Pure wool fabrics for new jewellery

This week I'm making textile jewellery in some beautiful scraps of pure wool, naturally dyed fabrics.
There's a lovely, woolly smell to the fabric but it frays a lot so it's not the easiest thing to work with and especially on a small scale.

I'm working with Harris Tweed which was kindly donated a couple of years ago by a bloggy friend who used to live up there. I just love the colours on the long thing which is going to turn into a wrist cuff.

The brooches are nearly finished.

I'm also working with scraps of woven, tapestry wool fabric which I got in Wales from the Trefriw Woollen Mill. This is really thick to stitch, a bit like carpet!

Have a good weekend! x

A couple of new fabric bird brooches

I've got lots of brooches and things just nearing completion and here are 2 new bird designs which I've just listed in my Folksy shop.

These are lightly stuffed have felt legs, they measure approx 9cm across from the widest part, tail to beak.

Shaheen's soup for tea

If anyone else follows the wonderful Allotment 2 Kitchen blog then you will probably have read about the blog's author, Shaheen, winning a Covent Garden Soup competition.
It was to create a seasonal vegetarian soup and Shaheen won with Butternut Squash & Black Turtle Bean with Jalapeno.
Here it is, I found this in Morrisons today

I was so excited to find it and how brilliant for Shaheen to have her recipe recreated by Covent Garden Soup and in the supermarkets.
It was very delicious with a kick of heat from the jalapeno which was just the thing for a chilly evening.

You can read more here and Shaheen has a link to the recipe if you'd like to try it out at home.

http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/shaheens-september-soup.html

Brooches, iPhone cases & felt biscuits

Had a really productive day on Saturday delivering my goods in York. I dropped off a batch of Nutcracker Cut & Sew kits to the Sunday Nest above Me & Mrs Fisher cafe.

Whilst I was there I picked up one of their lovely little scrap bags and some woven ribbon.

From another shop, the Viking Loom, I got these lovely fat quarters.

Next stop was The Attic to deliver iPhone cases and coffee brooches, and also to have some delish coffees!

Brooches, some of which use coffee sack

A few final iPhone cases, the red Bob the Bunny has sold straight away!

This one is in Harris Tweed, donated from a bloggy friend who used to live up there.

And now for something different as it's been gadget cases for weeks!..,  although not terribly original as handmade biscuity things are popping up everywhere.

There were some felt biscuits in Mollie Makes some months back and I think they were just ornamental so I've done something similar and made brooches.

Very easy, this is a jammy dodger in progress.

Sandwich the bits together and stitch on some detail.

Add the sugar for a finishing touch with some small glass beads.

Ta dah it's done, and now I'm on with iced rings, it's nice to do something frivolous now and again!

October is Orange

It's October already and the blogging has slowed up recently due to workload.
Once October arrives I am often reminded of that Haircut 100 song, October is Orange. It seems to sum things up nicely, the leaves are turning, the pumpkins & toffee apples are appearing in the shops, and there's a desire to see the warming glow of a fire on an evening, although not in this house!

I've been busy making more iPhone / gadget cases, here is the pile of finished ones with a few favourites below. I will take some of these to the Attic in York and see if they want some and then the rest will go in my Folksy shop.

Also got a batch of brooches which are nearing completion, I just have to embellish some small glass beads on these and then some will go to the Art & Rose Gallery in Pocklington.

Here's something cute my sister sent me, a small pair of knitted mittens which is a brooch from Bratislava, she thought it might give me an idea to make something similar. I only wish I could knit something so small & lovely! Maybe it might spark off you knitters out there! I might try some felt ones, much easier!

I bought the Lakeland Pie Maker recently, I thought it would come in handy for those many times when the cooker is not hot enough for pies. Actually it's pretty good for making small pies for pack-up and should be good for festive mince pies.

Even managed to slip in the first and only BBQ of the year last weekend whilst it was still relatively fine. As you can see no expense spared on this disposable jobby!

The jkt spuds and Quorn fillets didn't get enough heat so ended up in the oven, halloumi skewers were fab.

And one final project whilst I'm catching up. I've entered this weeks Spoonflower contest, it's quite a weird spec, to design a 1980's embroidery pattern and produce it in reverse so it can be stitched from the rear. Here's mine.

Phew, that's a long post, it's the end of September all rolled into one!...thank you for sticking to the end if I haven't bored you.

Saturday was a good day

I think the measure of whether my days are good or bad has a lot to do with the weather one way or another. 
Saturday was good and it was beautiful weather, today is bad, it has been raining all day and I'm suffering from cold hands and feet and it's miserable here. If I could sit my computer and desk in front of the aga then I'd benefit from a bit of heat but I'm having a cold reminder today of how bad this draughty bedroom of an office is when no sun is out and it's wet and windy.

Anyway lets relive that nice day on Saturday. 
I went over the Humber Bridge to Barton, now that bridge fee has gone down to £1.50 a journey I had been looking forward to doing this trip on a fine day.

The destination was The Ropewalk, museum, gallery, workshops etc. I didn't realise it was an Open Studios weekend (and also next weekend) but that added to the pleasure of wandering around the gallery and visiting some of the artists in their studios.

I went to see Wendy Chan who is a lady I did a fabric workshop with a couple of years ago, Wendy was demonstrating some simple screen printing which caught my attention. She insisted I had a go even though I was happy watching but anyway I scribbled down a quick bird design and cut out a template. Within minutes I had a print and then we did a second onto a canvas bag, it was brilliant, I was very impressed and pleased with my result.

Visited another lady doing pretty textiley things and she had an interesting business name, Pampootie, she told me where she's from in the west of Ireland it's the name for a slipper, an ancient shoe. Most interesting, she is just developing her website.

http://pampootie.co.uk/

After tea and cake and more artists studios we went for a wander at the nature reserve by the Humber bank in Barton and here are some sunny pictures, it was lovely and warm.

From the nature reserve we drove to Thornton Abbey which would also have been nice for a wander however it was no longer free entry. Not that I want to sound like a cheap-skate because I am pleased funds are being taken for the upkeep of such a great place, but time was of the essence and I've been so many times before that on this occasion I gave it a miss.

The other place I wanted to revisit, and these are all places I used to visit regularly when I lived over there, was Julians Bower which is an ancient turf maze. The maze is in the village of Alkborough which over looks the Humber, the maze is maintained by volunteers. It was smaller than I remember but interesting non the less.

That brings us to the end of our trip over the Humber!