First Ever Artist Trading Card

Over at UK Handmade, Kella of Creative Wishes has set up an ATC Swap group. The 1st swap is now underway and the theme is Trees. Here's what I've come up with. I'm pretty satisfied with it for a first attempt and I hugely enjoyed the process of thinking up what to make. I am looking forward to it as an opportunity to learn lots of new techniques and to experiment within the limits of the form. If you want to get involved then pop over to UK Handmade and sign up to the ATC swap group - swaps are going to be taking place every month.

Christmas Stocking Prototype

I've been working hard on this prototype Christmas stocking today (with a little break when we had an unscheduled power cut!) and am now nearly done. As I've already mentioned I've got a commission from Celia to make stockings for her 2 lovely girls, and before I started cutting fabric and sewing applique I really wanted to have a go at making a trial version. I realised I was being handed the perfect opportunity to make stockings for my 2 lovely boys! I have been meaning to do this for 3 years now, and even have some fabric cut out ready to go, but they've never got finished in the Christmas rush. Poor things are always getting prototypes and rejected experiments (a misshapen owl and a turtle with no eyes are quite popular..) but this time I think they are going to pretty pleased, because this has gone really well. The main body of the stocking is lovely orange (Danny's favourite colour) corduroy which I got from Ditto Fabrics. It's the 1st time I've used this shop and I am very impressed with their selection - especially with the lovely corduroys in lots of beautiful colours - the staff were very friendly too. The fabric trim on the stocking cuff is Laurel Burch Bountiful Blessings Tress in Ivory (from a very helpful ebay retailer called Quilted Mouse Fabrics). All the applique is in 100% wool felt from my favourite Handmade Presents - not cheap, but in my opinion it's fantastic value because it's top quality. I'm pretty pleased with how it's all worked out - the only thing I'd change is the colour of thread I used for the name applique - it's too light I think. It's a bit of a work in progress photo because I haven't sewn the final seam - so you also get to see my workspace, and today's number 1 distraction - Selvedge magazine - which arrived this morning. As usual I'm totally gobsmacked by all the gorgeous work and photos of beautiful things. As someone else said - even the adverts are lovely to look at. I've already been through it twice and will have another browse tonight. It's such a treat to receive that it really was a no-brainer to fork out for a 3 year subscription recently.

First steps in patchwork...

I confess I have made patchwork bits and pieces before - the log cabin needle books for example, but I pretty much made it up as I went along. I've been wanting to do a course to learn how to do it properly for ages, so I was really pleased to find a Beginners Patchwork course at my local college. It started a couple of weeks back now and this is the beginning of my first block. The plan is that we are going to do 9 blocks in all - all of them taking us through the basics of different kids of patchwork. I am hoping that my finished article will look good enough for me to give to someone as a Christmas present. Or maybe I should make it the prize for my 100th post giveaway, which is coming along very soon...! I'm using mostly scraps and fabric from local charity shops, although I have bought a couple of new fat quarters and some background fabric from Abakahn.

I was quite stressed making this up this morning - I was a bit scared that I wouldn't be able to get the corners to match up and that it would all come out too small / too large / too cockeyed, but it worked pretty well (I really concentrated - I am not known for my accuracy!), and everything pretty much matched up, and it measures the right size. The fabric consists of an old pillowcase, a thrifted baby dress from Gap, a bit of vintage Laura Ashley, a thrifted shirt, and 2 bits of new FQs. Can you guess which is which?

The really disappointing thing is that it's possible that our last patchwork class will be tonight, because although there are 8 enthusiastic pupils, the College has a policy that self-funded classes need a class size of 12 to make them viable. We spent a lot of time last week trying to work out how we could keep the class going - so fingers crossed there will be better news tonight. Otherwise I will just try and keep teaching myself - I hope I can motivate myself as well as the class would have done!

