Hats, hats, hats...

I've been horribly absent lately, but for a good reason, I promise. I have had an order for lots (well, lots for me!)of sunhats via my Etsy shop. They are off to the Aardvark Tea Room and Craft Gallery in St Leonard's on Sea, here in the UK. It looks like a fabulous place (I wish I lived closer) and I am very excited that they wanted to order from me. It seemed like such a great opportunity that I agreed to come up with half the order before I go camping tomorrow. So I have been working very hard to get 5 hats made (including working out a smaller pattern for a different size hat) in the last week. And here they are! I feel pretty proud of them. They're all made with preloved fabric from a pattern I developed myself. It's a real lesson in not giving up hope - I developed the pattern and did all the work early last year and haven't had any interest until now. I apologise for the rubbish picture by the way... I was rushing to get these into the post this morning and couldn't come up with anywhere tidy or with good light. I had really hoped to get a pic of them all hanging on our washing line - I think it would have looked really cool - but sadly it was chucking it down here this morning!

The other exciting news is that I won Blotted Copy Book's Duelling Crafters competition! It really means a lot that so many people liked what I made with my dad's tie. I've blogged my business card holder before, but I also made a needle book for my sister's birthday. She was so pleased with it that she had to call me from a rehearsal to tell me about it. There's still quite a bit of fabric left (they made ties big back in the olden days!) so I am going to try and come up with something else too. Thanks Vonnie for running such an ace competition - I look forward to the next one. And am now trying to avoid your Bake Swap, which sounds fab, but not good for my diet!

A Fancy Card Wallet

Duelling Crafters' Challenge

The last couple of days, when I haven't been busy in the garden, I've been working hard on my project for Blotted Copy Book's Duelling Crafters' Challenge. I decided to use my dad's old tie to make a wallet to hold my business cards, and the cards I get from other crafters. It will be great to have somewhere to keep the safe and easily findable amongst all the rubbish in my bag! I got it finished four hours before the deadline and managed to upload the photos on to the Duelling Crafters' Flickr Group with a couple of hours to spare.

The wallet has a very simple design with 2 business card-sized pockets inside, made using turquoise cotton fabric, which is also used for the lining. There is a little bit of fusible fleece between the lining and outer fabric, just to give the whole thing a bit of structure.

I was quite pleased with the result and was going to submit the wallet at that stage, entirely unadorned. However, having slept on it, I decided that, much as I love the tweedy wool fabric, it needing prettying up a bit. So I added a tiny crochet flower, complete with some recycled, bright red beads. The final touch is a little bit of red stitching - just because I think red and turquoise go so well together. I still have some of the tie fabric left so I've just cut out another piece so I can make a needle book for my sister's birthday next week. It's going to be really nice to use something every day that brings back such great memories of my dad.

Challenges and Swaps

I've signed up for another couple of things - just can't resist... Actually I always find it helpful to have something to be aiming for - nothing like a deadline to improve my creativity! And they give me a really good reason for trying new ideas and techniques too. This month I'm going to be working on Blotted Copy Book's Duelling Crafters' Challenge. Vonnies rules are as follows:

• Your starting object must not cost you any money. So no charity shopping it up. I am watching.
  
• You can spend no more than GBP£10 or the equivalent (USD$15, CAD£17, AUD$20, €11) on supplies to alter your starting object
  
• A flickr group will be created for this project and all completed projects must be submitted by 9pm on Friday May 29th 2009.
  
• The winner will be selected by vote which will be hosted here. Voting will open at 9.30pm on Friday May 29th 2009 and will close on Friday June 5th 2009.
  
• Any soliciting of votes will mean a penalty against the entry with possible disqualification. Play nicely, please.

When I first read Vonnie's post I was really interested in taking part but couldn't for the life of me think of anything that was within my capabilities! We have some lovely chairs that I would love to repaint and re-upholster but there's no chance that I could manage that between now and the end of May! It would be rather a scary steep learning curve. Then a week or so later I remembered this tie of my dad's that I found when we moved in here (his old home). I kept hold of it because I really love the fabric and because it was my dad's 'going out' tie, so it reminds me of lovely family occasions. And I wondered if I could make myself something with it. My initial idea is to use to make a wallet for my business cards. Think it cold look quite cool with the right lining fabric and a funky vintage button. I'm really looking forward to using the fabric.

The other thing I've signed up for is Kerry of PennyDog Jewellery's Garden Swap. The rules for this are:

• You must make one handmade item in a garden theme, this can be something for the garden, or something with a gardeny theme- insects, flowers, etc.
  
• An item of a crafty nature that your swap partner can use in their own crafting- fabric, buttons, stickers, etc
  
• An edible treat- chocolate, cake, etc

Really looking forward to making a start on this one - I have some ideas, but I want to do a bit more thinking first. My partner is Christina of SpoiltPig and I want to make sure that I send her something that she'll like!! I've been having a look at her excellent resin jewellery in her SpoiltPig Folksy shop and I am a bit scared because she is clearly a trendy young person & I really am not... But hey, it's good to be swapping slightly outside my comfort zone so I'm looking forward to it.