The one where she mixes up all the dresses and has a nervous breakdown!

I have to apologise. I have had so many dresses over the last few weeks that it has taken me a while to go through them and log them and let everybody know that they have arrived safely. The weather has also been awful so I haven't had a chance to get outside and take photos. I did manage to get lots of photos this weekend but somehow some of the piles of dresses got mixed up and name cards blew away and despite several hours spent trying to match dresses to people I have conceded defeat. I have photos of all the dresses but not necessarily matched to the right people. I am really sorry. I've been ill over the last few weeks and I think its affected my brain!

Anyway a HUGE thanks in no particular order to Gen (48 dresses all with knitted dolls!), Yvette (1 dress), a lovely person who lives in IP3 who I can't trace as I don't know their name (5 dresses), Emma (2 dresses), Karen (10 dresses) Yvonne (7 dresses) Margaret (6 dresses), Louise (86 dresses!), Laura from Spain (34 dresses for Make A Pact), Frances (3 dresses plus dolls, bags and hairbands), Jill (8 dresses & 3 shorts), Elaine (8 dresses), Janet (23 dresses & 5 shorts), Karen (9 dresses), Anne (15 dresses), Jill (46 dresses & 6 shorts). Phew! All of them beautiful. Thank you so much. I still have parcels to look at so please watch this space if yours aren't featured here.

  

  

  

 

  

Gen held a dress making day and I hope to share more about what she did at a later date. Louise had a great idea for helping with postage costs. She asked her friends to sponsor individual dresses for a small donation. Brilliant idea. Lots of her lovely dresses have little notes on from the people sponsoring them. A great idea for those of you that make and send lots of dresses. I know that postage/courier costs are so expensive. I was a collection point for the 'Make A Pact' dresses which have gone off to Sierra Leone with the charity.

Apologies to everyone for not matching dresses to people. I may have to continue blogging this way while there are so many dresses arriving. Is everyone happy for me to do it like this? Logging the dresses and taking photos takes up quite a lot of time at the moment and I'm keen to get on with finding contacts to take them abroad and get them to where they are needed. Made a great local contact today. Mark & Megan who have set up a project helping children living in Uganda. They will be taking 40 dresses and 30 shorts on 14 August and will be able to hopefully take dresses on a regular basis. You can read more about the work that they do here.

DRESS UPDATE: Total Dresses 2,115 Total Shorts: 212

I think I've died and gone to ribbon heaven

I am soo excited to have been chosen as a 'Ribbon Stylist' blogger for Jane Means Ribbons. Jane has sent me a selection of her gorgeous ribbons and I have to make beautiful things with them and blog about them. What a fantastic opportunity! I was like a child in a sweet shop when the box of ribbons arrived last week. They were all beautiful. All different colours, styles and textures. I have already made myself a Pinterest Board for ribbon projects and inspiration which you can find here. If you want to join this board and pin some of your own ribbon ideas, please let me know and I'll add you to the board. Jane has a great website where you can buy these beautiful ribbons by the metre or roll as well as other gift wrapping supplies. She also runs gift wrapping courses which sound amazing. You can find her on facebook here too.

I had some great ideas for my first ribbon 'make' which were firmly put to one side once I read a post on a lovely blog I stumbled across called Strawberry Patch. Emily was looking for people who could sew to make 'wiggly' bags for children in hospital. Wiggly bags are used to hold the hickman lines that many children have if they are in hospital for a long time. The hickman line is a tube which is inserted into the chest so that chemotherapy drugs can be given or blood taken. Emily is making and collecting Wiggly bags on behalf of The Olivia Holmes Foundation. They can be made using tape or ribbon so I immediately thought that this would be a fantastic way of putting some of my beautiful new ribbons to very good use. (If using ribbon please make sure that it is soft and not scratchy as the wiggly bags may be against a child's skin - the ribbons I used are fabulous quality and very soft to touch).

Wiggly bags are needed for both boys and girls and for all ages of children so I looked for a range of different fabrics to use. I used the very easy to follow tutorial on Emily's blog. They didn't take long at all. I also did some French seams for the first time!

I started with an owl fabric which matched this beautiful blue grosgrain stitched ribbon

I thought this shoe and handbag fabric might suit an older girl. Its finished off with a gorgeous purple grosgrain ribbon.

I love this fabric featuring cute little animals and the grey gingham ribbon matches perfectly.

The top ribbon ties go around the neck and the side ties around the chest.

I couldn't resist making a last minute one with this mad frog fabric and some pale green gingham ribbon.

A lovely to thing to make for my first ribbon project. Emily is asking for other people to join in too. If you can't sew or don't have time to make one you can always donate fabric or ribbon instead. Have a look at her blog for more details.

I also couldn't resist using some of my Taffeta wired ribbon to finish off the wrapping on Izzy's teachers leaving present. We wrapped it in sellophane but it needed something to finish it off. This was actually really hard. I spent ages trying to get the bow right! Think I need some gift wrapping lessons. I was quicker making the wiggly bags!!

I'm now a little bit obsessed with ribbon and look at what I stumbled upon tonight that is most definitely going on my Christmas List. A gorgeous ribbon holder from Baxter & Snow made out of a recycled wine crate. Two of my favourite things - Ribbon and Wine!