Velvet cards

I've mentioned in the past my love for velvet and so I have a lot of little velvet scraps left over from various projects that I can't bear to throw away.



Well, this little card project made me feel justified in keeping them all! Inspired by this photo that popped up somewhere on my blog roll (apologies to whoever's photo it is, I stupidly didn't save the link and now I can't remember, contact me if it's yours and I'll credit you) I made my own little versions and I'm pretty pleased with them. Next time I think I'd use more colours and make them into triangles like in the inspiration photo but I like the button in the middle as well. So many options!



See, the inspiration folder is already working its magic!

Windowsill Farm returns!

After my rather disastrous attempts at gardening outside last year, this year I've decided to remain focused on gardening on my windowsill. My small, overgrown shared tenement garden is just too damp, dark and shady to really grow anything properly and I don't have the time right now to put in the amount of effort needed to really make a go at it. I'm pretty bad for biting off more than I can chew and so my resolve this year to garden inside is part of an ongoing attempt to try and rein myself in, rather than spreading myself too thin and then becoming stressed and upset when I can't do my best with all my various projects.



In it's defence, Windowsill Farm can be very productive! It's only March and I already have my first harvest, the tiniest amount of dried organic lemon balm, ready to be made into tea. I'm pretty excited since my lemon balm plant was from my Gran's garden and so was free to begin with, plus it's growing amazingly quickly, I'm going to cut it down and dry it again before I go away on Saturday for 2 weeks, I'm sure by the time I come back I'll have another crop ready and waiting!



I think I'm going to need a new rosemary, my 3rd plant in 2 years. Sigh, I just can't seem to keep them going, they grow fine to begin with, then quickly develop brown tips to their leaves and stop putting on new growth. Still, for £1.99 a plant, given that they go for about a year before I have to replace them, I think I get my money's worth in fresh rosemary for lamb joints and baked Camembert...mmm...

I'm hopefully bringing back with me from my Mum's garden an African violet and a bay plant, the bay plant I'm especially excited for since I buy fresh bay leaves reasonably regularly for cooking, it's going to be amazing to grow some for free instead!



Also, check out my amazing crafty stickers my friend Lydia bought for my birthday last year. They're so cute! I'm pretty anal about organisation so it was an awesome present, I quickly set about using them to organise my 'important things' file, my tins and mason jars in the kitchen and my sewing notions. So sad but so satisfying!

A use for felted sweaters

When I made Andrew Little Ugly Blanket's Bigger Brother for Christmas last year, I had a lot of felted sweaters left over. Well, bits of felted jumpers, a whole trunk full in fact.



So, in my continued efforts to be thrifty (2011 being the Year of Thrift after all), I decided to make a case for my portable DVD player from some of these felted bits of wool. It took 2 attempts, the first attempt involving complicated bits of felt and cardboard sewn together (I knew from the start that it wouldn't work, must learn to trust that gut instinct) and the second being a larger version of my camera case.



I'm really pleased with how it's turned out, it's a bit plain so I'm contemplating sewing some matching pink buttons on the front and back but for the moment, it does the job. Which is great because I'm away on placement this time next week for 2 weeks down south to a racehorse vets and so I'm going to need my little DVD player to keep me entertained in the evenings. I'm lodging with a couple who take folks working in Newmarket so I'll be alone in the evenings to study and knit and watch DVDs. I bought myself the first 4 seasons of the American Office to watch since I had vouchers from doing online surveys (another contribution to the 2011 Year of Thrift!), I'm pretty excited! Not looking forward to being away for 2 weeks though, but at least I get to see my folks and Vicky in the meantime ♥

Pocket on the back for the cables and control:



Action shot!

Inspiration part 3

Today's inspiration post is about clothes and hair. Lots of things have been catching my magpie eye in the blogosphere recently but these 3 made me instantly hit 'save'.

Meghan over on Out of Order Designs posted photos of this amazing horse top that I'm afraid must be mine at some point in the not-too-distant-future. I ♥ things with horses on them (except those ugly fleeces and t-shirts with horses with flowing manes, rearing in front of full mooons on hills, I know they're 'fashionable' now but eurgh, come on).



