bee handmade

labels

Lena loves the labels on toys and studiously practices her dexterity by playing with them. With this in mind I decided to make her a taggy blanket. It's small and portable so should be a handy item to carry around in my ever expanding baby bag.

I used a small square of wool felt and a piece of Liberty tana lawn then hit my stash of ribbons and cut some coordinating pieces. This was all quickly stiched together, along with a sandwiched piece of batting.

I then did a tiny bit of free motion quilting to anchor the two pieces of fabric together.

She seems intrigued already.

Hmm I should have ironed it before taking some pictures!

wreath

There has been a shameful lack of posting here, largely due to a baby who is currently refusing to nap! One thing I did manage to do was a bit of recycling. A while ago I accidentally felted some lovely red socks and was determined not to waste them.

I started by cutting out lots of circles.

I toyed with the idea of making a garland or a cushion but decided that the existing quotas in the household were already quite high. What we don't have is a festive wreath. I cut out some plain white discs and, one by one, folded the circles into quarters, stringing them onto a reshaped hanger as I went along.

Here is the result. A ruffly wreath.

odds and ends

I decided it would be a good idea to use up some odds and ends of wool as I've accumulated quite a lot of cashmerino making the ripple, hexagon and baby blankets.

 

I found this adorable crochet pattern on Etsy so swiftly purchased it and, just to confess to the fact that first attempts certainly DON'T always work, here is a picture of giraffe one. I think the problem was a combination of too fine a wool with too big a hook. It looks a bit like safari roadkill.

 

Giraffe two was a lot more successful, although still not as pretty as the birds & bees picture.

I never seem to have a huge amount of success with getting things to felt evenly. The result is always a bit patchy. Any tips/advice would be greatly appreciated. The instructions called for a few short wash cycles using dishwashing liquid and no rinse or spin but I wasn't getting anywhere so resorted to just putting it through a 90 degree wash. His name is George and he's quite a proud giraffe.

Odds and ends project number two is another cushion cover, this time for our own nursery. Here is a customary 'cat enjoying crochet' picture. She was determined to scupper my attempts to plan the colour placement of the blocks.

retrospective

Firstly some crafting. I made a drawing folder for a young friend of mine who was three years old last week. I just made the pattern up as I went along and then cut out some felt for the applique lettering and motifs. I realised that the structure was a bit to floppy half way through so inserted a rectangle of perspex into the fabric behind the crayons. He can draw on the go now!

I finally got round to processing 5 lomo films which have been sitting round for ages. Here are a selection of holiday pictures from 2009 and 2010.

Holy Island. The upturned boats were traditionally made into sheds.

A walk in Portugal

 

Portugal pool. Wish I was there now.

A coastal walk in Cornwall. We were out for about 8 hours in total. It was a lovely day.

 

Afternoon tea in St Mawes. One of the best I've had. Light and delicious scones. Chilled water in a glass carafe, cream and jam in pots NOT packets. As you can see P had to supplement his tea with a cool glass of beer!

Brooklyn Bridge

 

New York. This is the view from our hotel window. I was convinced I was going to drop the camera.

Alhambra in Granada.

I only have 5 weeks left at work now which seems quite surreal. This post by Peonies and Polaroids struck a chord as I still have "The Anxiety, The Panic and The Vomits" at 31 weeks. I think that all the stuff about blooming during in pregnancy was a big conspiracy theory to lure me into months and months of tiredness and nausea! Hey ho, on the downward slope now. It had better all be worth it.

 

January blues

January seems to have eradicated any blogging mojo I may have had. I'm tired of being cold, tired of the short days and can't wait for the warmer weather to kick in. It's hard to focus on the joys of the small pleasures in life when you are walking home from work in the dark, shoulders tensed against the cold. However this lovely sunset did lift my spirits the other evening on my walk to the station. Sorry about the softness of the picture but it was just captured on my iphone.

 

I'm still recovering from finishing my blanket so haven't been that productive on the craft front. Time for one from the archives.

