And then this happened outside my window…

Which makes it less of a Wollaton Park day and more of a hot tea and muffins, soup and catching up with your blog day!

So, 2010 has brought craftiness into my family. Last month I had a lovely day with my 3 nieces showing them how to crochet, embroider and do a spot of French knitting too! I wish I had some photos of the things they made. I was so proud to see them crocheting colourful granny squares and stitch pretty embroideries. They picked it up much quicker than I did and they tell me they’re now completely addicted!

I made some handmade family gifts too. A Frankenstein’s Monster cushion for my nephew, just to show him we didn’t forget about him on our girlie crafting day, and a felt brooch for my mum. For some reason I didn’t take photos of those either. What was I thinking?

I do, however, have photos of the gifts I made for my big sister for her birthday. Patchwork cushions to match her bedroom with dragonfly embroideries. Dragonflies are her favourite.

Bedroom slippers to match

And a case to keep them in

There’s nothing nicer than sharing your craft love. Who do you share yours with?

I still have lots of good intentions for 2010, to keep learning techniques and finding out about textiles, colours and tools of the trade. Despite my hectic life this blog has been quiet recently, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t found time for some creativity.

Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

Back in November the Textile Workshop organised a trip to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show. Of course the Stitched Up ladies were there and we had a great time admiring the stunning artwork.

I bought a few lovely things too, including some 1970s braid, vintage embroidery transfers, a few pieces of beautiful fabric (hopefully) destined to become skirts and not forgetting the amazing giant ric rac!

I’d never been to the Harrogate International Centre before so it was a surprise to stumble across its Royal Hall. A beautiful theatre built in 1903, still shining and glittering from floor to ceiling.

Discovering BurdaStyle

This was quite a biggie! The first thing I thought when I visited the BurdaStyle website was “why on earth haven’t I been here before?”. If like me you’re a bit slow off the mark and haven’t enjoyed BurdaStyle yet then go (www.burdastyle.com).

As they say, its ‘for people who sew‘. This site is for dressmakers and crafters of all abilities, where patterns are labelled from ‘novice’ to ‘amateur’. There’s way too much to say about BurdaStyle here so all I am going to say is that if you want to be inspired and whipped up into a sewing frenzy then that’s the place to go!

The Great Craft Room Clear Out

OK, so a clear out might not be strictly creative but it is absolutely necessary for me to have a clear brain. The craft room clear out was part of a bigger wave which started with us emptying the loft for new insulation and has carried on with a major tidy up of every room in the house. For me it’s better than therapy and along the way I found some things I’ll treasure for many more years to come.

My first (and very tiny) ballet slippers.

Birthday cards from when I was little and my very first ‘aunty’ card from my baby nephew.

Christmas Crafts

I have to admit I’m usually a bit grumpy at Christmas, this tends to be because I just don’t have the extra time it requires to fit everything in – but then who does?! This year though I decided I was going to make the effort to enjoy the build up, rather than treat it as a chore, by incorporating a little craft along the way.

For my close family I made little felt tree decoration Christmas cards. I was too rushed to take photos before I sent them but they were snowmen, gingerbread men and baby deer, a bit like this one.

A few prezzies were hand made too, including a cotton apron for my great aunty, a crochet scarf for the lovely Hannah and a zip up purse for a welcomed home friend. I even did a bit of baking, which is unheard of, for my Dad and Norman (a very special fella). Plus this giant granny square blanket for my husband’s Nana. I never knew I could crochet so fast!

I have to say that making these things didn’t ease the pressure of Christmas preparations at all but it did make it much mure fun.

Having lovely, thoughtful friends and family I was lucky enough to receive some truly beautiful handmade and crafty gifts:

This absolutely gorgeous patchwork quilt made from vintage 1970s fabric by the very talented Claire was such a fantastic surprise! Claire is one very busy lady and so I’m even more grateful that she found the time to make this for me.