Grosgrain posted up this amazing green dress that would be stunning for so many occasions. I need to come up with a better filing system in the Inspiration folder on my PC because I now can't find the link but check out her blog all the same, it. is. AMAZING.



This lovely up-do was caught over on Ruffled blog and would be perfect for fancy parties or every-day wear (minus the flowers). So cute! Would look great with the dress above...



You can see the rest of the inspiration post over here ♥

Etsy shop update

Remember those tartan kilts from my recent thrifting trip with my Mum? Well, the red one finally made it into the shop, you can see it over here.

Here are a few extra photos of the lovely little details all over this kilt, it was difficult to give it up I can tell you!

Leather buckles round the waist:



Check out that length! It's 1 whole metre long, that's a lot of material!



It even comes with a kilt pin:



I hope it finds a new home soon, before I'm tempted to keep it again...

Sewing on paper

I just came back from MJ's hen do, a girly weekend in a massive country house. It was amazing, the house was like something out of Pride and Prejudice and we had the whole thing to ourselves! It snowed as well, so everything was covered in a light dusting, it was very fairy-tale-esque, I'd love to go back there and just spend a weekend walking and reading by the massive open fire.

Each hen had to contribute a page to MJ's hen party scrapbook, complete with a photo of ourselves and/or MJ. We also had to write a little something, either something poignant or funny or a story or poem. I'm rubbish at stuff like that, especially when put on the spot, so I went for making mine in advance. I printed out this lovely quote from Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (I've always thought I'd have this read at my wedding), stuck it onto card and then sewed around the card in pink thread. The card was some lovely thick stuff my Mum gave me when she worked at The Paper Trail, a working paper mill in Hertfordshire.



I'd definitely do this again, sewing on card was really satisfying!

Here's the quote in case you're interested:

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

It's an amazing book, definitely worth reading ♥

Work in progress Wednesday

How lucky are you dear readers, two posts in one day! I forgot I'd taken these photos last week for Work in Progress Wednesday over on Ravelry and since I didn't get a chance to share them last week, today's the day instead!



Here's my contribution to Work in Progress Wednesday with Tami's Amis and Other Crochet, the start of the first sleeve for my Coraline cardigan. You can see my earlier WIPW post over here.



The body is done up to the yoke now, I just have to do the sleeves before I can start on the exciting patterned part! I altered the sleeves a bit, with the help of Imogene from Stinging Needle, since i-cord sleeves are both a pain in the bum to knit and mean you can't roll your sleeves up properly. Since I don't plan on taking off my cardi everytime I want to get my hands dirty, ribbed cuffs are necessary to allow sleeve rollage.

Here's the finished item, hopefully mine will look something similar! If you click on the Coraline link above, you can see more photos of the cardigan finished if you're thinking of trying it yourself!

Edible beasts in all their forms

I am full of cold at the moment, I've just emerged from spending 2 days in bed shivering and snottering, not a pretty picture. As a result I have plenty of things to blog about but no energy to take photos and organise my thoughts, so here's a mainly picture post on the theme of 'edible beasts in all their forms'



My friend Danica made me this cake for Christmas and it's taken me this long to work out how to get the photos off my phone and onto my computer. Isn't he amazing?! I almost didn't want to eat him, but luckily he was too yummy not to. The spines are caramel filled chocolate buttons! He even has little claws, so cute!



My very talented friend Heather, of Heather's Cakes fame, made these hilarious 'wanger pops' for my friend MJ's hen do. I'm going to try and persuade Heather to do a little interview for me soon because her cakes are amazing and everyone should know about them. Watch this space!

The Life Craft review

Remember back in January I mentioned I'd been for tea at The Life Craft? Well, I've been umming and ahhing over whether to properly review it, now that I've been for a full day course, and have been putting it off because to be honest, I don't have too many nice things to say about it. I don't want to write horrible things about a new craft business, I feel like I should be supporting my local craft shops but equally, I guess you learn by your mistakes. Now, I'm not under any illusion that my little corner of the blogosphere will in any way affect The Life Craft, it's not like I'm writing a review in the Guardian or anything like that, but I still feel a bit guilty.

