Wednesday Wonderfuls #52

A very happy Wednesday to you all!

Today is quite a special day because I have been writing these Wednesday Wonderfuls posts for a whole year, how time flies! I hope that you are all still enjoying them because I do love writing them :)

Speaking of things that I love, this week I have developed a new love for the TV programme New Girl (I know it's old news to my American readers but it has just started airing here in the UK). I find it both very silly and very amusing, and also, as I'm a very visual person, I love the way it has been shot and the colour palette that has been used. Just look at this shot from the Christmas episode...

Aesthetically pleasing, no? :)

But without further ado let's get down to some Wednesday Wonderfuls goodness, a particularly good haul for my anniversary post, if I do say so myself...

• Feeling stitchy introduced me to couching this week, how adorable is this kind of embellishment? I will definitely be giving this a try, it just looks so cute!
• This finished project took my breath away this week, can you imagine having made something so beautiful yourself?!
• It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the blog Scathingly Brilliant, I share her links here all the time, but did you know that she also has a shop? This prints were just too sweet not to share them with you all, enjoy!
• Another beautiful finished project, this time a coat from Did You Make That, isn't it just stunning? I understand that creating it wasn't all smooth sailing, but my goodness the results are worth it!
• And to finish let me tempt your sweet tooth with a selection of cakey-type posts that caught my eye this week. Katie Cakes shared some cupcake push pops that I've gone crazy over, A Beautiful Mess shared some cupcake mixology (i.e. different way to make a simple cake more fancy!), and Joy posted a gorgeous recipe for some sinful looking smashed raspberry and chocolate chunk pancakes, swoon!

And that's it for this week's Wonderfuls! To see all of the last year's worth of Wednesday Wonderfuls look here, believe me there are some treasure to be found :)

Bye for now, but never fear, there will be yet more Wonderfuls next week!

Your help needed! What is the best way to reply to comments?

Image from mybeautybunny.com

One thing that I really want to get right on my blog this year is how to go about answering the comments that you lovely people post here.

I adore reading your comments, every time I get a new one I still get a little thrill just as I did when my first ever comment was posted, and I really want to answer them in the way that you lovely people deserve. When I first started blogging I would reply to each and every comment that was posted in the comments section of the blog post that it was written on. This seemed like a good idea in theory until I realised that the only way that the author of the comment would be able to see my reply would be for them to constantly revisit that same post, which is a bit of a fuss to be honest. Plus who can remember exactly which comments they have left on which blog post?!

I then started to reply to comments via e-mail as this seemed like the best way to make sure that the author of the original comment received my message, but this again was not a perfect solution to the comment-answering problem. I find that many people who comment on my blog are simply offering support or lovely comments of admiration (which is so sweet of you, you can't even understand!) but very rarely am I asked specific questions. Because of this I feel a little odd sending e-mails in reply to these comments as I'm basically just writing variations of "Thank you so much!" which although is meant honestly and truly from my heart I worry that it may look a little hollow in an e-mail. Plus do you think that messages such as this would be irritating to receive?

This is a problem I would really like to solve as keeping in touch with my readers and commenters is very important to me, you guys brighten up my day! I just want to do right by you :) 

So, as always when I face a tricky problem, I turn to you, my fabulous readers! 

How would you prefer to get a reply to a comment? 

Would you love an e-mail just expressing thanks, or do you not expect a reply unless you have asked a direct question? Perhaps you know of a better solution to this problem than the other methods I have tried, if so then please share your knowledge! I'd love to know what you think, so come on, get in touch! And I'll do my best to reply in the best possible way :)


(P.S. This was my 200th blog post! eeeeeeeeeeee!)

The Little Red Squirrel - 1st Blogiversary!

I cannot quite believe it but I have been blogging for one year today! Also today marks the end of one year in which I have bought no new clothes, a whole year of either making my own clothes or just buying things second hand. Can you believe it?!

