The Dotty One

GIVEAWAY!

2012-01-28T21:16:00.000Z

As promised a little while ago I have finally got round to arranging a little giveaway on my blog! Yay! No particular reason really - I just see so many lovely giveaways on other blogs (I've even won a couple - thanks Laura and Zoe!) and wanted to get involved and say thank you for reading :o)

There are no rules and regulations - all you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post and I will do a random draw in 2 weeks time on Saturday 11th February. You are of course welcome to become a follower or tell your friends but there is no obligation to do so! Depending on how many entries I get I might split the prize and have two winners...

So, a closeup of the prizes:

A little amigurumi owl (pattern here)

A sparkly dichroic glass necklace on a silver chain.

A decorative plush felt cactus - I use mine as a pin cushion.

And last but not least a smiley amigurumi fried egg (more info on this pattern in my previous blog post)

I hope you all enter (please enter! I don't want a giveaway with no entries!). Thank you for all your support and lovely comments over the 6 months or so!

Have a lovely weekend xx

Granny blanket update!

2012-01-24T21:12:00.001Z

I've finally got some progress to report on my granny blanket! Yay! So I thought to celebrate I'd share some pictures with you.

After a lot of procrastination I eventually got round to attaching my 100 granny squares together and now it actually resembles a blanket!

After lots of thought and a few tests I decided to attach them using a slip stitch through the back loops (there is a fab tutorial here). I think it took a bit longer that stitching the squares together would have done but I like the effect so I think it was worth it.

Unfortunately, when I was finished attaching I laid it out on the floor to take a look and I wasn't happy at all! It was all lumpy and wouldn't lay flat. Very disappointing. I think a combination of my tension changing over the period I made the squares (as I was still learning) and crocheting the squares together too tightly combined to give this effect.

Oh dear! I was just hopeful that blocking would help and thankfully it did. Some water and over 100 pins later I had turned the wonky blanket above into this:

Phew! I am much happier with it now. After a few days blocking the blanket was much flatter and squarer (as in the first two pics). And in future I will block more frequently - maybe not every square but definitely smaller sections of squares.

I haven't decided whether to add any more squares to this blanket or not. My original intention was to make quite a large blanket but that was before I realised quite how much yarn making the blanket would take and the subsequent effect on my bank balance! Unfortunately due to my inexperience I chose a bit of an expensive yarn. At the moment I am planning to leave it for a bit and work on some other projects and see how I feel at a later date. I've already got lots of ideas for other things I want to make....!

Amigurumi Fried Egg

2012-01-18T16:50:00.001Z

I've been doing loads of crochet recently and as well as working on my blanket I've had a go at some smaller amigurumi projects. I've also started using ravelry properly (oooh - so addictive!) which has given me access to loads more patterns. Which is probably how I found myself at 1 a.m. on Sunday morning (after a night out!) trying to finish crocheting a fried egg for no reason at all! Here is the result:

The pattern is on ravelry here. Unfortunately it is in Japanese and I don't know about you but my Japanese isn't up to much!! Luckily there is also a charted pattern here and some speedy googling led me to a conversion chart so I could work out what the symbols meant. Once that was done the pattern came together very quickly - the only frustrating bit was adding the safety eyes (does everyone else find them an absolute pain to put on?! they drive me mad!). The pattern didn't call for a face but I do love a spot of anthropomorphism. And who couldn't love an egg with a smiley face :o)

Having sent the photo to a few people telling them they were a good egg (aaaah I love a lame pun!) I decided to make another one, this time with a sad face:

Apparently the egg is actually supposed to be a tawashi which is a traditional Japanese scrubbing brush. I won't be using mine as a scrubbing brush though (I'm not sure I could with the safety eyes in there!). I will be giving one away and keeping one to add to my collection of cute but ultimately pointless things (item #713).

(Sorry - I couldn't resist a pic of the eggs together in a frying pan!)