So, my friends and I signed up for a day course back in November because they were running this amazing deal where we got a £70 day course for £25. They ended up being rather overbooked so we came in February instead, the same weekend of the amazing Ben Folds gig. It started at about 11am and we all had to gather just before 11 to choose our wool for our first class, crochet.

Each class was run for complete beginners, with the idea that by the end you would have the skills to go home and practice yourself and develop your new found craft. The crochet class was pretty good actually, the instructor went at a good pace and had a comedy size crochet hook to explain all the different stitches. In the last half hour she explained how to read a pattern and we set about crocheting a basic granny square.



The only criticism I would have of the crochet class was that the instructor wasn't that great at helping people who were struggling. Fine if she could sort out your problem in a few minuts, not fine if you needed more time and one-on-one tuition. I guess in her defence, she had about 14 of us to teach, but by the end most of us were OK by ourselves so she could have easily gone back to the people who were still obviously struggling.



Next up was sewing and at this point the day started to fall apart a bit. 15 minutes into our hour and a half class, the police showed up to help evict a pervy guy who had taken up residence in the coffee shop out the front. Fair enough, it was a distraction, but our instuctor disappeared at this point for a good 45 minutes, leaving us sitting with our threaded sewing machines and little scraps of muslin and nothing else to do. Even the police issue aside, she clearly didn't have anything extra to show us. Perhaps this is a bit harsh, maybe she had some amazing project to teach us hidden away somewhere and we just never got to see it because of the distractions, but it seemed a lot like she planned to take an hour and a half to show us how to thread our machines and sew practice stitches on muslin. By the time she came back, there was only 15 minutes left before our next class, so she helped one girl who had brought a project to work on, and left the rest of us to chat amongst ourselves. Not very professional.



Last for the day was knitting. In our group there were only a couple of people who couldn't knit at all so our instructor showed us how to cast on and knit and then set about telling us her life history and all the problems she'd been having with the shop, money and family. It was surreal, we were sat around knitting randomly with the wool provided to us, listening to a complete stranger who was supposed to be teaching us, pour out her heart. I felt bad for her, it seems like she's had a rubbish time of it recently, but we were there to learn and there wasn't a whole lot of learning going on. Once again, the people in the group who didn't know how to knit were neglected and eventually the class was over without them getting any help.



For £25 we got 2 balls of wool, a crochet hook, a pair of knitting needles and a yummy lunch of soup, a sandwich and a glass of wine. When you add up all that and minus that from the £25, the cost of the rather rubbish tuition wasn't too bad. On the other hand though, we got a brilliant money off deal, if I'd paid £70 for that day I would have been very unhappy.

In their defence, The Life Craft hasn't been around very long and so hopefully a lot of these problems will be sorted in the future. If it were my place I'd be trying to improve the professionalism of my staff, the quality of the teaching and would provide some basic projects for each class, so you finish with something in your hand to take home. The granny square was a great example, but there wasn't anything similar for the sewing and knitting classes.

We were offered £10 off our next course to apologise for the disruptions with the police but I have yet to receive anything through my email, as promised.

I would definitely go back for a cup of tea if I were in Glasgow, but I would hesitate before doing another course for a good long while.

Inspiration part 2

It's been a long day at uni, I'm glad to be home with a cup of tea and the last piece of 'floor pie' (AKA apple pie that I made last week but dropped on the floor whilst putting it in the oven, leading to frantic scrabbling to quickly put it all back in the pie dish without breaking the 3 second rule).

Since I'm tired, today is going to be an inspiration post. I like how this is shaping up, I've started an inspiration folder on my PC where I save photos I've seen and label them with the site I've seen them, I've already got enough for at least 2 more posts after this.

Since there were a few that fit the theme of homewares, I thought I'd group them together. I love this modge podge'd Ikea stool from Dottie Angel. Such a great idea and such a pretty outcome! I need to work out what the UK version of modge podge is so I can try this myself, I've got so much lovely fabric I could use...



I love these stamp collection pictures from Cabin and Cub. I collected stamps for years (I was in the super cool group at school) and I've often wondered if there's anything crafty I can do with them now, rather than have them sit in a box in my folks house gathering dust. I was planning on saving them as an heirloom for my children but this seems like a lovely way to make use of them. Valerie is planning one in every colour which is a great idea, you could have a collection of them on one wall.





