scanncut birthday card

I did this card for my cousins birthday.  It is one of the ones available in Brother canvasworkspace.

There were a few parts to it but it was easy to assemble.  The front has a couple of buttons glued on,
I made an envelope to go with it.

scanncut cards and easter boxes

I made a couple of projects over the weekend.  The first was a card for my cousin and is one of the  free Dreaming Tree designs.  I found it turned out very small, and it felt a bit mean to be sending something so small.  I discovered I could enlarge it by 15% and still fit it on the scanncut mats, so I enlarged all the pieces, including the envelope and made it again.  Just 15% makes a big difference and I'm much happier with the larger version.

The photo doesn't show the difference in sizes very well, but the yellow shoe is the larger design.

I also made a couple of Easter Egg boxes to give to friends.  These boxes are from Brother.  I've filled them with small Easter Eggs.

scanncut birthday card

It's been a while since my last post. My next large project is to work on an anorak and I've been gripped by the fear of starting something ambitious.  It took me a couple of weeks to just start cutting out the fabric, then another week to make a start on it.  Hopefully the next post will show you the finished jacket.

In the meantime I have a birthday card to show.  I designed this myself.

and I made the envelope

Back of the card:

Vinyl with scanncut

The last couple of days I've been decorating 'things' with adhesive vinyl using my scanncut.

A small 5x5" picture of Banksy's Flying Balloon Girl

Another 5x5" Banksy, this time Girl with Balloon

The 2 pictures together on my craft room wall.

I make pour decisions wine glass

Motivational drink bottle - the bottle is a Twinings cold tea infuser.

Block 4 of the Mystery Garden Quilt and Scanncut thread tidy

I'm so far loving all the blocks in this mystery quilt.  Block 4 is a trowel and fork set.




I have so many sewing threads they won't all fit onto my thread rack.  As a result a drawer is dedicated to thread storage.  But it was a mess.

Using the Canvas Workspace for Scanncut I designed trays to fit in the drawer and keep my thread tidy.

Result - one tidy drawer.

scanncut photos and another Anza dress

This is my 4th Anza dress from Itch to Stitch.  I made the other 3 last summer.  I wear these dresses all the time over summer so wanted another one.  This is another rayon one, hard to see in the photo but it is a navy background with palm trees with purple leaves and white trunks.

The only change I made was to leave out the elastic in the waistband and have just the drawstring.  I find having both elastic and drawstring is very hard to get in the casing.

Another fiddle I have is putting the cuffs on.  You have to iron the side seams on the bodice to an angle at the armhole and then put the cuffs on.  Trying to get them to fit in with that angle is a pain and took me over an hour to do both cuffs.  Next time I'd like to try just extending the shoulders at the bodice.  Although the pattern comes in a jumpsuit I'm not sure how that would suit my figure, so to emulate a jumpsuit I'd like to make the top as a shirt, it would just need lengthening about 3" to make a boxy shirt, and then make some pants in a co-ordinating fabric to give a jumpsuit look, without being a jumpsuit.

Some things I didn't show on my last blog post.

Using the stencil to put patterned chocolate on my coffee froth.

The coffee cup I vinyled.   It says But First Coffee.

the Birthday card I'd made but couldn't find.  I was a bit messy with the glue so couldn't send this, but a learning experience.

block of the month and scanncut projects.

January's SweetPea Mystery garden block of the month is a glorious sun.

I had some orange/yellow tie dyed fabric in my stash.  This fabric went from bright orange to very pale yellow and was perfect for this sun.

I also made some more scanncut projects.  I made a popout birthday card.  However I've lost it!  so no photos until it turns up.  I also made a lovely card using the scanncut and using the draw feature to write Happy Birthday.

One of the Brother canvas projects was for a Love Letter luminaire.

This looks lovely at night when it is lit up in a dark room.

2 cushions, another Southport and a new machine

I had ordered a new living room suite in a grey colour.  I wanted some new cushions to liven it up.  So another biscornu by SweetPea

I like the blues and yellows in this one against the suite.  It looks better than the other pink and cream one I made earlier.

The other was an Audrey Hepburn cushion.  The pattern is again from SweetPea and is actually for a bag.

I want to make a bag from this as well.  I have bought some black and white vinyl to make it with.  Now I just need to find time.

Here is my new suite with my me-made cushions.

Another make is another Southport dress.   This is my third.  The other 2 I wasn't very happy with my fabric choices and they will be around the house.  This one though is a casual going out in dress.  As the pattern says, suitable for the beach or out for a meal.

This is made out of chambray from Spotlight.  As in the mustard linen version, I eliminated the front button placket.  However for this one I made a false button placket as I felt the plain chambray on its own would be a bit boring.  I added some wooden buttons to the front.  I used my coverseam machine to get perfectly placed double stitching line down the front.   I also did some embroidery on one shoulder.

I love how this has turned out.   Today is a hot, sticky day and I'm going out for lunch so will wear it out.

Last week I took delivery of a Brother ScannCut SDX1200.  There was a special offer on the NZ Machine Embroidery Addicts Facebook group.  I um'd and ah'd over whether to get it as I wanted it but didn't need it.  I looked at lots and lots of Youtube videos and decided I had to get it.

It comes with a project to get you started for a cute box.

Brother have a website where you can download projects.  The second thing I made was these templates to use with coffee.  You sprinkle your drinking chocolate powder on top and get a pretty design in your coffee.

You also get access to software to design your own files.  The top right design of a cup was one I designed myself.

I've also made a couple of cards, and at the moment I'm making a luminary.  

I bought the machine mainly thinking I'd use it for cutting fabric for machine embroidery applique.  I did find it quick to do for the Audrey Hepburn cushion.  However when I tried a more complex design it was easier and quicker to just trim the fabric once stitched.  I probably won't use it much for fabric.  But there are so many other things you can make with it - add vinyl to projects, make beautiful cards, shadow boxes, etc.  So it looks as though I have another new hobby!