A Big Pink Project/Work-in-Progress Basket

Here's what I've been working on in quieter moments amidst the great wedding outfit crisis that I've been having for the last 6 weeks... (sob).  The yarn is the lovely Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed, which comes in some gorgeous colours, as you can see here.  I don't think I could wear anything made with it (except maybe a big winter scarf) because it would be far too itchy for me, but it is lovely to use for this kind of housewares project, because it has so much body and texture.  

I am dithering about selling the finished article because I like it so much, and I badly need the storage (most of my stash, yarn and fabric, is in plastic carrier bags...).  I am definitely going to sell the pattern though - as soon as I've got it written up, that is.  


The wedding is on Saturday, so just 4 days to go, but I think I have something to wear... wish me luck as I finish it all off. 

Some New Needle Books

Here are some of the needle books I made in preparation for the craft fair the other week. Some pretty green ones: The 1st uses some cute spotty fabric from Amy Butler called Sunspots, and the other is Floating Flowers by Kaffe Fassett, which is one of my all time favourite fabrics. Isn't that green button cute? I picked it up on ebay as part of a set of vintage buttons - I love it! Here are some very BRIGHT needle books: I love that combination of pink cord and blue button with the Free Spirit sewing-themed fabric. The heart fabric is thrifted - it's part of a blouse I bought last summer - partly re-purposed for a sun hat (which was very cute!), and now I've used this last bit for a needle book. It's very vibrant - you'd certainly struggle to lose this needle book amongst all your crafty bits and pieces! These are all up for sale on Etsy now, and will be coming to my in-development Facebook store soon. Facebook fans will get a 5% discount during the first couple of days of my shop opening so sign up as a fan now! I'll be adding some more needle books over the next couple of days too.

Storage..

I've had some great tips about storage - some more realistic than others!! Annalisa suggested one of these beautiful boxes, called Gerstner Chests. If you have £680 to spare then they are available from Manufactum - which is a rather marvellous shop, and not everything is quite *that* expensive.

Caroline and Lisa have both suggested rather less expensive boxes. Lisa keeps her kids' craft stuff in Lock and Lock boxes. I've just had a look at them on the Lakeland website and they do look good. I didn't realise that they had them in so many different sizes - I've now got an idea about getting a couple to store the huge quantities of flour I buy from Bacheldre Mill & one to store our Bokashi too, but that's not really going to help with my craft mess...

Caroline wrote a fantastic post on Really Useful Storage boxes & I can see the attraction. The craft boxes with lots of storage containers look particularly useful. But something in me rebels about having yet MORE plastic boxes cluttering up my house. So I am very interested in the very talented Cloudhopping's suggestion of these lovely Ikea boxes. They aren't half as practical for storing little things, but for yarn, as Cloudhopping says, they would be ideal. Especially has they would fit on our Billy shelves (clever old Ikea!).

NickyNackyNoo (who makes the most lovely cushions and accessories for children) recommends these colourful foldable storage boxes from Homebase. As she points out - the fact that they are zippable & have handles, makes them very practical indeed.

I have to say that the above really does put my collection of shoe boxes & jam jars to shame...

Prototypes and Being More Organised!

Have I mentioned before how much I love my needle book? Err - yes! About 100 times... It's just my favourite thing - practical, pretty, cool and always easy to find in amongst my crafty clutter. Recently I've decided that I would really like to extend the range of needle cases and books that I sell in the shop. I have a sweet little one using some yummy Kaffe Fasset fabric currently available, and they've been good sellers from the start.

So, I've been experimenting with something slightly different and here's one of my prototypes! I am really pleased with it - it's one of those projects where the finished product is actually fairly similar to how I imagined it might turn out. The foundation is thick pink wool felt. The cupcake case is a scrap of fabric recycled from an old Gap shirt, and I've crocheted the icing, using lots of different height stitches to create a swirly effect. I've added a red button for the cherry and some tiny beads for hundreds-and-thousands (sprinkles!). The pages are going to be creamy white felt, but I have to confess I haven't sewn them in yet...


Thinking about the usefulness of my needle book and reading Caroline's recent post on the subject of the Really Useful Box, makes me realise that my crafting experiences would be so much more fun if my various stashes and bits & bobs were better organised. What do you do to keep all your crafting stuff under control? Give me your tips!