Suzannah of Adventures in Dressmaking posted recently about plate walls, which is something I've been planning on doing for years as soon as I get my own place. The image is via Down and Out Chic.

Another Etsy update

I've been busy thrifting for the shop recently, mainly because I've had several boring chores to do that took me past some of my favourite charity shops. There's always a silver lining to the cloud of having to collect shoes from the cobbler on a rainy afternoon.



I love this little tapestry purse, I'm on a bit of a tapestry kick at the moment with my first attempt at a zippered purse, the swallow tapestry I'm slowly working through and my post on my favourite vintage tapestry clutch and Etsy tapestry finds.





I was very tempted to keep it for myself but I'm determined to try Sew Happy Geek's tutorial for a purse with card pocket, just got to find a spare moment!



Isn't this brown leather wallet so classic? If it were mine I think I'd get my initials embossed on the front. It's got so many pockets as well! Super useful.

Tartan kilts

Check out my amazing thrifted tartan kilts! These were from the charity shopping trip with my Mum a few weeks back and I bought them with the intention of putting them in my Etsy shop. The more they sit in my study though, the more I want to keep them for myself, the material is so lovely.

I've pretty much made up my mind I'm going to keep this one, it's 100% wool and I love the colours. I'm going to take it up though, to make it more wearable. It was awesome while I was taking photos, running to and from the car with it swishing around my legs, I felt like a heroine in a Scottish romantic drama novel from 200 years ago, but sensibly I'll be tripping over it if I don't take it up at least a little way. I might just take it up to ankle length though and wear it long like this Beyond Retro blog post about knits and skirts. Although on the other hand, check out this skirt over on Preta-Porter, £125 for a knee length skirt in almost exactly the same colours as mine! I spent £8.95 on mine, who knew I was so subconsciously stylish!



From Beyond Retro:



I love this one as well, especially since it's got little leather straps round the waistline (just like the blue one), it's such a cute authentic detail. Red doesn't go with a lot of colours in my wardrobe though, I wear more purples, greens and browns so if I kept this one, I wouldn't have a huge amount of top layers to go with it. Plus, I couldn't really afford to buy either of them, so I really should sell one at least! If I sell this one, it'll hopefully make back the cost of each plus a little profit so that's the plan. Just got to take some more photos of the lovely details so watch this space!





Added to Her Library Adventures flea market finds ♥

Etsy shop update

Here are the new tripod photos of the latest fairisle knitted yumminess in the shop. Aren't these jumpers amazing?! Who wouldn't want ducks swimming across their breasts?!





The other handknitted addition is a grey wool cabled headband. I made myself and Dad one of these and I like mine so much I thought I'd make one for the shop as well.





Fingers crossed other people like it as well!

Vintage suits

Remember I mentioned a few days ago about some vintage suits my Mum bought for me while we were out charity shopping together? Well, yesterday I finally got up the courage to learn how to take photos of myself using the tripod. It's been languishing in the cupboard for years because I've basically been too scared to try and use it. We don't have a garden, so any outdoor photos I want to take for the blog or shop have to be done on the Meadows, a large and lovely park just across the road. This isn't a problem in itself, but the Meadows is rather busy and also right beside 2 rather busy roads. This means any time I want to take photos, I have to bear in mind that people will be EVERYWHERE watching. Which isn't a problem in itself, but it does mean that if I've got several things to photograph at once, I have to get changed in the car (since we live up 3 flights of stairs and there's no way I'm trekking up and down them every time I want to change a skirt), whilst school kids and yummy mummies and students stroll casually by. It's not ideal really.

When I'm taking photos with Andrew, it's not so much of a problem because with 2 of you, somehow the embarrassment factor is halved. Doing it by myself though is a bit cringeworthy, especially (as was the case yesterday) when 2 random guys in a car are intently staring at you the whole time, as you run forwards and backwards between the tripod, posing, changing, tripod, posing, changing, tripod...you get the idea.

