Some making, baking, shopping, coffee & packaging

I had the Aga serviced the other day so that it's as good as can be for my Christmas cooking, and for some warmth downstairs! Before that happened and earlier in the week, whilst it was at a low temperature, I made a couple of mini Christmas cakes. It's a recipe I tried and enjoyed last year, from the Boutique Baking book. Here we have before and after baking.

I have slowed down with crafty things as it's too cold in the house but I'm doing some crochet and I made a few of these little stocking tree decorations, one of which is winging its way to my giveaway winner Helen.

Also managed a couple of days off last week and went to Scarborough to the wonderful Eat Me Cafe for a plate of their legendary creamed mushrooms on toast.

Whilst walking through the woods and gardens in Scarborough I met this little chap, I know he's not native and I'm a huge fan of supporting the reds but he was very cute and came right up to me on the edge of this wall, he actually looked like he was going to jump on my arm for the promise of a bit of food!

I spotted this fairly traditional Nutcracker in a shop in Scarborough.

On a trip to York I spotted this rather unusual Nutcracker.

Also in York I did a bit of festive shopping and it is lovely when some shops get it so right. The atmosphere in the shop, pleasant staff, the interesting items and the lovely packaging, the shop I went in was The Imaginary and it seems to be part of the Yorkshire Soap Co, look at the pretty pink bag.

All my items were beautifully wrapped by a charming young chap with a waistcoat and cravat. Inside the bag I had bought some pretty glass candle holders, they looked very festive and traditional when lit in the shop.

Another little treat for me, a pretty silk scarf with birds on. Did I buy anything for anyone else I hear you ask..... 

I did buy a few bits, I don't have a huge circle of people to buy for which is handy as I don't enjoy shopping much. Plus, this year, I've decided with a couple of friends that we have reached the point and age were we all have enough stuff and maybe we should cut back on the gift buying for cost and practical reasons. Fortunately these friends were quite difficult to buy for so that has taken some pressure off.

I really like to make a handmade gift but I haven't had time recently and I know that puts some pressure on other friends to make me one back and I don't want to do that as we all have enough festive stress, but it is still nice to find pressies for people you understand well and know what they like.

The thing I'm least liking spending money on this Christmas is cards, or rather stamps for the cards, they are so expensive. I do like to send cards because a card and a letter is one way, once a year when I get to catch up with friends who live far and wide. I think I will probably aim for sending more digital greetings in the future if stamps continue to go up, the stamp is becoming as costly as the card!

Something I have gone a bit mad with is coffee, I had a delivery of these bags of beans this week and I think I have another 3 bags to arrive before Christmas, part of these are my subscription coffees and some others are ones to experiment with over the holidays.

That reminds me, time for coffee!...

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. :)

Stock which has gone to Gallery 49

I think that is me done regards providing the galleries with some Christmas stock. I delivered these latest goodies to Gallery 49 in Bridlington last Friday.

There was a selection of brooches which I have probably shown before but these were 3 new abstract Harris Tweed ones.

I made some of the little fabric wraps which you use on your recycled baked bean cans or jam jars to make a pretty pencil pot.
I used my butterfly fabric for these:

I also did some which used my vintage memories fabric, I incorporated some embellished rubber stamped bits of fabric and the inside lining had rubber stamping too.

And the ice cream van fabric got used on one too.

With whatever time and resources I've got left, and if my hands aren't too cold for making stuff I will try and rattle out a few more things for my Folksy shop.

I've just done these Scandi style wraps and listed them as a pack of 3 in the shop.

I haven't finished my nutcracker man textile picture as I'm having trouble deciding what background to stitch him onto. These are just 2 of about 6 combinations! Hopefully I'll get him done before Christmas.