Hand made cards

Check out this amazing wedding acceptance card that my very talented friend Karen made! It's for a friend's wedding who comes from a farming family and is marrying a farmer, so the John Deere tractor is very apt. It looks just like the real thing as well! I love hand made cards, especially ones that have been personally crafted with you in mind.



The real thing!



In other craft news, I knitted up a gauge square for the Desire jumper dress from 'Dream Catcher' by Louisa Harding. The book cover, there are several things I want to knit for myself from this book, it's lovely!



I'm knitting it for Vicky from her Mum for Christmas because her Mum was struggling with the pattern. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll do a better job, but I do have Imogene on stand-by to help me!



The gauge square came out really weird, the yarn suggests using 5mm needles but the pattern calls for 8mm, so the square is really gapey, with lots of holes. Also, the smallest UK size is a 10, so I'm worried it's going to be too big for Vicky, even if I get the gauge right but I don't really know enough about ease and whatnot to try and reduce the size. I'm taking it along to a study session with Imogene tonight to ask her opinion and I'm knitting another gauge square over the cable and lace pattern to see if that improves it.

The pattern picture:



The nice thing is that you make the jumper dress in pieces, so if it is a little bit big, I can stitch it together slightly further in to make it smaller, the yarn isn't that bulky so I don't think massive fat hems is going to be a problem. Unless some more experienced knitters out there have better advice?

Shop update

Here are the next 3 to make it into the shop from the batch I procured last weekend, I've got another 4 to go but I'm waiting on Andrew being home and the light being right to take photos of them on.

It took several attempts to get decent photos, but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome!

Scottish tartan scarf from the Johnstone clan



Vintage blue and red scarf



Large paisley shirt made in Scotland

Sneak preview

Here's a little sneaky peak at a project I'm working on at the moment, it's a present for a friend so hopefully they'll like it!

Recent thrifting trip plans

On my recent rummage in Mussleburgh, I came across a few things I'm planning on keeping for myself. Sadly my camera died before I could photograph them all, so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.



I bought this shirt initially to go in the shop but it's grown on me since I've got it home. I need more basics in my wardrobe, especially to go with my growing number of thrifted and vintage wool sweaters, so I'm going to try this one on and see if it works on me. It's not my size, but then vintage sizes are different anyway so I might be lucky!



This one I also bought for the shop but I really like the print and the buttons so I'm tempted to keep it and do a bit of an alteration job on it! I'm thinking if I remove the shoulder pads, bring in the side seams and bring up the bottom hem, it could work quite nicely as a summer dress. I used to have one a bit like it that was ever so slightly too small so I had to get rid of it in the end. This could be it's reincarnated self!

Inspiration/shop cross over

I guess this post would be Inspiration part 5! You can check out the other inspiration posts under the inspiration tag on the right hand side of the blog.



I just listed this vintage scarf in the shop and it reminded me of a lovely Anthropologie top I saw on Pinterest.



I'd love to have a go at making something like this, I have so many vintage scarves left from my Gran and it looks like it would be pretty simple. You could make one in every colour to go with everything in your wardrobe! It would be perfect for summer as well, so light and floaty. Ah, if only I didn't have exams and had time to sew...

Little shop update

Just a quick one since it's Sunday night and I'm about to settle down to a bowl of pasta and an X Files marathon with the dorky love of my life.

I went thrifting yesterday and came back triumphant with 2 bags of things for the shop! So, expect lots of shop updates as I get myself organised with photos over the coming week. I'll try and mix it up with craft photos as well though, I have lots to show you guys!



Anyway, if you're interested, you can check out this lovely little addition to the shop over here ♥

Thrifting down south

I didn't have a lot of opportunities for thrifting while I was away on placement, I was busy during the day and spent the weekends hanging out with my folks. On my last day in St Albans though, we went to a beer festival and on the way back from the toilets I spotted a book shelf stuffed full of books for 30p. 30p! It would have been hard to pass that opportunity by even if I hadn't been half cut at the time.



