Crafting with others is a great way to find inspiration and motivation.  Here is what we got up to when I stayed at my mum’s for a little craft retreat:

We discussed a possible focus the the meet up beforehand.  The main focus was dolls.  We have a few doll patterns in our stash, but I found a free magazine kit and decided to complete this instead (from Crafts Beautiful Magazine).  This was a fast make as all of the detail was printed onto the fabric and the limbs were not joined separately.

The bunny did come with a printed tail which protruded to one side but I opted for a button tail instead so it could go on the back.  Unfortunately the bunny is so small that I’ve misplaced it!

My mum, on the other hand, decided to choose a vintage pattern she found in a charity shop.  As the head needed to be made with a kid’s nylon sock, she made the rest of the body first.

As with many charity shop pattern purchases, she was paranoid that there would be a piece missing, but we found them all secure in the packet!  What a find for 50p!

As I had chosen a quick doll pattern to make, I went on to my next challenge – recovering the pouffe.  This pouffe has gone round the family and ended up with me in the last year.  Despite it’s long time in the family, I could find only one photo where you can see its original cover!  Enthusiastic to recover it, I completely forgot to take the before shot.

We spent ages draping fabric over it and discussing the design (a reason why the doll remained headless at the time!)

I ended up using my mum’s stash instead of my own!  The top fabric is an old curtain she made about 20 years ago with material from Ikea.  The base is covered with  a corduroy remnant from a shop.  It’s a vast improvement but now I don’t want to put my feet on it!!