Tortoise

Mr Wonderfuls and I spent Bank Holiday Monday at Earlswood Lakes, where I bought some gorgeous thick wool felt squares - red and black, which I am going to sew into a rabbit, and green and brown. I saw those two colours and knew that they would be a perfect tortoise.

Meet John:


He's hand sewed, the shell is circles and semi circles stitched into hexagons, and his legs and head were my first attempt at 3D limbs - I am rather proud of them.



I named him after my Grandad.

Biscornu and other happiness

A while ago, I was having a bit of a crafting hiatus, struggling to find something to knit. Inspired by this Craftster post, I set about looking out the instructions I'd found a couple of years ago for biscornu. These quirky pincushions had always appealed, but I'd never quite got round to making them.

In a fit of madness one morning, with minutes before I needed to leave the house, I grabbed a skein of Caron watercolours thread and a piece of aida that had an unfinished piece for a long forgotten Christmas card on the other end, and started stitching the Indian Biscornu pattern. While Mr Wonderfuls and I were in Chester, I finished the Indian one, and a heart one, and started on the provincial pattern on the way back. Last weekend, I began the Happiness one on the way to spend the day with David in Liverpool. They are fabulous fun, simple patterns, but challenging enough to keep me alert, very portable and just what I needed to get me out of the crafting rut.

You might have noticed a lot of beginnings above. Well, I've now finished two of them:


I love them. The shape is gorgeous, and now my mind is full of thoughts of both more biscornu and other embroidery.

A big source of happiness at the moment is this little poppet:



My new nephew Joshua, who arrived yesterday. I can't wait till Friday when I will (hopefully, traffic permitting!) get to meet him.

I am also loving Mr Wonderfuls, for he replaced the router! The other source of consternation at the beginning of last month was that I could not upload any photos. Well, we got a very nice new router, and I uploaded 250 in one day, without having to compromise on image size. Thank you, wonderful man!

Another love for today is Florence + The Machine, check her out, the music is simply superb. I am trying to resist the urge to go and buy tickets for the gig this Sunday, as we'll have spent the weekend visiting family, so I suspect I will be very tired!

Expect more posts soon, a lot has been going on!

Very Crafty Weekend

This weekend I've made rather a lot of things. As well as the finished quilt top for Thomas, I made two skirts.

I ordered a couple of Clothkits in January, and hadn't made time to sew them till this weekend. First, I sewed up the Trellick Tower skirt:



I love it. It's ever so slightly crackers as a skirt, but is really rather fabulous.

Here, thanks to the wonders of Zemanta, is a pic of the actual Trellick tower, in London:

Image via Wikipedia

The second skirt I sewed was their 'Hold Me' skirt, which is an absolutely beautiful design from a papercut by Rob Ryan, an artist whose work I recognise, but never knew, and am now utterly in love with.

The way that the Clothkits work is that they send you a piece of preprinted fabric with all the pattern pieces marked on. You chalk the side lines onto the skirt pieces, cut them out, and use them to cut the lining.


The fabric as it arrives

You then follow the nice clear instructions (as much as I ever follow instructions) and make it up into a skirt.

I'm really pleased with the Hold Me skirt, the colours are gorgeous:





I also carded 5 merino-silk-wensleydale batts in beautiful sea blue-greens, and sewed all the ends into my Treat scarf. All in all a good weekend!

Finished Top

I've been working on Thomas's quilt, and yesterday I pieced all the squares into 6 strips to form the central panel. Today, I've sewed it into this:



The observant among you might notice that it differs slightly from the plan. When I was assembling the strips, I seem not to have managed to put the squares together to make a railfence. I'm calling it Crocodile Whirlpool.

Now to do more crafting before going to Wrapped In Wool's birthday crafty shenanigans, and more sewing is planned for tomorrow, including teaching Mr Wonderfuls how to sew cravats.

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!

For David...

My friend David celebrated his birthday recently, so I made him this little guy:



The pattern is Grumpasaurus from Kat Knits, though he rapidly got renamed 'Davidasaurus'

I love this picture of Davidasaurus roaming across Blanketscape:



Last week, David had to go into hospital overnight, so to keep him company I made him Little Nurse:



I based her on the pattern for the Black Apple Doll, at the size as printed (not enlarged) with a few additions, namely her belt, collar, nurse's hat and shoes.

I made the shoes by cutting two pairs of foot shapes out of red felt (slightly larger than the doll's feet), folding one from each pair in half and cutting the dip out of the top. I blanket stitched them round the edges and joined them to the feet by threading a needle with six strands of embroidery thread, making a tiny stitch on the back of the shoe, through the leg and back out through the shoe again, then drawing the thread through till the tails were of equal length. I knotted this, rethreaded my needle and made one stitch on each side through the foot with the tails, coming out at the front level with where I wanted the ties to start. I tied these off in a bow and trimmed the tails to a nice length.

I'd not had a chance to take photos of either of these two before I gave them to David, but he & Anna visited this weekend, so I took these then. While they were both in the same place, Davidasaurus and the Little Nurse got quite friendly!



I had a great time making both of these, and I'm very proud of how Little Nurse turned out. I'm planning on making a couple of these for the girls for their birthdays, so it's nice to know that the pattern does what I want it to do!

First Toy Society Drop - Pickle

Having discovered The Toy Society last week, at the weekend I made this little chap:



While he was being made, I named him Pickle. He sat on the bookcase for a couple of days, and I knew that if he was going to be dropped somewhere, I had to do it soon, before I got too attached.

This morning, I packed him into a bag, with a note and a tag inviting people to take him. I left for work a bit early, and hung him outside a local school, waiting for a small person to find him on their way in:



Although the pavement was empty and the roads quite quiet at 8:10 when I was hanging him there, I felt quite nervous, but excited. I hope he makes someone's Monday.

If you want to be part of it, just check out The Toy Society blog, and join to get all the info :)

Edit: My drop is now up on the blog here

Organising bobbins

I thought I'd take some time out from today's craft project to write about how I keep my bobbins tidy. I try to use what I have around the house to keep my craft area tidy, so my sewing bobbins are in a ziploc sandwich bag, rather than buying a new storage solution. This meant they were all getting tangled, something that I'm sure would still happen if I kept them in a box or clipped to the top of a spool:

These are the bobbins I took on holiday with me, they were only in the bag for a week but are already coming unwound and getting tangled.

I'd used plumbers tape (aka Teflon tape) for sealing things before, so already had a reel on hand, and it is perfect for keeping bobbins securely wound. Simply wind your thread tail onto the bobbin, cut a length of tape (10cm or so) and wind it round the bobbin, pressing it to itself to seal it. Plumbers tape is not sticky, it only adheres to itself, so doesn't leave thread or bobbins sticky. It is also easy to remove, just stroke the end of the folded down tape up, roll off & set aside until you finish using that bobbin. It does mean the sides of all the bobbins are white, but you can see what colour they are from the top, and I've started writing the colour code on the top of the bobbin with sharpie marker. There - tidier bobbin bag!


It is also useful for winding round cops. I love the 'COTTY' thread from my local quilting shop, but it doesn't come on a notched spool for keeping the thread tidy, so I simply wrap a strip of tape round the middle keeping the thread end tidy. Here's the box with my spools & cops of thread (stored on thin dowels), bag of bobbins & overlocker cones.

Best of all, the reel of plumbers tape is 12m long, so will go very far, and cost 99p. Hope this helps!