I'll post some of the other things I have been working on soon. In the meantime if anyone wants to find me on ravelry I am here with the username thedottyone. Although I have been on ravelry for a while I have only just started using it properly and I will be putting up my pictures and completed projects soon. Please free to add me as a friend if you are on there too - I'd love to see what you are up to and don't have many friends at the moment!! :o(

Happy crafting xx

Dress a Girl Around the World

2012-01-11T22:00:00.001Z

One of my intentions for 2012 was to get involved in doing some crafting for charity/craftivism and on Saturday I had the chance to do just that. My local craft studio, the Create Place, ran a session making dresses for a charity organisation called Dress A Girl Around the World. This is a fab project which sends dresses to girls in the developing world who wouldn't usually have a new dress of their own.

The dresses are simple to make using just a pillowcase and some trimmings (with patterns provided on the website) but look very cute and pretty. Our sewing gurus Jennie and Lisa were on hand to help us if we got stuck and provide refreshments as we sweated over our machines! We had lots of fun sewing and chatting and embellishing but most importantly we made a stack of dresses to send of to girls in the developing world.

I made two dresses. One fairly simple in white with blue straps and a little red heart on the front:

And another one in such loud material that I didn't think it needed any embellishment!!

I wish I'd taken more pictures of the dresses everyone else made but I was so wrapped up in my sewing I forgot until it was too late! By the time I took my pictures the light wasn't too great either! Jennie's blog has more pics.

I had a brilliant afternoon, made all the better by knowing that I was doing something worthwhile. I am definitely looking forward to getting involved in more projects like this.

xxx

PS. If you want to get involved in this project then a lady called Louise Horler is the UK coordinator. Her blog is here and the facebook page is here.

Crafty Intentions 2012

2012-01-07T18:30:00.000Z

I'm not really one for making New Year's resolutions but I thought it might focus my mind to think about some of things I would like to achieve this year creatively and for this blog. I have also posted photos of some of my favourite things I have made over 2011 in the hope that it might make you read this selfish post right to the end!!

My creative intentions* for 2012 are:

1. Try at least 4 new crafts - either in classes or self taught.

2. Get involved in craftivism/crafting for charity

3. Teach a crafty skill to someone else.

4. Finish my granny blanket - this will involve attaching together the 100 squares I already have and possibly adding many more!

5. Finish at least one knitting project. I've only just learned to knit and I'm not sure whether it will be my thing or not but I would like to try and make at least one thing to give it a go.

6. Hand make the majority of the cards I send.

7. Turn my Emily Peacock tapestries into cushions - this is something that I have been meaning to do for ages and I just need to get on with it!

8. Have another go at silver clay jewellery - I bought all the kit at the end of my course and its just sat in my spare room ever since. Whoops!

9. Look into getting a stall at a craft fair, probably selling mainly glass goodies, maybe with someone else.

10. Use up some of my fabric stash BEFORE I buy any more. I should probably try to do this for yarn too!

11. Write a tutorial for this blog.

12. Have 2 blog giveaways and participate in some swaps.

13. Aim to blog at least once a week.

14. Start using ravelry and documenting my projects on there.

15. And to finish on a more general intention, I always like to have several projects on the go but I would really like to get better at finishing things before starting new projects!

Phew - looks like I've got a busy year ahead! I've actually already managed to put the wheels in motion for some of these intentions already and it looks like I should probably get started on the others! If anyone is thinking of putting a list together like this then I would definitely recommend it - just typing this all out has got my brain whirring with things I want to get started on. Hmmm....maybe I should take note of number 15 in particular!!

Hope you are all having a lovely (crafty) weekend xx

*I was inspired to use the word intentions rather than resolutions by Heather - I think it sounds much more positive and less pressurising!!

I'm back! And giveaway news.....!

2012-01-06T19:00:00.001Z

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. Mine was pretty hectic with last minute crafting and a holiday over New Year which is why I haven't been spotted much around these parts of late. I had a lovely time but I am also looking forward to getting back into a routine and checking out all your blogs to find out what you've been up to. I'm also excited about getting back to some projects for myself after all those Christmas makes!!