I want to take a moment to take a look at all the sewing I have done this year, so please indulge me. I just love how all of these projects look when they're all grouped together, it makes me crazy happy :) 

1. The "Party Dress Book" Dress, 2. The Crepe Sew Along Dress, 3. My Birthday Dress
4. The 1960s style tunic, 5. My Christmas Dress

1. The Briar Rose Sweater, 2. Fair Isle Sweater, 3. Green and Lacy, 4. Enchanting in Black and White

1. The Pin Up Embroidery Skirt, 2. The Red Pencil Skirt, 3. The Wonderland Circular Skirt,
4. The Pendrell Blouse, 5. The 1960s top with Peter Pan collar,

1. Shirt to Skirt Revamp, 2. 1950s style dress Revamp, 3. Red Blouse Revamp,
4. Floral Skirt Revamp, 5. Cream Floral Dress Revamp

Towards the end of last year I started getting a bit down about the amount of sewing/knitting projects I had completed in my first year of this challenge, I wished I had been able to achieve more. However, when I look at the photos above I feel incredibly proud of the outfits I have created, and I realise that for me it's about quality not quantity. I may not have completed hundreds of projects, but those that I have are now staples in my wardrobe and I love wearing them.

I started this blog a year ago as a serial shopper who spent a ridiculous amount of money on clothes that just sat in my wardrobe which was bursting at the seams and yet I still felt as if I had nothing to wear. Now, I have developed my own sense of style which I know is completely unique - no one else will ever been seen walking down the street in the same outfit as me! - and the thought of choosing what to wear each day excites me. Choosing to make all my own clothes started as a challenge but it's so much more than that to me now, it's a way of life. 

So what happens now? Well, basically I intend to carry on the way I have started! For me this is just the beginning. A year of living the make-not-buy lifestyle has not only shown me that I CAN do this, but it also shown me how rewarding living in this way can be. This year I am going to take the foundation that I have created last year and add to it a little more structure. Hopefully this will improve my sewing productivity so that this time next year I will be proudly looking back over about twice as many projects, all still top quality of course :) 

All that remains for me to say is a huge thank you to all of you, my wonderful, beautiful readers, who have stopped by my blog and shown your support for the past year. I never thought I would have more than one regular reader and now here I am with 163 followers, it blows me away! Thank you so much for dropping by and hopefully I'll continue to give you something worth reading this year too!

This is going to be a good year for sewing, I can't wait to get started, but right now I think that my blogiversary deserves some blogiversary cake... :)

Wednesday Wonderfuls #51

It's the first Wednesday Wonderfuls of 2012!! Woo hoo!!

One thing that I am loving this week - and yes I know I'm a little late to the party, but better late than never! - is Pan Am. I watched most of the first season this week with my Sweetheart and I have to say I'm addicted. I will be very sad if the show does get cancelled, I mean the costumes are just swoon-worthy! I literally want every single outfit, even their stewardess uniforms and their fabulous underwear.

All images taken from imdb

What an amazing Halloween costume a Pan Am girl would be.... :)

But it's not just my television programmes that have been spectacular this week, the blogosphere has been filled with wonderfuls, so here are my picks of the week for your viewing pleasure!

• The lovely ladies at the Coletterie have grouped together their five favourite snippets (sewing related tips from their newsletter) of 2011, it's a great read. I particularly appreciated the tips on creating a usable fabric stash.
• This is a great post about crediting pictures from Vixen Vintage. Always remember to give credit where it's due!
• I have admired Vanilla and Lace's camera bag tutorial for a long time and this week she posted an update, so now it's even better than before. I think I feel a project coming on...
• Talking of amazing projects you really have to check out this Instagram Calendar tutorial  over at A Beautiful Mess, it's so adorable. It would make a great gift, plus if you like pugs you just have to see some of the pictures used in this tutorial, talk about cute!

What a great selection of goodies to start the New Year! I hope you're having a fab 2012 so far, I certainly am :)

Bye for now!

My Crafty Christmas - concluded

So here I am on the other side of my Crafty Christmas adventure, and I survived! And actually I think that choosing to make my Christmas presents although difficult and demanding was amazing and I will definitely be doing something similar in the future. I felt so proud when my loved ones unwrapped gifts that I had make myself and spent so much time on, and judging from their reactions they really appreciated the gesture :)

I finished all of the projects that I had planned to in the time that I gave myself plus I had time to do lots of festive home cooking with my mum which just added that special extra something to the day, it was brilliant.

Let's face it, I'm definitely a homemade convert, I'm already thinking of ideas for next year...!

24 Things Before I'm 25

This year instead of my regular New Year's resolutions I have put together a rather fabulous list of 24 things to do before I'm 25. I cannot wait to get started as I love that feeling of pride and satisfaction when you check a item off a list because it's been completed. Sad but true :) I intend to share each one of these experiences with you here on this blog, so let's get to the fun bit, the list!

