Some recent creations and vintage books

It seems I finally got the cooler weather I wanted which has made it a bit easier for working again. I have to say though that it is noticeable the nights drawing in, I'm sure it's dark half an hour earlier than mid July, lets leave the grim thoughts right there!

I ordered myself some of the mini cards from Moo which lead to some little handmade business card holders to house them. All are in the style of string tie envelopes.

We have a bright pink floral felt one

Green Harris Tweed

This one is some handloomed fabric from Skye Batiks

On the subject of fabric I have my ditsy floral butterfly fabric samples back from print and they are now listed in the Spoonflower marketplace. I need to order myself some for making things.

Did a couple of designs in Regency style, chintzy stripes.

Also popped a new colour of camping fabric into the mix as it seems to be selling quite well following the caravan cushion tutorial in Mollie Makes.

Something else I have recently completed was this embellished linen shirt.
This was inspired by a wonderful blouse my friend the textile artist Corinne Young had made. The last time I saw Corinne she was wearing an amazing creation made from upcycled vintage table cloths, it really did look lovely. I'm not very good at dressmaking so wouldn't even attempt a blouse, my quickie version was to take an old shirt and embellish the bits of tablecloth on to. This linen shirt worked well as most of my tablecloths were linen.

I quite like it but I have had the comment it looks a bit country and western, hey ho, brings out my inner Dolly Parton!!

This brings me round to some lovely old vintage childrens books of mine which I picked up last time I was at my parents. A bit fusty and musty now and with a few scribbles on the pages but there are some fond memories when I look at the illustrations.

One last vintage item, my mum dug this out for me, it was my very first craft apron as a child. Some friends brought it back from Wales for me. I might give it a new life and turn it into something.

Time to go and as this picture says.......

July Reveal - Mollie Makes 42

Hot off the press today, Mollie Makes 42 and I can reveal my latest craft tutorial is featured.

It's a vintage caravan, plushie / cushion tutorial! Some of you know my like for the humble vintage caravan which turned into a fabric design, well that was the starting point for creating these cushions.

It has been in the making for many weeks and I've been keeping hush hush as requested by Mollie Makes until publication day, phew that was difficult!

I've spent quite a few hours burning the midnight oil with this one although it was somewhat less painful than the Nutcracker man tutorial which dragged on for months in the cold weather working times.

I'm really delighted with how this has come out and it should be pretty easy to follow and make if you fancy a go. 

After I had made my sample caravans I waited for some fine weather to trundle around Scarborough and Bridlington to take some lifestyle photos of them.

The caravans below were shot at the beach huts in Brid and these particular cushions are for sale in my Folksy shop along with some new colour caravan fabric.

Just a couple of final shots using my favourite charity shop pink chair.

I think I've done caravans to death now!!

Harris Tweed Nutcracker & my festive giveaway

Since my nutcracker dolls were featured in Mollie Makes magazine I have had lots of new Twitter followers and increased traffic to my Folksy shop which has been great.

I think I'm nearly all nutcrackered out but I wanted to challenge myself to make one final doll in one of my favourite types of fabric, Harris Tweed.

Some years ago a bloggy friend who used to live on Harris, gave me a bag of scraps for crafting and using the scraps was my challenge. My colour palette was limited to what scraps I had in a big enough size to use but eventually he started to take shape.

And here he is all finished, let me introduce you to Nutcracker King, Baron Von Stornoway.

I even found some plain black tweed for the boots and hat, but not quite enough for the back of the hat so it's in the herringbone.

A true Scotsman had to have fiery red hair and a sporran!

I'm quite pleased with how he has turned out because the tweed is quite tricky to sew with for the smaller embellishments.

So as we approach the festive season I think it is time to draw a veil over my nutcracker making and I would like to celebrate having my tutorial in print by holding a festive giveaway on the blog.
The gift will be a handmade surprise and all you need to do is leave me a Harris Tweed themed comment, eg. have you ever made anything in tweed or have you bought a tweed garment?

Let me have your comments by midnight Friday 6th Dec and then I can send the gift in good time. You will need to check back at the blog to see if you won.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Ta dah! It's out today, Mollie Makes magazine with a tutorial by me

I have been excitedly waiting for this day since I started my project back in July.
The winter issue of Mollie Makes, out in the shops today, has a tutorial by me and I know some of you have guessed it is my much loved Nutcracker character.

My starting point was an illustration I did of a Nutcracker a couple of years ago and I turned that into these simple cut and sew kits.

This summer I had the idea to bring him to life and turn him into a 3D rag doll so I set about working the proportions out, creating his outfit and all the trimmings and embellishments which went with it.

This was prototype number 1.

Next we have prototype number 2 and you can see he's become a bit more handsome!

It seemed to take ages, actually the longest bit was photographing each stage of the 'make' and then writing it down in a way people might be able to follow it.
You know how it is when you create something yourself and you know all the sneaky ways around things but you can't quite put it into words, a bit like that!

So, eventually I got there and I sent off 3 Nutcracker dolls to Mollie Makes at the beginning of October as it turned out to be a tight deadline once I got the go ahead.

I'm absolutely delighted it has gone into print for others to try. I would like to say that I think they have edited some of the photo stages for the tutorial and therefore if anyone has a go but finds it a bit tricky, do let me know and I can send the full detailed instructions I created. It has quite a lot of embellishments which make it a bit more involved and I guess they had to keep the pages to a minimum.

I took lots of photos with Nutcrackers in festive settings but they didn't use those so I would like to display a few here. 
Most of these creations are for sale at Gallery 49 in Bridlington, one or two may find their way into my Folksy shop.

They do take quite a long time to make but I am still churning out one or two more in time for the festive season, I have even created a Sugar Plum Fairy to go with her Nutcracker! She might appear as a pattern at some point.

Thanks for sticking with all the pictures, this is one of my most exciting things to be featured in my favourite magazine.

Have a good weekend everyone, I'm going to get things ready now for my craft fair. :)