I can't remember where I saw the pattern for these pincushions but they are easy to create and make a good little gift. There are lots of pincushion tutorials out there. Just sew two circles of felt/fabric together (right sides facing and remembering to leave a hole for turning), turn, stuff well, sew the hole together then use a long piece of embroidery thread to stitch through the centre, bisecting the circle into equal segments. You can sew on buttons in the process or use any decoration which takes your fancy.

 

Christmas

Time for an update on the bits and pieces of Christmas crafting that I managed to fit in amongst all the present buying and working.

Christmas cards. I made some woven Swedish hearts of out felt and photographed them together on a doily.

I then printed the pictures out on photographic paper and stuck them onto card.

Viola ...

 

Pompom garland. I made loads of pompoms in white and blue wool and strung them together with metallic silver thread.

 

Felt coasters. I used this Martha Stewart tutorial and made some felt coasters. There is a bit of a blue and white theme emerging here.

Walnut shell boats. Using Disdressed's beautiful decorations as inspiration I made some of my own walnut shell boats.

The sails are an image and some text from my copy of the Swedish story The Christmas Tomten.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a merry New Year. My new years resolution was to not make any but I'm looking forward to a year of new beginnings, lots of crafting and FINALLY finishing my crochet hexagon blanket!

craftcycling

That's probably a totally made up word but it seems to fit - a craft version of recycling. What do you do when you ruin a loved piece of clothing? Curse and lament or give it a new lease of life?

A friend accidentally shrank a favourite cardigan and couldn't bring herself to part with it. I volunteered to make 'something' out of it. I settled on a cushion cover and pieced it together along with one of my 'ruined' items. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, despite being a bit scrappy inside because of all the awkward shapes.

The applique was stitched with wool using buttonhole and split stitch.

shop update

Check out the new felt corsages in my shop. Hope you like them.

 

A new dress from All Saints for a weekend wedding. Looking forward to wearing it.

 

beetroot

More beetroot pictures. The colour was amazing.

 

I grated it

 

and turned it into this

 

 

I used this Allegra McEvedy recipe. I have 2 of Allegra's books (Leon and Colour) and would highly recommend them. I haven't encountered a dud recipe yet and am currently a bit obsessed with the Leon Gobi - easy AND delicious. The beetroot and chocolate cake was really good (and provides one of your five a day - ahem). I find baking so relaxing. I think it's because, unlike preparing a meal, you generally aren't cooking to a deadline. And you can't beat that smell. I usually get around the greed temptation by us eating a couple of slices at home and then taking the rest into work. Nobody seems to mind!

I've also been doing a little bit of sewing. I had (well still have, albeit in a tatty state) a felt mouse when I was a child. His name is Midge. I made a Midgette for a friend's baby. Here she is.

 

I love working with this 100% wool felt. It has such a nice feel, sturdy yet soft. Something this robust seems appropriate. Autumn is coming. Brrrr

le weekend

Went to see 'Coco Before Chanel'. It was beautiful to look at. I want to be chic!

Two more corsages - more Autumnal in colour. Until today, which is hot and sunny, it has seemed as if Autumn is lurking round the corner, waiting to pounce.

A rhubarb and custard one

A cranberry one

I'm listening to the Amelia soundtrack as I type. The music always reminds me of the sequence at the beginning of the film - a reminder to appreciate the small things in life. I really try to do that every day, to savour the simple things. A glimpse of one of my favourite colours, a really nice cup of coffee, a new recipe which turns out well, laughing, coming home at the end of the day ... I'm a bit of a crockery hoarder and a staunch advocate of the concept that tea tastes better when drunk out of a nice cup. This is a small selection of my crockery. A ceramic and china installation! Mmm I wonder what my favourite colours might be.

Another instant pick-me-up is looking at our selection of framed lomo pictures. Happy mood board.

 

One final weekend diary item. We introduced cocktail hour. Yesterday was a dry martini, today a bellini.

Au revoir