Having a “Crafternoon” with Mind and Crafter’s Companion

What is a Crafternoon?

A Crafternoon means getting together with friends, family or colleagues to hold an afternoon of crafting and to raise money for Mind – a fun way to help us be there for everyone with a mental health problem. Crafter’s Companion are holding a Crafternoon in their stores in Newton Aycliffe and Chesterfield on December 9th 2016.  To involve as many people as possible, including those who prefer to stay at home, they are also having an online fundraiser.  See their Facebook page for more details.

From a personal perspective, I find crafting, particularly sewing, such therapy.  That might sound a bit corny but believe me it’s not.  As many of you may know, I have had a bit of an ordeal health wise over recent years and found myself feeling somewhat lost and useless as all of the things I used to be able to do I now struggled with.  I had many sessions of ‘talking therapy’ which helped me to refocus and find the things which I could do which gave me a huge mind shift.  The things that I focused on were crochet and hand sewing with my longer term goal of being able to do patchwork and quilting.  The positivity, reward and much improved mental health I experienced were immeasurable.  Thanks to my talking therapy sessions, crafting is now a huge part of my everyday life.  If I’m having a day where I physically can’t walk to my sewing machine I always have my hand sewing basket or bag of crochet projects to hand…helping me to focus on what I can do rather than focusing on what I can’t do.

The online Crafternoon has many different elements to help raise awareness of the mental health charity Mind and to fundraise for them.  There will be  video tutorials, a raffle, name the bear competition, voucher codes for money off craft materials on the Crafter’s Companion website and a donations page. A big part of the online event is the Crafternoon Blog Hop…so many of the Crafter’s Companion design team members are putting together projects and tutorials to give further inspiration to crafters…paper crafters and sewers!!! Hooray for sewers…that’s why I’m involved!!!  As per Crafter’s Companion tradition, the Blog Hop will also give plenty of opportunity to win prizes…just comment on a blog hop post and your comment may be selected as a winning comment…good luck!

 

Here’s the information you need to get involved with the blog hop:

Time the hop starts: 12pm 05/12/16 – Time the hop finishes: 5pm 09/12/16

My blog hop project: I decided to make simple Christmas tree decorations using the ‘Sew Easy’ patchwork ruler and fiskars rotary cutter.  If you don’t have these items, a ruler, marking pencil and pair of scissors will do the job too!  Here’s one ofmy cinnamon stick Christmas tree decorations:

These tree decorations are so simple to make using either a sewing machine or if you don’t have one you could hand sew it all.

1. Using your patchwork ruler, cut out a simple triangle shape out of your chosen fabric…measurements can be of your choice, I wanted quite tall, slim trees so had a bottom measurement of 4 1/2″ and the triangle was 6″ tall.  You need two triangles for each tree you make
2. Cut a piece of string approx. 9″ long and pin this loop pointing down onto the top of one tree triangle
3. Align second tree triangle on top of the first with right sides of the fabric facing together, loop sandwiched in the middle…stitch along the edge from bottom, upto point and back down other side to the bottom again.  Remember to stitch a couple of reverse stitches at the start and finish of your sewing to secure the stitches
4. Holding onto the string loop, turn your tree the right way around and give a light press with your iron
5. Stuff a little toy stuffing into the point of your tree…I use a pair of forceps to push it right to the point.  Then wrap a little more toy stuffing around your cinnamon stick, insert this into your tree then continue to stuff until plump!
6. Fold over the raw edges on the bottom of your tree, bring these together and hold in place with pins or clips.  I prefer to use the Clover wonder clips on projects like this.
7. Using a needle and thread, hand stitch the bottom edges together, securing the cinnamon stick tightly at each side with a few stitches on top of each other.
8. Decorate your tree with ribbon, jingle bells or anything else you may have

I have made these trees in different sizes and decorated them in different ways.  I’m really pleased with how they have turned out and they look lovely hanging on our Nordic inspired stair garland in our dining room.  Our kitten, Oreo, approves of them too!!!

I hope you enjoy making some trees of your own.  If you are looking for the larger cinnamon sticks at a reasonable price, I bought mine in my local Morrisons store in the world food section for less than a pound for the bag…they smell pure Christmas!

If you’d like to see the other projects, don’t forget to visit the other blogs in the Blog Hop!

Crafterscompanion

Jen

Angela

Sam

Gemma

Sally

Soraya

Janine

Laney

Julie

Donna

Laine

Kelly

If you’d like a chance to win a prize, please remember to comment on the blog posts!

Happy crafting, x