Embroidery bonanza

 

For my birthday this year, I received some beautiful vintage embroidery transfers from Mr T's mum. Having just started up properly with embroidery, I'm really exciting about practising some techniques, and finding some new ones to fill in the gaps in these lovely patterns. I've got four plain cotton pillow cases (I call them pillow cases but they're actually too big to be cushions and too small to be pillows) to decorate, and so I've chosen the following pattern:

 They are far too chintzy for Mr T's taste, but as usual I'm sure he'll suffer in silence. I'll try and include some dark red, and some navy, that should keep him happy.

So, in order to copy over the pattern, as I didnt want to damage the pattern anymore than necessary (some of the transfer is starting to peel away, leaving little black spots all over my desk.) I just laid the pattern under the top layer of cotton, and traced it over in my trusty wash away pen. And I ended up with this!

Those with good vision might spot the failure of a bird with a big cross through it on the right, I do want to add some birds/ bees around the flowers, but will try and find a better pattern elsewhere as the birds on this pattern look a little odd.

Having traced over the pattern very roughly I then filled in the detail freehand. I'm very happy with how it came out... but we'll just have to wait and see what kinds of stitches I might need. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Deborah

Picnic blanket skirt

Over the summer I made the tilly and the buttons picnic blanket skirt.

I first made it in a mustard yellow wool mix but the fabric was a little heavy, making the gathering a nightmare and the skirt look a bit big. I'll still wear it but wanted to give the pattern another shot in a lighter fabric. So I decided to make it from a lightweight john lewis cotton, lined with anti-static (because I wear tights so often).

It was a great success and I haven't stopped wearing it since it was finished! As you can see from the pic, I didn't have anything that went with it, but that was just a good excuse to go shopping.

I would really recommend this pattern for those people who are fairly new to sewing but understand the basics, and are looking for the next step up. The instructions are well illustrated and easy to understand and there are no pattern pieces to contend with. Let me know if you give this pattern a go!

You can find the pattern here:


Deborah

A world of silence... And a sneaky peek

It has been far too long since my last post. I can only apologise, but I basically dropped off the planet when I moved past Hadrians wall.

I believe therefore that with the upcoming move down south, and my shiny new phone that does pictures and everything, perhaps it is time to start again.

So here is a sneaky peek of a very exciting project that I have on the go. Nothing I can say just yet, but that I'm very much looking forward to in the near future. Watch this space.

Employed and Nesting

Horrendously delayed post from December... photos to follow

I will admit that in the first months of my move to Edinburgh, some things have not quite gone to plan. After the fiasco of our initial move, and the displacement of all our stuff from our first flat, back to Blackburn and then the slow move of things and stuff from Darwen back up to the North, I have found it a little difficult to feel settled. This is very surprising as I am one of the worlds great nesters.

But finally, after a very successful craft marketing weekend, followed by a very successful visit from friends. Partnered with my parents upcoming visit, I feel like I'm growing into my new home. I decided to throw myself into this new feeling of comfortability by beginning some home decoration. Again my options are limited by landlord rules but within these bounds is amazing what you can achieve.

So out with the old and in with the new. I am nostalgic however, and therefore by out with the old I mean only the old colour scheme and not with the items to be framed or to adorn our frighteningly tall white walls.

I therefore decided to change only the backing paper of my original creations. Formerly backed in red to go with a whole red theme we had going in our living room in Manchester, I wanted to go in completely the opposite direction. And what with my partners excellent spotting of turquoise (or whatever colour that is) frames, it started me off on a theme.

And I ended up with this:

The black frame with the raindrop motif inside was given by one of my many admin jobs recently as they were leaving the office and no longer wanted it. With the inevitable words... 'your crafty, you can do something with that', thus always making me feel like shouting, 'Challenge Accepted' in their face and running around with glitter and glue. However, I mostly managed to hold myself back and I think the effect is fairly promising.

The frame and the two little ones from Habitat remind me of Manchester (for obvious reasons) and to comply with the new scheme I backed my fabric spaceship and stars picture with gold paper. And our postcards from Paris with Turquoise. I initially tried the patterned paper behind the postcards, but there was so much going on it hurt my eyes, so plain it was.

Handbags for Magpie Market

 To continue my line of similar materials and colours, I began last week to attempt ten handbags in a week. Then I realised I had only the material for five. Also I had a job for five days, so unfortunately I utterly failed in that respect.

But I am unemployed again! So here is what I managed to achieve up to Sunday night. 

The hardest part of this I always find is matching up the materials, I tend to lie them all out and just stare at them for a while feeling a little lost. After about ten minutes I came up with the groupings above. The colours don't stand out quite as well in these photos but you get the general idea.

I then cut out the materials to exactly the same shape as each piece. I find that no matter how accurate I try to be I always find my pieces are each a little different.

And after some sewing, and swapping of threads etc, this is the finished product! I haven't done the straps as of yet, that's a job for today. I will post again when they are finished.

October Crafts Complete!

I have now finished all the brooches necessary for my stall in two weeks. I chose these colours and fabrics with winter in mind. 

I have decided to try and keep these colours and fabrics as a range through my entire line. I am now going to make some handbags for the magpie makers market in similar colours, and with the textures in mind. I need to create some ideas for applique, embroidery or simple decoration for these bags, and perhaps to carry through to a range of cushions.

Here are some pictures of historic embroidery techniques I found in my Great Aunts embroidery book:

I'm trying to narrow down my ideas, and augment them. But so far I like the floral mortifs over others. I have previously used the trees as an embroidery, and it was very effectoive. I will put in some photos soon of my decisions on the embroidery.

This is the eventual decoration of my summer stall, and I think it needs quite a bit of work. Much more levels, plus the space for all of the brooches I have now made. If anyone has any ideas for improvements please don't hesitate to let me know.

Winter Beginnings

 With Winter drawing in and lots of stalls in my new City set up, it's time for new bloggings! I have lots of time on my hands due to my newly unemployed status. So I have begun the process of starting a new line for my stalls.

With the success of my flower broaches and hair bands in the summer Manchester stall, I decided to begin there.

I chose soft cords and felts, mixed with a tiny bit of tartan. I didn't want to use too much tartan. My dad may be from Glasgow but I'm not a true Scot just yet. I made these all in a mix of autumnal/ winter colours to hopefully last through the winter. I found one of the problems with my line in August was everything was a little too summery, as everyone was looking towards the autumn. I hopefully will be prepared now for the full season.

So over the past week I made ten of my most popular flower style, as I had done previously. However, I soon realised that as one of my first problems was too little stock, I decided to upscale.

So I created a production line and have now cut out somewhere around 480 petals. Pretty intense. I'll post up some pictures when they are all made up.

I made this head to display these flowers. I papier-mâchéd a polystyrene head with cream paper with tiny white flowers. It didn't come out so well in these photos, but the cream works well with the warm colours in the flowers.

I'll post some more pictures of the finished product soon, and if any of you are creating a line for your own stall, and have any display ideas you'd like to share. Let me know!