Hannah knows me very well, spoiling me with more wonderful vintage goodies, including crafty books, the cutest bunny jelly mould and this adorable hand mirror which I love (I’ve been drooling over vintage hand mirrors for ages). It’s a bit like she read my mind too with the vintage Christmas card holders!

My youngest neice gave me the sweetest sewing box which will be ideal for taking to sewing class and craft group and my in-laws treated me to books on dress making techniques and patterns, exactly what I need.

I know I’m a very fortunate girl indeed and I don’t take that lightly! Thank you everyone!!!!

How about you? What have you been doing these past couple of snowy months?

I’ve just spent 3 hours discovering the wonderful world of BurdaStyle (which seems perfect for a beginner like me), I have shelves full of books, a head full of ideas, a cut out dress pattern from ‘making things from vintage patterns’ class and a thousand started-but-not-finished embroidery, sewing and crochet projects but can’t set myself to do any of them. Its a bit like standing at the bottom of an insurmountable mountain and I think I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all!

It seems that crafting and dressmaking requires a lot of patience and acceptance that you can’t expect to be able to do everything instantly. But I want to be able to do it all instantly and its frustrating! This is a bit of a diversion tactic. Instead of getting to it and just tackling something I’ll just write about it here instead. I never seem to get writer’s block with writing.

Can anyone help me shake off this feeling?

I’m sure more experienced crafters will have lots more gems on how to recycle and cut down waste when making, so please do share them. If you send me your green crafting tips (either here or at GGG) I’ll compile another list and publish it, with your tip credited to you of course :)

Although this year I thought I would make him something as part of his gift.

My dad is a green fingered type of chap. All his life he’s loved gardening. Before he retired he would work long, long shifts and come home and get stuck into the garden. He spent hours teaching me the names of various plants, flowers and trees and still one of my favourite smells in the world is tomato plants because I spent lots of time helping (actually probably just getting in the way) dad in the greenhouse.

So, what I’ve made him is a drawstring pouch to keep his plant markers and dibbers. Its just a silly prezzie, a bit of fun but I know he’ll like it. It’s the first thing I’ve made from the Meet Me at Mike’s book! Yay!

The natural talent for gardening hasn’t rubbed off onto me unfortunatley, I have to try a bit harder to make plants happy. But here are some snaps from our garden this afternoon in the lovely autumn sunshine…

Take a few sad, tired old cushions and peel off their grubby covers…

Add a generous measure of lovely colourful 70s  fabric and a handful of zips…

Whip up into a batch of fresh new covers…

This fabric came from various places; 70′s M&S pillowcases from the car boot sale, pretty flower cotton from Barnardo’s charity shop and the funkiest second hand retro print (that I’ve been saving for ages) from a little village craft fair.

Lucky I sat the sewing machine class to brush up on my zip skills. Zips don’t have to be scary if you practise, practise, practise!

Also from my fabric stash came these cute little curtains…..

If you want to make your own cushions, check out:
‘How to Make a Cushion Cover‘ with a zip on Mooky Chick
Kirstie Allsop’s guide on ‘How to Make an Envelope Cushion Cover’

I’m really excited to be, in a very small way, part of of this amazing piece of art history by creating one patchwork square (of many) for a quilt which will be displayed on the plinth to celebrate women in the East Midlands.

The ‘Plinther’ who came up with the idea is Hazel Ellerby-Sansom who will take her place on the plinth on Wednesday 12th August at 3pm. She will display the quilt whilst reading out a message for each square. After its time on the fourth plinth the quilt will travel around art galleries in the East Midlands and will finally be auctioned off with the proceeds going to charity. Details of art galleries, dates of auction etc are still to be confirmed as this will be an ongoing project.

Myself and my fellow crafters at the Stitched Up craft group in Nottingham will also be helping Hazel sew the quilt together, ready for its long journey.

