Over the past few months we’ve had some major renovations done on our house and everything is still in storage until such times as the dust settles and the decorating is complete.  In the meantime we’ve had some exciting news that we’re expecting another addition to the fold and I just couldn’t help myself but root out some wool and my old knitting patterns.  Well, what else is a mother-to-be with a crafting urge to do!

Iona’s teddy very kindly modelled the finished article, in the absence of an actual baby to model it.  Even though this is a newborn size I can’t see it fitting the baby, it just seems far too big.  Still I don’t expect the baby will be long in growing into it.

Because our house is in such a building site…might post pictures soon…there is nowhere suitable to lay out the whole jumper for a picture.  Really, you don’t want to see the piles of wood and nails!  So, you’ll have to make do with a folded jumper and the promise that when the baby is around to model it, I’ll share it with you.  Should be January!

The neckline leaves a lot to be desired, knitting not being my strong point, however I’m really very pleased with this.

A quickie again today (I’m exhausted) to share with you the work of Meagan Ileana who I came across via the Feeling Stitchy blog.  She has such amazing patience and artistic ability.  Check out all these tiny stitches…

Meagan says:

I draw from true moments in relationships and also from bodies. Things I return to: plants, babies, nudity/anatomy, queer relationships, friendships, private moments and sweet nothings. The most recently finished piece is the one that inspires me to keep going, It’s like an addiction. Sometimes even the stitches themselves are what excite me about starting a new piece.

Check out her Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Meaganileana.  Her work is incredibly reasonably priced given the time and effort, not to mention the skill, required to create such pieces.

The Topsy Turvy doll is a doll that has a sad face at one side and a happy face at the other.  Traditionally, they had a coloured face at one side and a white face at the other but these have fallen out of favour to be replaced with sad/happy face.  Normally the sad doll was dressed in rags and the happy doll dressed in gowns.  I had one as a child that was Cinderella in rags and Cinderella at the ball.  She was beautiful.  I don’t know if she was made for me or if she had been bought but I loved her all the same.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make one for quite some time now and never quite managed to get the arms right.  Recently though, while looking through books in a charity shop, I came across an old series of books called Stitch By Stitch (which, by the way, reminds me of the song Step By Step by Annie Lennox and now I can’t get that song out of my head).  Within the pages of this book was a pattern and instructions on how to make your very own Topsy Turvy doll.

Happy

Shortly after I also bought a copy of the stitching magazine, Inspirations, which also contained a pattern and instructions for a far more elaborate doll that I might try one day.  This doll is from the pattern in the book.

Surely this was a sign, so I have been making my very own doll this past week.  It’s a lengthy process, not least of all because I don’t have a working sewing machine and have to hand stitch it all, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end.

Sad

I’ve been working from home the past two months, which has saved a couple of hours (and more) on my working day, allowing me some crafting time in the evening.  Tomorrow I go back to work in the office so I doubt this will progress any further until the weekend.

I’ve promised it to Iona when it’s finished.  She wants me to dress it in a kilt and jumper…not at all a girly girl!

I know you also need to hear Annie Lennox so you too can have that song stuck in your head.  Right now I’m alternating between this and Van Morrison’s Moondance, which Alasdair is learning to play on the trumpet.

Some more sock monsters that I’ve made of late…very friendly monsters but not to be underestimated.

Stu - with a new family in Scotland (soon to be Australia!)

Pink Froggle - can be stroppy if not fed sweets on a regular basis

Munkay - suave, sophisticated, full of his own importance - with a new family in Scotland

Froggle - just wants to be loved

Beadle - also getting ready for his new life down under

All hand sewn brand new socks and stuffed with recycled polyester stuffing and a great big dollop of love.

Jolene’s been busy laying about with her feet up, well, in fairness she’s been resting her ankle following an operation to remove the steel work that was put in when she broke it a few years ago.  She hasn’t been entirely idle though, she was commissioned at the Morningside Makers Market to customise a pair of Christmas stockings for a lady who was going to New Zealand to visit her grand-children over the festive period.

It was all a bit last minute, but Jolene relined the stocking uppers to the customers specifications and embroidered ‘Daisy’ and ‘Hamish’ onto the top before despatching them, post haste.

Things were slightly held-up as the customer wished to pay be cheque and we had to wait until we received it before despatching the items, typically we wait for cheques to clear before dispatch, and encourage shoppers to use paypal for payment, particularly if they are in a hurry.

