Happy Birthday To Me

The 21st October was my birthday, I was 51 years young and it was the best birthday I have ever had. It started with hubby buying me chocolates which is a rarity becasue we don't normally give each other presents. His way of thinking is why wait once a year to buy what you want, better to buy it when you need it. Who am I  to argue, this way I can have several birthdays a year LOLL. The following day I was away with my son to visit my daughter for a few days so hubby gave me a generous budget for fabric shopping.

My daughter has just accepted a job with a well known magazine here. At the moment they only publish cookery recipes and are now branching out into crafts. My daughter will be doing tutorials for them so on the Thursday I arrived, we were there, where she was doing her first tutorial of fabric hearts.

Then on the Friday it was off to the craft fair. Here is mine and my daughters table. We were up at 5am and left the house at 5.45am to be there at 6am. Table set up we stayed till 4.30pm and it was a fabulous day for sales. More money for fabric LOLL
In the first photo below you can see her wallets.

In this photo you can also see the watches she makes. These are all the rage at the moment and she also makes up gift boxes of a wallet, matching watch, earrings and ring.

From the watches to the left is my work apart from the little fabric covered cups which are candle holders. Those are my daughters creations and a good seller too.

Saturday we were off to the main bazaar which is huge and if you spent the whole day from morning till evening you still would only see a fraction of it. Here we bought lots of craft items and becasue we share the same interest we bought in bulk and divided everything so most things came out practically half price.

We bought these beautiful paper roses. These were sold in packs of 100 roses so we split them in half. This is my share.

I also bought pins and things to use for crafting.

My daughter bought a box of 70 cups for her candles, I just took 10. I also bought bamboo sticks which you can just see to the right and some little pegs.

We bought loads of lace, 30 meters of the white one I think and a great find were the scissors which cut in a scallop shape. While I was at the craft fair on the Friday I came across this lovely blue little dish and two little birds. I loved the colours so couldn't resist.

I also couldn't resist the polka dot ribbon. My daughter was originally going to buy me fabric for my birhday but as hubby had given me money to buy fabric she bought me other things. She gave me a large bag of assorted beads and the pink and blue paper ribbon along with a blue gun and loads of glue sticks which you can see further down.

We came across a shop that sold felt by the meter. A great find so I got a little carried away and bought these. It doesn't hurt to stock up does it LOLL

I also stocked up on interfacing. These are two kinds, both very stiff but one is fusible and the other isn't. All those came to 14 meters at 1 1/2 meters wide.

This is the glue gun and stick my daughter bought me.
 

I also bought 100 popper metal buttons to use with my press I bought on my last visit. Having these saves me having to sew the poppers onto my mobile pouches by hand.

Sunday we were out again but this time fabric shopping and came across a shop that was something that you would all see where you live but rarely see where I am. All the fabrics folded up and colour coordinated for quilting. Loads of English quilting and patchwork magazines and all the bag hardware you could need, only problem is becasue it was all imported the prices for some bag handles were more expensive than I would charge to make a bag. I bought a couple of pieces of fabric from this shop becasue I knew I wouldn't find them anywhere else and it was really expensive so didn't buy much.
These are the two I chose. I adore them.

Here are the others I bought from another place where the prices were a bit cheaper.
All in all I think I came away with about 11 meters.

I also stocked up on brown zippers for bags and some rope. The blue suede strips are perfect for drawstring bags. They were low on different colours so I just got these blue ones until the next time I return.

Oh yes and something else I found which I hadn't been able to get until now was two rolls of double sided iron on tape, left hand side of the photo below. I think some people use these for holding zippers in place rather than pins or tacking.

After all this shopping I spent a day doing some cleaning around my daughters flat and then it was back home the following day. I really had a wonderful time but it was made even more special knowing I have all of you to share my goodies with. Thanks to all of you that sent birthday wishes on my FB page, those were more special than any amount of shopping.

At the moment I'm sewing up orders I took while I was away and I still have some unpublished patterns that I tested to show you.

Thanks for taking the time to read through this long post.

Happy Sewing

~ Maria ~