Anyway, now I've finally got it sorted (2 battery changes and almost locking myself out of the house later) here are those amazing suits! I find it really difficult not to look at photos of myself with a really critical eye. I'm guessing everyone does this, but right now all I can think is 'cankles, cankles' and 'double chin...double chin...'

This one fits me perfectly and I love the length of the skirt. I'm going to have to reline the jacket and since I still need to finish the other jacket relining project, it'll have to wait a while. I don't think I'd wear the skirt and jacket together too often, for fear of looking a little too much like an old lady, but both of them look awesome as separates as well!





This suit is almost exactly the same material as the jacket I'm relining, which is brilliant because I wear the relining jacket so much. The skirt is that weird mid-calf, unflattering length but I'm going to take it up to the same length as the herringbone skirt above. I'm thinking of putting leather elbow patches on the jacket, just to make it a little different from my other jacket, but it's so nice I'm loath to fiddle with it too much. I love the belt as well, so cute!





I also photographed the amazing tartan skirts from the same thrifting trip and took photos of the Etsy jumpers being worn but I'm saving those photos for another post. I think I need to learn to pose better, I feel a bit of an idiot looking at these photos, I'm just stood square on, it's not very flattering. I like how Meghan over on Out of Order or Tasia on Sewaholic look in photos, they always stand nicely so they look elegant, not heffalump-esque which is how I feel looking at these photos. Ah well, first time with the tripod, I'll learn for next time!

Ooo, my To Dry For order arrived yesterday and it is awesome! So chuffed with them, I want to keep them all for myself. I'm thinking of a simple plain frame for them, something like this from Ikea. I prefer white but I think white teatowel and white frame might be white overload. I feel a trip to Ikea coming on, yay!

Inspiration

Some random Ben Folds photos. My camera sadly died for the craft day but hopefully I'll be able to steal some off the photography buff in our group.

BEN FOLDS!! And the O2 Academy in Glasgow



Andrew plus embarrassing Heineken bracelet he got on a stag do a few weeks ago and refuses to take off, even though it makes him look like a teenager.



I'm honestly not drunk, no matter how much this photo suggests it!



I've found myself lacking in inspiration lately, I'm so busy with uni and still pretty fed up with studying in general. My Mum's been in hospital getting her pacemaker repositioned and my Grandad in Newcastle still isn't very well. Plus Andrew's really stressed out with work at the moment so all in all, life's getting a bit on top of me. I'm going to take a step back from blogging for a while, I'll still be blogging but probably only a few times a week, rather than the every day target I've been aiming for.

That being said though, I love having this blog as a place to record my crafty endeavours and share my projects and thoughts with the world. So I'm going to start a new tag called 'inspiration', where I post things, pictures and thoughts that have inspired me. I already sort of do this in my 'Things I love on Etsy' posts and my 2011 project plans. But 'inspiration' posts will be more random I think, just pictures I've seen or things I've read that have made me think, "I want to have a go at that". I also like the idea of the tag being somewhere I can go to for inspiration on days where I need a bit of a creative pick-me-up. I see things on blogs and flickr and google all the time that I want to print off and keep in a scrapbook for a later date, I guess this is just the 21st century way of keeping a scrapbook!

So without further ado, things I've found inspiring recently:

♥ Casey's Elegant Musings has a lovely video on how to do an easy, romantic updo. Since my hair is at the length now where I can finally do things with it, I'd love to have a go at this hairstyle. It would be lovely for a wedding as well, if you were brave enough to do your own wedding hair!



♥ Tales of Ted and Agnes have a brilliant series of photos about re-doing an old bath, I would love a bathroom like this when I have my own place. I love freestanding baths, especially ones with legs or a roll top, I wouldn't have even thought of painting a bath! Love that rose print shower curtain as well, as a person who takes at least 1 bath a week (I shower in between, don't worry!) I would love to have a long, hot, candle lit bubble bath in my own thrifted and re-made bath.



♥ indoor tents. I built one for Andrew for Valentine's day and it was lovely, all snuggled up inside with sheepskins and fluffy pillows and fairy lights and blankets, we felt like we were the only people in the world. When I have a craft room, I want to make a permanent indoor tent where I can curl up with a good book and a cup of tea on rainy Sunday afternoons. Image via Lucky by design.