Misi Makers for Monday

Here are some of the items that have caught my eye on Misi lately. There are some very talented people selling there. I love Lydia Meiying's gorgeous card designs - aren't these owls really sweet? I think this would make a great Mother's Day card - well, I'm a mother and I'd love it! The combination of colours in this granny square scarf by Squeaky Elliot are very striking (love the bench too!). And I do like a granny square... Because it's cotton it would be great for spring time. It was hard to decide what to include from Bonbi Forest - I like the t-shirts and the scarves especially. So I decided to keep with the owl/scarf theme and include this fabulous green hand printed scarf: Isn't it lovely? I really love hand printed fabric. I'd love to have a go myself but I don't feel at all confident in my artistic ability - so in the mean time I'll just have to admire other people's work.

Lots of Progress

It really is about time that I reported on my patchwork progress. I now have 8 12" square completed (please excused crumpled appearance - it's been rolled up in my bag over Christmas!). It's been brilliant fun so far - working with the other women in my class has been very inspirational and it's been great to see the colours and patterns that other people have come up with. It is fascinating that the same block can be made to look so different by the use of colour and arrangement. We are about to start our new term and I'm very enthusiastic - just hoping that enough people join up again to keep the class going. It seems a shame that there aren't more people out there who want to learn this amazing craft. This week I've also been working on a needle/crochet hook roll to store some of my crafting clutter. By complete coincidence, a couple of my crafting friends both approached me with a request to make one for them, so I thought I'd do one for myself first to work out a pattern - it's going well - just need to finish sewing up the binding and then I'm all done with that. I also have a commission to make a card wallet and a bag, so I've been buying gorgeous fabric and boring stuff like interfacing from the brillant Gone to Earth (ordered yesterday morning, received today!) and Cotton Patch. What a busy few days it has been - I've got lots of new followers on Facebook and great comments on my blog so it looks as if there's going to be quite a competition for the bag on Monday. That's all hugely exciting and it's certainly helped me to feel very enthusiastic about moving on with lots of new crafting projects. I've signed up for a crochet challenge - A Granny A Day over at Meet Me at Mike's. The aim is to commit to crocheting one granny square a day in 2010 - well there's no way I am going to achieve that, but I might manage 1 every other day. That would certainly be good for my yarn stash and also I'm hoping to end up with a groovy throw that would brighten up our newly decorated front room. Then there's also a very cool White Elephant swap at Juanita Tortilla. This is a great idea because it doesn't actually involve any crafting at all... go check it out and sign up if you have some crafty bits and bobs that you can't think what to do with! And in amongst all of this activity I've also managed to list a few things for sale on MISI and Etsy (phew!) - here they are, for your delectation.

Misi Faves: Purple

I'm struggling to craft today due to a horribly injured thumb! So to cheer myself up I thought I'd do a Misi Faves post with lots of lovely purple... Purple is a colour I'm drawn to it again and again, especially when it comes to my clothes and my crafting. I think it's something to do with the fact that the very first piece of clothing I bought for myself, as a teenager, was a fabulous purple shirt... Oh I loved that shirt!

So when I was thinking of a Misi Faves theme today, I decided to go with my old favourite. Here are some yummy things currently on sale. It's not too late to buy for Christmas (well I hope not, I've still got loads to buy and make...).

First up is this lovely hat and corsage combo, available at MaisieLu:

And then there's this lovely scarf from SqueakyElliot:



And to get away from winter woollies (must be the cold weather the last couple of days), here are some lovely earrings from Gama:



I'm in awe of anyone who can do needle felting. I think this purple flower by Pixie Doodles is very pretty:


Purple rules!

Treats for the Domestic Goddess

It's time for another look round MISI for some fabulous handcrafted goodies. This time I thought I'd go with a kitchen theme (perhaps because I spent yesterday evening writing a post about Christmas Baking on our Christmas Matters blog). I think these are practically irresistible and would make fantastic gifts for the cooks/bakers in your house (me, me, me...).

First up are the gorgeous 50s style trays, chopping boards and mugs produced by Eskil Designs. These are at the top of my Christmas wishlist. You can read more about Eskil Designs and designer Emilia Ljungberg at the Print and Design blog. The lovely colours she uses in this design say frosty morning to me. Wouldn't it be nice to prepare your Christmas lunch on this lovely chopping board?