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with applique lately. I want to make lots more wallets and needle books to sell, and I think a bit of applique will make a nice change from the ordinary. It's also a great way of jazzing up the plainer upcycled fabrics that I like to use. Here's a couple of examples of what I've been working on. The background fabric for both of them is from an old pair of Boden cords. The bird applique is made using a little bit of Kaffe Fassett fabric (Striped Vase in Lavender), and some yellow felt. The applique stitch is up and down buttonhole stitch, which I think looks good, a bit more showy than standard buttonhole stitch / blanket stitch, and so works better with this rather dramatic fabric. I'm using it for the front of a proper purse / wallet (with a zip and everything!) which will be in my Etsy shop very soon. I just need to take some good photos..

The owl decorates a business card / credit card wallet, which just needs a press stud to finish it off (I am so not a finisher...). I put it together pretty quickly last week - I like it but I'm not sure if the fuzzy fabric isn't a bit too fuzzy, and I'm worried that those bead eyes might make him look a bit too scary. He might well go in the shop at a 'prototype' price!

PennyDog's Garden Swap

PennyDog's Garden Swap has been such a great experience - I feel lucky that I got paired with Chrissy - it's been great to get to know her better (she goes dolphin watching! she lives in Aberdeen! she is considerably cooler than me!) and she has been so generous. Her parcel of goodies arrived here yesterday and as you can see I got some fabulous things - a lovely hand-printed tote bag (that I have decided to use for current crochet projects), a fabulous hand made ring and fridge magnets, a very stylish b&w rose picture, a japanese lantern, some chocolate (that didn't last long) and some incredible fabric. I also got a 10% off voucher for her brilliant shop. See, I told you I did well! There's been some other great swap parcels - you can take a look at the Garden Swap Flickr group. A huge THANK YOU to Chrissy for all the lovely thoughtful goodies you sent - can't wait to make something fabulous with that fabric!

While we're on the subject of the swap I thought I'd blog the bag I made to go in to Chrissy's parcel. It's a small bag (about 20cm x 20cm) made with navy cotton twill with a handsewn, wool felt, flower garden applique. I have to say that I am pretty much more proud of this than anything I have ever made, and it was VERY hard to send it off to Aberdeen. Doing the applique was a real challenge (I always like to set myself a bit of a challenge when I'm doing swaps!) but I think it worked well and I got the slightly retro feel I was going for. I'm also very pleased with the colour combination, because I'm never confident about how colours go together. The handles are recycled from an charity shop bag find, and I used that bag as a template for this one. That's my bag making top tip actually... You can find some ace bags in charity shops - I like to use them to make a pattern and reuse all the bits and bobs (handles, zips, buttons, beads, etc), that come with them. I am really hoping Mary Portas' ideas to revamp charity shops don't catch on - I'm worried I wont be able to find bargains any more...

My swap parcel got to where it was supposed to go...

For some reason I was convinced that the parcel I sent to Fischer & Lisa as part of Life With Nature Girl's One Good Book Swap wouldn't get there. I think it was because the parcel rattled in a most suspicious manner (due to the Smarties sweets I enclosed) & I imagined it would be unwrapped and detained by US customs... But it finally arrived, and I was so excited to read all about it - Fischer looks so pleased I must have looked at Lisa's blog 30 times today. There's nothing like gift giving to brighten your day.

I chose to send We're Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, mainly because it is one of my boys' favourites (and I like it myself!) and because I think the style & illustration (by the marvellous Helen Oxenbury) is quite English - which I thought would be good for an international swap. If you don't know this version of the story you can watch Michael Rosen reading it on You Tube. One of the reasons why I am so fond of it is that it always reminds me of holidays we have had on the beautiful coast of Suffolk which certainly has some areas of 'thick oozy mud'. We never saw any bears there though...

The swap challenge was to send a book and associated items picking up on the theme of the book. So I made a reversible 'Bear Hunting Cloak' for Fischer with an appliqued bear on one side & his name on the other. I also sent a little ami puppy to accompany him on his bear hunts - just like the children in the story have a dog to journey along with them. I had a great time making these - once I found this fab tutorial for a Superhero Cape at Puking Pastilles, I knew exactly what I wanted to make - it was a great challenge & I really enjoyed it. Big thanks to Jill for organising & to Lisa & Fischer for being great swap partners.