The Fourth Plinth project began on 6th July and will end on 14th October 2009. You can watch the footage 24/7 online at www.oneandother.co.uk. Its very addictive!

I haven’t decided on my quilt square design yet but I’ll keep you updated. There will be more news over at our Stitched Up website soon too: www.stitched-up.org.uk

Hazel is looking for women in the East Midlands (it really does need to be the East Midlands only please) to contribute a square for the patchwork. It needs to be approx 10 inch x 10 inch (26cm x 26cm) of any design with a short message attached. Please send completed squares to Hazel Ellerby-Sansom, 17a Fisher Lane, Bingham, Nottinghamshire, NG13 8BQ

Don’t ask why. I had planned to alter some clothes after the great wardrobe cull last weekend but all I wanted to do was make a bed for Murphy, our house rabbit.

No newly-learned skill went into this project, just machine and hand sewing and a smidgen of embroidery. The little appliqued bunnies are, however,  ‘Ecospun’ felt which is made from recycled plastic bottles. I bought mine from an online shop called Craft Felt UK but unfortunately this no longer seems to exist and I can’t find any other shops that sell the eco felt here in the UK. A quick search on Google gives results for shops in the US though so all is not lost. It seems our crafty friends in the States are putting us to shame when it comes to green fabrics.

Anyway, here are some cute pics of Murphy with his new bed just for the hell of it….

Just imagine how formidable those women must have been. Providing for her family, making sure they were fed and clothed all from her garden. Now, after trying smocking I am even more impressed by these women’s skills and talents.

I’ve just tried the honeycomb stitch here and I have to say I didn’t find smocking easy at first. I’m captivated by how pretty it is and its history, so its worth keeping at it though. Creating smocking is a little like a balancing act, you feel really unstable at the beginning, holding onto the gathers and thread and trying to get the needle in the right place but then, after a while, it clicks.

The basis of smocking is preparing the fabric, carefully gathering it into uniform tubes before you get to the exciting part of adding the colourful stitches and creating that familiar smocking shape and dimension. I used polka dot cotton which helped me keep the stitches even. More experienced ‘smockers’ can do without dots or checks and go freestyle. The main thing I struggled with was how to keep the loose end of the gathered fabric in place so that the folds can remain even. I wasn’t sure if I should tie the cotton to hold the gathers in and my books didn’t mention what to do there. I got it in the end though and I’m keen to experiment with more stitches and colours.

Something else to consider about smocking is that it isn’t the most frugal craft. It uses a lot of time, thread and the fabric must be measured out at one and a half times the finished product (because of the gathers). So, if you’re trying to craft green then that’s worth bearing in mind. The piece I made turned out to be about 10cm wide and it took me a few hours.

Despite all of these things I still love smocking and I especially loved learning about it from these deliciously 70′s books – ‘The Complete Book of Handicrafts‘, ‘The A-Z of Handicrafts’ and ‘Smocks and Smocking‘.

For a video on how to create the trellis smocking stitch take a look at the resources page.

My dressmaking was interrupted with a very welcome interlude of a stroll to the park with my husband and then a mosey down the pub for lunch and a beer or two. I’m not sure if it was a good idea to operate the sewing machine after that but things seemed to turn out OK.

I was particularly pleased that I managed to make French seams which are good for delicate and lightweight fabric like this. They make the finished garment feel stronger and prevent fraying because there are no raw edges exposed. I’ve added a video tutorial to the resources page (under ‘dressmaking’) on how to do French seams in case you’re not already in the know.

I also love these little flower buttons which really go with the colour and style of this fabric. I bought these at a fantastic craft fayre in Brinsley a year or two ago. I wish those craft fayres could happen all the time.

Although I’m happy with my new cute top I’ve learned that I’m not yet ready to cut my own patterns as the shape is far from perfect. That’s OK though because I’ve lined up a whole load of patterns to watch in eBay ready for the snipe!

By the way, did you notice that my little ole blog has had a makeover? You like?