Before Christmas something very exciting happened to me: I won my first giveaway! Hurrah! I was very lucky to win an early Christmas present from Cute Crochet Creations. I got a gorgeous little crochet drawstring bag:

I don't know if you can see from the picture but the yarn has got sequins in - so pretty! I'm definitely going to hunt some of this out - you can never have too much sparkle as far as I'm concerned! In the bag were some festive earrings and a cute little phone charm too:

Thanks so much Laura - I loved my early Christmas present :o) My earrings were much admired on Christmas day and my little crochet bag was very useful for taking my jewellery on holiday!

If you haven't visited Cute Crochet Creations before then I suggest you head over there now! There are lots of cute amigurumi creatures and gorgeous cross stitch to check out. I only wish I could be that prolific in my creations!

Now also seems like an appropriate time to announce that I am planning a giveaway shortly too so please look out for that. I decided to have a giveaway when I reached 60 followers which I have done recently (actually 61 as of today! hello new follower!) so I am currently working on some goodies to send to one of you.

I know lots of people have a giveaway when they reach 50 followers but I chose 60 for two reasons. Firstly, although I do have 60 followers I am aware that some of them don't seem to exist anymore (or, less morbidly, their blogger accounts have been deleted!) so when I reached 50 followers I knew I didn't actually have 50 followers so if felt like cheating somehow. Secondly, and probably more importantly, I didn't notice I had passed 50 followers for a good while after it happened - whoops!! Anyway, I hope you will enter my giveaway when I post about it in the next couple of weeks.

I'm going to start planning my crafting for the year......YAY! I wish you all a lovely and creative 2012 xx

Christmas Decorations (Part 2)

2011-12-18T18:50:00.000Z

I've had my Christmas decorations up for over a week now and I've just realised that I never shared the rest of them with you. Whoops - I think it is all the pre-Christmas manic busyness that made it slip my mind. This year I've added to the felt decorations I made last year with some glass ornaments. (As always, I've struggled to photograph the glass - sorry if the pics are a bit blurry!)

First up the fused glass decorations for the tree. This is the "star" I made for the top:

There are more stars dotted about the tree.

I've tried to keep all the decorations in a roughly white and clear theme. The sparkly ones are made of either iridescent glass or dichroic glass.

This decoration is inspired by one I saw on flickr. Unfortunately I now can't find the original photo. If anyone knows whose it was then please let me know so I can credit the original maker:

I've also made around 10 stained glass stars using the copper foil method.

I haven't done that much copper foiling so these stars were a really good project to practice on - and brilliant for using up all the scraps of glass I have hanging around.

I haven't quite finished decorating the tree (I still need to add those crochet granny stars!) but here is my almost complete tree:

The tree is actually in my bedroom. This is partly because there isn't really enough room in my living room and partly because I have a lovely bay window in my bedroom which is perfect for a tree. When it gets dark I turn the lights off, leave the curtains open and people going past can see it sparkling in the window.

I've also added a bit of decoration in the living room to make things a bit more festive in there, mainly centred on the fireplace:

The mini baubles were a set from Paperchase which I spent ages knotting onto a ribbon this time last year! Again, I've got some fused glass decorations hanging here. Here are some closeups:

Phew - that was quite a photo heavy post! I hope you enjoyed seeing all the decorations I have made for my flat. I am now working frantically on all the Christmas presents I need to finish before next weekend. Eeek! Still, it is much nicer sitting on my sofa sewing than it is doing battle in the shops! Hopefully I should be able to show you the products of my efforts soon.

Hope all your Christmas crafting is going well and you are looking forward to Christmas. Unfortunately I got so much into the festive spirit last night that I have now pretty much lost my voice!! Whoops!

Have a good week xx

Granny Christmas Stars

2011-12-12T17:40:00.000Z

Over the last few days I've become slightly addicted to making these crochet granny stars. Since I discovered the pattern on Jelly Wares blog (via this post on Paisley Jade) I've been crocheting them every spare moment!

They are really quick and satisfying to make and I am planning to hang them on the tree once I have blocked them with some PVA glue. I might even add some glitter if I'm feeling particularly festive!!

I made the smaller stars by missing out the last round of the pattern and in the second round replacing the half double crochet with a single (this will make sense if you look at the pattern).

