February crafty creations

Hello February, still a bit damp and miserable. not got off to the best of starts with the hassle of a tree down here in the winds. However, it's a birthday month for me (lets not mention that any more, too old to get excited!) and as we all know it's the month of love or luuurve!

I was asked to create a love token for the Valentine selling exhibition at the Art & Rose Gallery in Pocklington so I set about thinking of something a little less obvious to the hearts I was going to do.
I had a tah da! moment, I thought nostalgia, romance, Victoriana opulence, hands and hearts and eventually the Love Glove brooch evolved.

This was the first one.

I then embellished a bit more for the next one.

No machine stitching, it's all hand stitching on these as they are quite small and delicate. 
The gloves are a great way to use up little scraps of reclaimed fabric and lace. I have made about 7 so far, I think they actually make quite a nice gift beyond Valentines so I will be making a few more for my friends selling exhibition at Harrogate in March (see poster at end)

I wanted to present these nicely so I created some little textile love letter pouches to keep the love tokens safe. These are 2 which went to Pocklington.

I have added a couple to my Folksy shop and I've also made a 2 piece set with a heart pendant and a glove.

Thank you if you stuck it out to the end, I think I went a bit mad with the pictures but I reckon it's a reflection of how I've enjoyed making them :)

More Valentine brooches & hankie craft

As you might have noticed I've been fiddling around with the look of my blog. I realise now why I don't change it very often because on Monday morning I decided to pop a new header on the blog. What started out as a 10 minute job turned into a 2 hour hassle. I don't know if it's because the internet connection is so slow here or what but I inserted the header and then lost all my gadgets and widgets at the side. The layout was not playing ball, I finally found my list of followers, blog archives etc but could not get them in the right position, I was going round and round in circles wishing I'd never changed things. Fonts would not stay at the right size, colour and so it went on. I was beyond reverting so kept battling away until I got to where I am now and sort of ok with it!

This week I've been making a few more Valentine brooches although it's getting a bit near the day I guess to actually sell any and get them mailed out in time.

These are made from scraps of fabric, ribbons and vintage braid.

I'm also keen to find a use for some of my vintage hankie collection so this is going to be either an envelope style lavender pouch or a hankie pouch!

It's not finished yet, I think maybe some lace would look nice with an embroidered initial on the front and a pretty button & loop fastener.

It's also been a week of competition entries for me, I've submitted a recycling poster, a new love letter themed fabric for the Spoonflower contest tomorrow and I'm trying to do a ukelele poster for Friday. Might show if it looks ok!

Valentine brooches & kits

The cold snap continues but I'm looking ahead to February, the month of love and peace. I am just preparing some little wooden flower and heart brooches for listing on Folksy.

I've decided to produce the brooches as ready made or in kit form. 

To make the ready made ones a bit extra special, as they will carry a higher price tag to a kit, I have made some little Love Letter pouches from cotton to present them in.

Writing instructions for kits always seems to take forever. I think these are fairly simple to make, a bit like join the dots but you've got to make the description fool proof to cover all abilities.

Here's what you get in the kit, now I just need to make some nice packaging for it to go in.