This pile of logs is the ultimate in thrift, I dragged the MASSIVE branch from whence they came home from walking the dog a few months back and it's been sat outside our front door waiting to be chopped up. I came home from placement to find Peter, my friend's husband, had kindly sawn it up for me when they came to feed Tron while Andrew was away on a stag do. And what a beautiful job he did of it. Can't wait to burn them in the autumn now! I'm definitely going to carry on collecting branches from the park, free fuel, why wouldn't you?

Knitted socks for cosy feet

These were my first, and so far only, attempt at making socks, years and years ago. They were also SUPER expensive because it was back when I was first starting to knit and I thought you had to do everything by the book, buy the right wool, follow the pattern to the letter. This meant I ended up spending £18 on these socks, buying the wool the pattern said to buy, plus the pattern and needles. £18 on a pair of socks! Still, I learned a valuable lesson in buying second-hand thrifted wool and learnt to knit socks, so can't complain really.



I wore them literally to death, until the wool wore through on the soles, leaving me with 2 massive holes. Since then they've been sat in my 'clothes to alter' trunk until I dug them out a few weeks back and cut soles from a felted jumper to make them into slipper socks. I hand-stitched them on with red embroidery floss and blanket stitch and I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out, they look quite Scandinavian folk to me.



So, although they started out pretty expensive, they've lasted a good few years and with my new, thrify improvements, hopefully will last a few years more!

Etsy shop update

I found this lovely tweed skirt on a brief thrifting trip this week, in between getting the food shop done. It's everything I like in clothes; tweed, wool, Scottish and in neutral, easily matched colours. I know it's not technically the season for tweed, but living in Britain I feel it's always the season for tweed! It's landed over here in the shop if anyone is interested.



I'm hoping to get to the Borders Scrap Store this weekend, they're having a craft fair and car boot sale and it would be great to get stocked up on some vintage lovelies for the shop, I made 3 sales while I was away and the shelves are looking a little bare! I've also got some more fat quarters to cut up, they've been reasonably popular so far so I want to get some more of them listed, I love selling craft items to craft people, it's nice to think of the lovely things they're going to be making with them.

I'm also in the process of working on a crochet blanket for a secret present, knitting a jumper dress for Vicky and a plodding along with my Coraline cardigan. It's not that I'm not enjoying it, I've just got so many other projects on the go as well!

Inspiration part 4

Just a short one today chaps, I'm still in the process of catching up with myself after being away. Studying began in ernest yesterday as well so I have to be good over the next 2 weeks not to get too distracted on the interwebnets! Never fear though, I have several crafty projects and thrifting trip finds to share with you all, just got to get my camera unpacked and charged.

In the meantime though, here's the 4th inspiration post. I've just joined Pinterest so hopefully that'll help me collect more inspiration photos, today's post is home themed again, just like Inspiration part 2. Incidentally, I brought my stamp collection back with me from my folks so hopefully I'll be having a bash at those lovely stamp 'clouds' at some point soon!

This amazing lamp was spotted over on Her Library Adventures, what a lovely idea. The way I'm going, I might need to make one of these soon to use some of my rapidly expanding teapot collection!



I thought this was a lovely take on the traditional lace or net curtains, much prettier whilst still practical. I'd love to collect vintage and thrifted doilies, lace, table cloths and sheets to make some myself. From Dottie Angel

I'm back!

Hello hello! Apologies for the long break, I meant to write a formal 'I'm going to be away' type post before I went but sadly ran out of time between sitting an exam, celebrating the end of term, packing for 2 weeks away on placement, driving 400 miles and finally ending up in a house with barely any mobile signal, let alone internet.

I was helping to take care of these on placement ♥



Anyway, this is just a short one to say I'm back and normal service will resume shortly, I've just got to get my study on, unpack, get the flat back to normal (Andrew tried, bless, but I'm anal about these things...) and take care of the animals, we've got a Pickle staying with us at the moment, Tron is not best pleased.

Watch this space, crafty action to come!