My original plan was to make crochet snowflakes for the tree. I even bought these books for that purpose. Unfortunately it turns out I don't have the patience for the snowflakes - they take FOREVER! I don't mind all the fiddly bits on the first or even second branch of the snowflake but by the third and fourth I get grumpy!! I've started about five snowflakes and haven't managed to finish one yet! If you want to see some beautiful crochet snowflakes from the book then check out these posts from someone who has a lot more patience than me!

Maybe I'll have enough patience to attempt snowflakes next year but for the moment I'm pretty happy with my cute little granny stars!

Christmas Decorations (Part 1)

2011-12-06T21:05:00.000Z

I've been digging out my Christmas decorations from last year and realised I never did a post about them. So, before I show you the ones I have made this year, I thought I'd show you last year's ones. 2010 was the first year I had a Christmas tree in my house. I was very excited and had grand plans to decorate it with only homemade decorations. Unfortunately my eight foot tree was a bit of a challenge but I did manage to make some felt hearts:

Felt stars:

And felt Christmas trees:

I can't remember where I got the idea of this type of decoration....I think it might have been from the Hobbycraft website! (Ooooh yes - I've just checked, the inspiration for the idea was here.) I took the idea to the extreme and made loads of little hand sewn ornaments.

I spent some lovely afternoons last November sitting on the sofa making these when I really should have been being more productive. I remember having great fun choosing different buttons especially the tiny little ones.

I even managed to get some little mitten buttons which you can just about see in this picture:

In the end I didn't have enough decorations so I supplemented these with plain white baubles from John Lewis. It was all very tasteful - and I always swore I was going to have a tacky brightly coloured tree when I got my own!!

I haven't put the tree up this year yet but will post some pictures when I do. I'm not feeling that festive yet and I feel so much less organised this time around. The tree was definitely up by this time last year because I had some people round for a Christmas do on the first weekend of December! Last year I was so efficient I even screen printed my own cards and wrapping paper!! I can't find any pictures of the cards but here is an example of the wrapping paper:

I'm not doing anything that ambitious this year! Although I am making lots of presents so I'd better get to work!! Will be back in a few days to show you the decorations I've made this year and hopefully a fully decorated tree (fingers crossed).

Hope you are all getting into the festive spirit a little more than me! xxx

Fused Glass Overload!

2011-11-28T18:10:00.001Z

One of my Mum's friends showed an interest in buying some of my fused glass for Christmas presents which means I had to finally get off my arse and do something about photographing some of my pieces. Having done that I thought I would share them with you here!

Fused glass is one of my favourite things to make. Its not a very practical hobby - you need a pretty big and expensive kiln for starters (I do a class) - but it is such a fun thing to do.

I have been doing a fused glass class for about a year and a half now and I love it. Playing around with light and colours is soooo much fun.

It does mean however that I now have loads of pieces of fused glass hanging around my (fairly small) flat!

This is only a very small proportion of what I have made!!

There are also lots of flat pieces which I made when I was starting out to practice. They are very pretty but not very useful so I'm not sure what to do with them!

One thing I have made quite a lot of is jewellery. Its really good for giving as presents and, luckily, it doesn't take up too much space!!

I started stockpiling fused glass pieces, in particular lots of jewellery, a while ago with the intention of opening a folksy shop. Now I'm not so sure - I already have a folksy shop selling some of my sewn pieces and I'm not sure its not more bother than its worth - any thoughts? I think I might write a separate post about this soon......!

I was thinking I might look into doing a craft fair instead........

At the moment it is just nice to have all these pretty, sparkly things around my house! Not to mention a necklace to go with every outfit!

Unfortunately I won't be doing the class again after Christmas - its an expensive class and I think I need some time off to get my inspiration back to make the most of the classes. Plus I need to find someway of getting rid of all the glass pieces I have already made!

On the off chance that anyone reading this is interested in buying any of these pieces (or even fancies doing a swap?) then please feel free to get in touch. But mainly I just hope you have enjoyed looking at some of these sparkly things I have hanging round my house!