Those readers who know me personally or pay attention to the small details will know that I spend time away from home on a fairly regular basis.  This has seen me occupying almost every room on some floors of the Holiday Inn Express in Bridge of Don over the past year or so.  There’s clearly only so much of this I can take before I start going slightly mad, so on my most recent visit I bought a needlefelting book and the requisite tools for the job, thinking it would be an easy way to while away the evening in front of the TV.

This fellow is not the result of that night’s work, nay the result of that night’s work was an hour spent on a conference call and a few hours of frustration and sore fingers as I tried to figure out how to attach a head to a body with my needle.  This fellow is the result of me doing some proper research into the techniques.  There are many videos on You Tube for those of you who wonder how to use the tools that look so easy yet cause so much pain and frustration.

Once you master the technique it’s really easy and creating the shape is just a matter of folding and stabbing the felt so it sticks together, adding bits to make more defined shapes or to hide the bits where I stabbed too much!

The book I bought that night, Little Felted Animals: Create 16 Irresistible Creatures with Simple Needle-felting Techniques, doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about how to make the shapes but once you’ve done some reading it’s fairly self explanatory.  What this book does allow you to do is match up your shapes with those on the page so you have a shape that is similar to the one you’re aiming for.  The rest really is open to your imagination.

So, next time I set off for the night I’ll certainly be packing my felting needles and felt.  It pleases me that I need such few materials for a productive evening, because the worst bit about those nights spent away from home is the feeling I’ve wasted another evening in another nondescript hotel room…sorry Holiday Inn.

If you fancy a go yourself, you could do worse than to follow the instructions on this video to make an owl.  I did make the owl but because it’s red, it’s not photographing well.  My top tip would be to keep stabbing even if you think nothing is happening…it takes ages.

I sewed a small hoop to the top of mine for the Christmas Tree…I know too much Christmas round here these days but it won’t be long you know.

Regular readers may remember a post I made a few weeks ago, Trial by Clay, in which I featured a rough attempt at a clay bird, I’ve since refined the notion and have been merrily creating a range of slightly smaller free standing birds with a simplified design in red and white, the scheme works well with the copper legs and necks that I’ve been giving them, recycled from our on-going rewiring project.

Available from Etsy and Coriandr

As well as the free-standing birds I’ve also been busy making hanging birds for use as Christmas decor, their not quite finished yet since I need to source some nice ribbon for the hangers and I just haven’t seen any that I think is suitable yet, bit of a WIP in that respect, although I’ll hopefully have them in the shops soon.

I know, another Christmas post, but really it’s not that long until the big red cheery chap comes again!  I’ve made quite a few of these hanging birds but they don’t photograph well.  I think they’re shy!

They’re a simpler take on the fabric finches regular readers will be familiar with, which makes them quicker to make and therefore more likely to hold my interest…did I mention I have a very short attention span?

As with the Matryoshka dolls, these will be adorning our tables at our upcoming craft fairs.  If you fancy making your own birds (not exactly like this one, but very pretty nonetheless) check out the free stuff where you’ll find a couple of variations on the hanging bird.

The idea of printing on fabric has been something I’ve been wanting to try for some time now.  I’ve neither had the time nor the inclination until this weekend, when the urge suddenly took me to get my finger out and make something for a change.

In my head this was going to be a quick craft that would satisfy the need to have some cheap Christmas ornaments for sale at our upcoming craft fairs.  In reality it took me all day to find a suitable image and even longer messing around with different techniques of colouring the image and transferring it to the fabric.  As they say patience is a virtue and in the end I was rewarded with some pretty special hanging dolls.  The most recent ones such as the one second from the left have a watercolour appearance.

Here they are all printed up and waiting to be sewn.  I think I’m in love – is that a bit narcissistic?

Paper fabric is fabric made with layers of paper and other bits and pieces, in this case glitter and threads, covered with a whole layer of tissue paper.  I used an old sewing pattern instead of plain tissue paper.  All of this is glued in sequence on top of a piece of muslin with watered down PVA glue.  The effects are interesting and the resulting ‘fabric’ is very easy to sew.

When I first started to make my piece of paper fabric I worried that it was too haphazard and it would look too messy but as you can see, once sewn into a finch the effect is quite striking.

The legs are made from some of the recycled copper electrical wire from the rewiring of our house and the whole bird has since been varnished with clear lacquer for a very shiny finish.

I’m now in the process of making a blue one to keep this one company.  Colour is added simply with acrylic paint sprayed with water.

Available in the shop