1. Learn to Crochet - this is something I've wanted to learn to do all this year but things (for example making Christmas gifts!) kept getting in the way, so it's first on the list :) I will learn to crochet!

2. Learn to use my camera properly - I am the proud owner of a very beautiful and very fancy DSLR camera, but I haven't really got a clue as to how to use it. This will change.

3. Design a new blog header - you may have noticed the changes to my blog layout, this year I want to give the whole look of this blog an overhaul, and I thought I might as well start with making my own header (although as I'm not too good with computers it may take a while...!)

4. Take one of the e-course at A Beautiful Mess - these are amazing, I want to take most of them, but I think I'll start with the blog love e-course for bloggers

5. Go and see Florence and the Machine live - tickets booked, cannot wait!


6. Cook my first roast - Roast dinners have always been my favourite so I thought it was about time that I learnt to cook one of my own!

7. Start my UFO/Stash busting project - I am very excited about this! More details will follow at a later date... :)

8. Make a thread holder - I've always wanted one, so why not make one?

9. Paint a picture - I drew quite a lot when I was younger, I took art at GCSE level, and I'd really like to get back into that side of my creativity. Plus I'd love to be able to hang my own artwork in my home :)

10. Cook Eggs Benedict from scratch - my favourite breakfast/brunch meal, and as yet I can't even poach an egg!

11. Go for tea at the Dorcester - a little dream of mine :)

12. Make a dress from an Eva Dress Pattern - these may be the most beautiful dress patterns in the world, plus they're quite ridiculously fancy, both things that work in their favour as far as I'm concerned!

13. Go to the pottery painting cafe in Brighton - I just want to go and paint some pottery, is that wrong?

14. Make Gertie's Bombshell dress - I joined the online course for this dress months ago and still haven't really gotten started so this year I'm going to change that.

15. Have the great purge of 2012 - something I do every year, sort through everything I own to see what I'm going to keep and what I'm giving away, it's a great start to the year, I can't wait!

16. Create and post my own tutorial - as soon as I come up with something worth posting about!

17. Cook at least one recipe from each of my cook books - I have a rather huge selection of cook books and yet most of them I haven't used at all, so this year I want to help them do what they were born to do and hopefully get a bit better at cooking along the way!

18. Make a quilt - I have always loved quilts so I thought it was about time to give this craft a go.

19. Have a blog photo shoot - I cannot explain how exciting/scary the thought of this is to me...

20. Read all my coffee table books - much like my cook book obsession I also own a large number of glossy coffee table books, mostly about fashion and designers and I'm going to read each one from cover to cover.

21. Make a jewellery holder - self explanatory really!

22. Write an "I'd just like to say" article every two weeks - I wrote one of these at the end of last year and loved it, but once again Christmas preparations prevented me from having the time to write more. This is definitely something I want to rectify this year!

23. Complete the list of different sewing techniques - I'm going to take the basic list from Curves, Patterns and Pins and add a few fancy things from some of my sewing books, I can't wait to start learning some new sewing tricks :)

24. Organise some special family days - a very special one for me, being away from home has made me really treasure my time with my family, so I want to make the most of it and organise some really fun and exciting things to do

And that's it! Follow my progress through this list on this blog, I have a feeling it's going to be a great year :) Hurrah for 2012!

Happy New Year!

Well here we go, the first blog post of 2012! I hope you all had a marvellous New Year's Eve, I had a great time with my Sweetheart in Dublin town, and I wore my "Party Dress Book" Dress, which went down a treat!

I can't count the amount of nice comments I received on this outfit and I also had some great conversations about sewing which was brilliant, a lovely way to spend the last hours of 2011 and see in the New Year.

I nearly always make New Year's resolutions, I love writing a to-do list and that feeling of satisfaction when you tick things off it :) Well this year is a little bit different, because I've shamelessly pinched an idea from the incredible blog A Beautiful Mess (seriously, it's a brilliant blog, if you haven't read it then DO) and I have written a list of 24 things to do before I'm 25, which I will be sharing with you in detail tomorrow. Basically this year I'm going to be really committing to this blog and I have some really exciting challenges ahead of me, I cannot wait!

For now, Happy New Year and I hope you got in as much partying and happy times as you could over the festive season :)