There are lots of lovely kitchenwares at Charlotte Macey's Textiles. This tea cosy is a favourite of mine. I like her use of natural materials and her embroidery is very stylish. The photography used in her shop is great too - I urge you to pop round and have a look at the aprons and tea towels, some with a fab beach hut design.

I love typography (must come from my days of working a newspaper archive..), and so would find it very hard to actually use this tea towel designed by Taylors Typographical Art Posters. The good news is that the designer has a similar version (with lots of lovely colours) on a poster. When I get my new kitchen...

And finally, something a bit different - I think this platter would make a wonderful cheese board. Bodrighy Wood also has some lovely honey dippers, bowls, goblets and pestle & mortars. And if things get a bit much for you with all that Christmas cooking - there's always the rolling pin...

Winter hats

I've had some Rowan Ribbon Twist hanging around in my stash for absolutely ages, and I've experimented with it several times, but whatever I've tried has never turned out quite right. The other day I had the sudden inspiration (must have been the sudden drop in the temperature here!) to try and crochet a beanie hat with it. This is what I came up with. As I crocheted I realised that it was going to turn out kid-sized and I tried it on one of my little boys for size. He seemed to like it, and I think I am going to have to track down some more Ribbon Twist to make another one. I really enjoyed doing the hat and I had some nice feedback about it, so I thought I would make a few to see how they go in the shop.


My 2nd attempt (purple again!) is in Rowan Plaid - another discontinued yarn, and is adult-sized this time. I am very pleased with this - I think the yarn really suits the project and I am totally in love with the black button at the centre of the flower. The good news is that I've got a commission to make a hat for my friend Gill and I am going to be using the supremely gorgeous Colinette Point 5 in Velvet Damson. I love Colinette!!

I was feeling super-positive about my crafting over the weekend - the hats turned out well, I have had a lovely crop of sales during my first week on MISI, and excitement of excitements, my lovely amigurumi bunny currently has pride of place on the MISI front page. There he is, in the top right hand corner...



Thanks to Kerry for the inspiration and the original commission to make bunnies for her kids.

I'm a MISI maker now...

For a while now I've been wanting to open a shop using a web site based in the UK - most of my customers seem to be UK based, and I was finding it annoying having to work in dollars all the time. It's also frustrating having to change prices to reflect the ups and downs of the pound versus the dollar... I've looked around a bit and decided to go with MISI. I don't know if it's the biggest UK craft market place (not yet!), but I like the fact that it's been set up by a work-at-home mum (like me!) - the forums also seem really friendly, and I like the way the place looks. I think my shop is looking pretty good (and not as full as it was, because I've already made a few sales - hurrah!). I am wondering about listing on other sites too, but have had enough of getting used to a new system for a while...

So I've been looking around MISI to see what other people are up to, and as my contribution to marketing the place I've decided to do a regular MISI Matters post. And this time round I'm going to feature embroidery & needlework. Here are some of my faves:

This pleasingly witty bookmark is by Lorraine of Hippywitch Gifts. She makes some great stuff, including some lovely cross stitch hearts in my favourite Nordic style. I like to buy some new handcrafted Christmas decorations every year, and these are definitely on my list.

I love the button brooches and keyrings in the teasemade store. It's hard to pick out a favourite, but I really like this little keyring. If only that was my home sweet home! There's some lovely knitting themed button brooches that would make great gifts for knitting fiends...

I love this little Russian doll brooch with machine embroidered details. It's by Sam of incy wincy stitches. I wish I could get my machine embroidery so neat and tidy - and like a lot of people, I love a matryoshka doll. Sam makes some smashing covered buttons too.

Finally, I've been bowled over by this beautiful hand embroidery designs from the Hand Embroidery Network. If I had about 6 months to spare, and my hand embroidery skills were a bit better, I would be very tempted to buy this pattern - it would look so lovely on a cushion, or maybe even framed (after all, I would have worked so hard on it!). There are some simpler designs there too and some great Halloween themed patterns at the moment.