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| blue floral cotton needle book |
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| vintage floral cotton needle book |
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| Mustard, khaki, orange and blue-grey floral needle book |
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| pink floral embroidered needle book |
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| robot embroidered needle book |
Grey wool wristlet with barkcloth front, lace ruffle detail and vintage white button.
Blue print and striped lining and strap.
Green upholstery fabric wristlet with barkcloth flap and brown fabric covered button.
Green faux bois fabric lining, with white, blue strap with barkcloth detail.
Embroidered felted wool crochet trivets: for your teapot!
Thank you guys for all the nice comments about my last post. You really made my day! I have the best commenters ever.
Karyn from the workroom gave me this lovely pendant for a birthday present at the last craft sale. They're handmade little wooden discs that come in different shapes and have little holes punched in them so you can cross stitch a picture for decoration.
I had an odd little miniature performance anxiety about doing mine and couldn't decide what to do. Mainly as I've never done cross stitch so I wasn't sure exactly how it goes. I learned as I went along, and probably made up a few things.
I started by sketching out my design in pencil right onto the pendant. In case you're wondering, I used pearl cotton for mine, in size 8. Last time I went to Sunday Market I found a big bag of old pearl cottons for $20. It was very exciting.
My initial idea had been a bird, then I thought a bird was too obvious - something I draw and embroider all the time. Then I was inspired by Anabela's prettiest ever flower, and decided to get going. And still I somehow ended up doing a bird.
Here's a detail
Thank you for all the positive comments about our house. It can be pretty stressful selling your house and our case is no exception! In the meantime, as requested, here's a detail of the hoops in the hallway. I posted them a while ago but didn't get a great photo of them as it wasn't a sunny week.
I got this idea from Blueprint originally, I think, then saw Karyn's fabulous version in the workroom.
Today I'm getting ready for the Love & Rummage trunk show at the workroom. I'm going to be selling my usual handmade things plus some extra vintage items. I've been trimming up some business cards as I ran out at the City of Craft show which was so busy.
The show is this Sunday so please visit!
My favourite watch is a Swatch that had a red satin embroidered strap. Unfortunately after tons of wear it became pretty worn looking and then finally the buckle broke. I was inspired by this blog post to make a new strap for it.
First of all I used the old strap to make a paper template and cut out wool felt pieces from it - two for each side. Then I used a piece of twill fabric (with anti-fray) to make pieces shaped like forks with 3 strips that fit through the slots on the watch and stitched them in place. Then the wool straps sandwich the twill piece, top and bottom and get sewn together.
After trying it out I realized it was a teeny bit scratchy on the wrist, so I added a ribbon lining. I used anti-fray to the ends. The last step is a snap closure.The embroidery is done with wool, just a simple flower pattern.
Now I can wear it again!
This year has been so busy, so this Christmas seems to have arrived quite suddenly and we're barely prepared! We've managed a little tree in our front window, with our presents underneath and a little row of fairy lights on the front of the house. My parents are coming to lunch Sunday, so we've rushed around trying to make the house look its best while also working on some of the painting and furniture rearranging that needed doing now that the floors are done. It's a good motivation when we're really quite tired because we'll enjoy the house being tidy ourselves over the holidays.
The kitchen is really quite liveable despite the lack of fitted cabinets and sink since we have two sideboards for storage and a table for counter space. Most of my time lately (after getting illustration work done) has been spent moving furniture and things and patching up the bathroom walls. We removed so many shelves and cabinets from the walls in the bathroom since we've moved in that it left a lot of marks. Then the workers (as would be expected) left a few scratches and chipped paint patches here and there. But now it's finally ready for the ocean blue paint. I painted a few large areas to live with the colour for a bit before going ahead. And I think it will be nice.
But one of my favourite holiday things to do is finally have some time (sort of) to do crafts just for the fun of it. The embroidery hoops are from the shop I mentioned before, The Workroom. My friend and I went to the stitch n' bitch hosted by Karyn, and were inspired by the gorgeous fabric hoops that she has decorating the walls. I bought a few hoops while I was there (so affordable!) and chose my fabrics and made them up tonight. It's a really simple project with quick results. These are now decorating our hallway.
My other project is a hat with a "wheat sheaf" pattern in light grey wool. I'm going to work on that over the holiday and will show you when it's done. When I'm always so busy I feel I always have to be doing something. I can't just watch a movie on tv without feeling guilty for not being productive. So I knit.
Happy holidays to everyone and see you in the new year!
This is my current WIP - a white wool felted purse knitted up with moss stitch. The fabric in the picture is going to be the lining.
The other project I just finished is for the sewing corner - a lattice covered cork board. I see these in magazines all the time and decided to finally make one after finding a cork board at Goodwill for $0.99.
The first stage was to cover it with fabric. The frame was too securely attached to remove, so I had to find a way to attach the fabric and still have it look tidy. I used a light blue cotton cut to the same size as the frame. Then I used a pencil to mark the dimensions of the cork part.
The pencil line marks the hem allowance which you fold over. Then you pin the fabric in place and make sure it's tidy and even all the way around. I used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the cork.
The last part is the lattice. (I wonder why I love lattices so much?) The little white bookshelf has a lattice inset too, so it's kind of a theme in that corner. I made the cork board lattice by marking off even intervals then pinning bias tape in place with silver tacks.
The bias tape is single fold, which works best. (I just found out the difference myself - previously I'd only bought double fold which wouldn't have looked quite right for this project.) Also, the tape is cut on the bias of course, which means it has a little bit of stretch, so after pinning it snugly in place, it will hold your odds and ends without the need of extra pins.
Here it is in the sewing corner - I also added a hook to the wall for my aprons. I think I'm finally done now! Thank you all so much for all the comments on my crafts corner, I'm happy to have inspired so many people, because I think every crafter should have their own little corner to work in.
Once I rediscover a craft I can get a little bit obsessed about it! I can't seem to stop making jewellery. So I've been busy turning my new silver findings into more earrings, necklaces and one bracelet. The things I don't keep or give as presents are now in the shop at www.clairelmilne.etsy.com.
In the meantime I have also done a little felting and embroidering and made two eyeglasses cases, one for me and one for the shop.
Part of putting all these things into the shop is an early effort to spring clean. Our apartment is very small - I love it because it's cosy and really has everything we need but it means you definitely have to keep your belongings under control. So this new site caught my eye - no yarn for a year! I saw it just before boxing day and so I picked up some yarn at Romni's big sale and I'm going to try to leave it at that. Of course the exceptions make it liveable - it's ok to buy yarn to finish a project, or for a specific gift.
My extra exception is thrifted items - if I see a nice bag of yarn at a flea market for $5 I'm not going to pass it up! Unless of course it's acrylic as sadly those grab bags often are. And generally I think it's inspiring to have some sort of stash on hand because I always look through what I have before I buy anything and it can give you good ideas. But I'd like everything to fit into my one cabinet and not have extra bags of yarn squirreled around the apartment!
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