market month!

April seems to be market month around here!  I’ve been sewing every spare minute (and quite a few that weren’t really spare, and probably should have been used to do things like vacuuming or bathing children…), and have lots of lovely goodies to bring along, ready for their new homes.

This Friday and Saturday the happy nest is super-excited to be back at Niche Market.  This event is held a few times a year, with 20% of sales going to St Giles.  Yay!  It’s on at the Tramsheds, Inveresk from 4pm to 8pm on Friday and from 10am to 3pm on Saturday.

Next week on Friday evening (5pm to 9pm) is The Elizabeth Handmade Market!  (My lovely friend Christine and I run this market, not that this makes me in any way biased as to the stupendous quality of our splendid array of designers and their marvellous goodies!)  100% of stall holder’s fees and the gold coin entry donations go to Elizabeth Home in India, a girls’ school which assists young women in acquiring sewing and computing skills so that they are able to return to their home villages and support their families.  It’s going to be a great night, with lots of new faces among our lovely stall-holder team – we’d love to see you there!

And finally, on the 26th we’ll be back at Exeter for their market.  We had a lovely time there last month – looking forward to another great day!

So there’s plenty on this month to keep everyone happy – make sure you come along and say hello!

happy birthday finn!

A very dear friend of Jasper and Toby’s turned 4 on the weekend.  We drove through pouring rain to find that sparkling sunlight had broken through over Longford…let the digging party commence!

Instead of a party bag, each lucky guest was equipped with a spade, but being a boy party there was machinery around as well…

…and this bit of machinery was a particular favourite!

After all that work, time for food. 

What do diggers eat, I hear you ask?

Buckets of gravel, wheels and traffic lights, of course!  But it was the cake that everyone was ‘wheelie’ (ha!) waiting for…

Back outside…play, play, play! 

Happy birthday Finn! 

bibbidi-bobbidi-boo…and helping out

So, lots of bib-making going on around here!

Lovely Anna of Fields of Sage has been kind enough to review one of my reversible bibs – pop over to her beautiful blog to have a peep at her gorgeous photography and her darling little girl!  There is also a special deal for Fields of Sage readers, which I’d love to share with my happy nest friends too!

I also have a some sweet patchwork bibs as well, but the light is terrible for photographing them at the moment, so hopefully tomorrow I can pop them on here as well.

Who can resist a spot of linen strawberries in the morning?!  All the bibs are available at my madeit shop.

Also bib-related, the happy nest is thrilled to be participating in the ‘Handmade Can Help’ charity auction, run by Rachel Owen’s Beaus and Sparrows to fundraise for Anita, a young mother suffering from cervical cancer.  The auction starts this Friday 15, and there are some beautiful items over on the facebook pages, so pop over and take a look – you might find something you love, and with the funds going to such a worthwhile cause, you’ll feel good treating yourself or someone special!

the happy nest is donating a reversible bib, in a sweet thirties-style print with soft red flannelette reverse.

Hope you’ve had a relaxing long weekend!

selvages

I’ve been wanting to make cushions from selvages for years.  Each time I use fabric I carefully trim the selvage from the edge, and now I have a big box full.  I finally thought I might have enough to make my cushions.

Well, it turned out that they used much less than I thought! I made two of these 45cm cushions, and have only used about half of my blue and green selvages (I feel this irresistible urge to sort almost everything according to colour. Selvages are no exception!)

I’m pleased with how they have turned out.  I don’t seem to have taken any photos of the other side, but I used a couple of fabulous fat quarters that I love – so they’re gorgeous on both sides!  They feel really sturdy, too, because I used quite thick fabric behind the selvages to reinforce them – so they might even stand up to two small boys jumping on them!

There will definitely be more of these to come!  And a couple of sweet patchwork cushions coming up too, for a couple of sweet little girls who are about to become big sisters…