Have a lovely week xxx

PS. Sorry for the sporadic posting recently - have been having a very busy time! But I have also been working on lots of presents and decorations for Christmas so should have lots of exciting things to share with you soon!

100 grannies!

2011-11-10T17:31:00.003Z

HURRAH! 100 granny squares with all the ends sewn in. Now for the next challenge - making them into something resembling a blanket! I'm very excited :o)

Crochet Cowl Workshop

2011-11-07T17:22:00.006Z

There's not been nearly enough time for crafting in the DottyHouse recently - I am taking a psychology course and my first essay is due on Thursday (eeek!) so a lot of my spare time has been concentrated on that. I love the course but I haven't written an essay for years so its taken me a while to get my head round the whole thing! However I did manage to fit in a bit of crochet on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago.

My local craft studio, the Create Place was running an afternoon course to learn how to make a crochet cowl so I thought I'd pop along. Lisa (our teacher), the other student and I had a lovely afternoon chatting away and learning how to make Lisa's crochet cowl design (hopefully coming to a bookshop near you fairly soon!). I'm not sure there's a better way to spend an afternoon! We were using chunky wool and so the design came together pretty fast - a few hours in the class and a couple more at home and I was left with this beast:

Its HUGE and really snuggly.I really like the way it can be worn in so many ways - long like a scarf, across the shoulders, one end tucked inside the other or doubled round to keep my neck super warm. I'm a bit disappointed it hasn't been cold enough to wear it since I finished making it!!

I really like working with the chunky yarn and larger hook size (it was a size 10). It meant that the cowl came together really fast so there was a real sense of achievement plus it didn't hurt my hand and turn it into a claw like some of the smaller hooks can do!

I'm not sure if you can see from the picture but the yarn is an interesting mix of colours - from a distance it looks grey but close up there are hints of pink, turquoise and green. You might be able to see it on this picture better even though its a little blurry:

I wasn't sure about the yarn to start with but it has really grown on me. It is Wendy Serenity Super Chunky which is 10% wool, 20% alpaca and 70% acrylic. I think the colour is called thistle. I've bought another ball to make the matching wrist warmers. Which I am looking forward to starting on as soon as I finish that bloomin' essay!!

Hope you have a lovely week xx

Crochet Toadstool

2011-10-30T14:22:00.000Z

I've been getting overwhelmed by the size of my crochet blanket project so I decided to work on a couple of smaller crochet projects that I could finish quickly - sometimes you need to bask in the satisfied glow of a finished piece! First up, a crochet toadstool! I found this pattern on the lovely Annaboo's house blog and as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make it!

This is my first attempt at amigurumi and it wasn't as tricky as I expected! Apart from a short break because I ran out of red yarn it all went pretty smoothly. I think I lost count of my stitches a couple of times but the pattern was pretty forgiving and it all seemed to work out OK in the end!

As you can see here I used crocheted circles the spots for the toadstool top. The pattern uses beads and crochet to decorate the stem of the toadstool which looks gorgeous however I decided to put a classic amigurimi face on mine instead as I have been waiting to use the eyes I bought for ages! The smile is a bit wonky but I think my toadstool looks pretty cute! I am really pleased with him and am enjoying having him smiling down on me from the mantelpiece!

I think I must have a bit of a thing about mushrooms and toadstools. As soon as I saw the crochet toadstool pattern I knew I wanted to make it and looking round my house I have been drawn to mushrooms in the past. There were the felt mushrooms I posted about way back in 2009:

These were one of the first things I made when I started crafting again.

And then, earlier this year I decided to mosaic some mushrooms for my garden (I say garden - its more of a step!)

These were some cheap ceramic garden ornaments which I thought would be greatly improved by covering them in mirror and turning them into disco mushrooms! They haven't actually ever made it out onto the step (apart from for the photo shoot!) and are still languishing in my fireplace.

So, I think we can conclude from this that I have a slight mushroom obsession! There must be more mushroom crafts out there..... Oooooh - a quick google search suggests that yes, indeed there are....I shall have to get to work!

Happy Sunday xxxx

Woohoo! Tapestry finally finished!!

