (if there are any!).

Chocolate Peppermint Muffins

Today I did a spot of baking. Whenever I do, it's usually a spur of the moment type thing. I've been wanting cake for a good week now so I thought it time to do something about my craving. I tried following a friend's recipe but in the end I took a classic recipe and made it my own.

I have to say they turned out delicious! I used peppermint creams (which you can buy in any supermarket) and as the muffins cool the peppermint adds a nice chewy texture to the cake. REALLY nice. Anyway, I thought I would share the recipe with you. Hope you like it!

Chocolate Peppermint Muffins

(This is what they look like after about 10 minutes out of the oven. Look at that lovely melted chocolate!)

Makes 12.

Ingredients:
6 oz plain flour
1 1/2 oz cocoa powder
4 oz caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz/100g chocolate peppermints, crushed.
1 egg
250 ml milk
120 ml oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, take your peppermints and crush them with the end of a rolling pin or something similar. Don't make it mushy, just crush it so there's no big chunks left. Add this to the flour mix.
3. Beat together the egg, milk, oil and vanilla essence in a separate bowl.
4. Make a hole in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture, then stir together until well mixed but lumpy.
5. Spoon into muffin cases and bake in pre-heated oven on 200c/400f/gas mark 6 for 20-40 mins until well risen and springy to the touch.
6. Take out, eat and enjoy!

Huge Giveaway!

I have donated $25 worth of supplies to the MEGA rikrak studio blog giveaway!! Up for grabs is a pack of RIC RAC (yay!), pack of spotty ribbons, 10 mini deco tapes, fawn fabric buttons and a big bag of hot pink buttons. Also available in the same prize package (worth approx $100!!!) is a cute set of alpha blocks, a gorgeous necklace and a cow tshirt.

To be in with a chance of winning, head on over to the rik rak studio's blog and follow the instructions. There are lots of ways to enter so check it out!