2011-10-16T13:05:00.001+01:00

This week something very exciting happened - I finally finished my Emily Peacock / Rob Ryan tapestry! I don't know how long I have spent on this (it must be well over 100 hours) but it was very exciting to see it all coming together at the end. Ta-dah:

I think I started this in about February and have gradually been working away on it between other projects. I must have sped up lately though as I seem to have completed about half of it in the couple of months (comparing it to how far I'd got when I wrote my WIP post).

I am really pleased with how this turned out. Although I have to admit that these don't take that much skill other than following the pattern! The finished result is all really down to the fantastic design.

This is the fourth tapestry I have completed now. I've done two other Emily Peacock designs:

And one design by granny knits:

The camper van is the only one I have made into a cushion though. I am hoping that finishing the round design will spur me on to make the others into cushions! The Hug and Kiss designs have been finished for well over a year so I have no excuse really!

I am a bit worried about turning the latest one into a cushion as I'm not sure my sewing skills are up to it!! The one in the Rob Ryan shop is made into a round cushion with piping which I would really like to try and do but I've never done piping before. Plus, I know from the camper van one that the tapestry is pretty hard to manipulate through the sewing machine. I have no idea what I am going to do with all these cushions!!

I am already really missing having a tapestry on the go. I really like to have a project that I can pick up and work on which keeps me occupied without having to do much thinking! Its brilliant for the days when I am not feeling well or am sleepy but still want something to do in front of the TV.

I have already started researching what I want to do next. I'm thinking maybe this to be framed above my bed:

(Picture taken from Emily Peacock website)

Or maybe a handbag kit from Felicity Hall or a kit from Jan Constantine. Ooooh so many options...... The big question is whether I can wait til Christmas to get my hands on one!!

I suppose the next step would be to design my own....!

Hope you are all having a lovely craft weekend xxxx

Finished presents!

2011-10-12T17:50:00.001+01:00

After lots of work I finally managed to finish the cross stitch I was working on for my grandmother in the nick of time. Phew! Here is the finished piece:

My original plan was to make a picture with nine butterflies but I quickly realised that it was going to be impossible in the time I had given myself so I had to settle for six butterflies instead. I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't plan better so I had more time but other than that I am actually really pleased with how this picture turned out.

My grandmother seemed super pleased with the pressie and was obviously really touched that I had made the effort to make something so that is the most important thing!

It was also my aunt's birthday celebration but luckily I had been a bit more organised for her present and started working on it a few weeks ago in my fused glass class.

I decided to make a dish made up with squares of some of my favourite glass colours - mainly blues and pinks (as usual!!). This was slumped over a mould to give a slightly curved dish shape.

I really like making these dishes and I always make things using lots of squares and in these colours - it seems to be becoming my signature style!! I love the way the glass shines like boiled sweets!

I'm still finding it really hard to take decent pictures of my glass pieces - hopefully you can kind of see the shape of the dish in this one.

This dish is roughly 20cm square. I also decided to make a smaller one to match too which is about 10cm square. Here they both are together:

I think my aunt was pretty pleased with these too - but it was more difficult to tell from her reaction! I hope so!

I really like making homemade presents but I find it so much more stressful giving them than bought ones! Does anyone else find this? I think the reaction feels so much more important when you have put so much time and effort into making something.

I definitely need to start planning my Christmas presents now. Working on that cross stitch last week has made me realise that I will need to be a lot more organised if I am going to give homemade presents - I don't want to be frantically finishing all my Christmas presents with one week to spare!

Better get to work.....!

xxx

Stitching against the clock!

2011-10-08T21:24:00.002+01:00

Firstly, thanks for your comments on my last post - its given me a lot to think about before I start attaching my granny squares together. I've had to put that to one side this week as I have been working on a present for my grandmother's birthday. It was her birthday on Thursday and I am seeing her tomorrow (Sunday). I've known I wanted to make her a present for ages and I've known I am seeing her on Sunday for ages. So when did I start thinking about what to make? Monday of course! There's nothing like forward planning!

Since Monday I've been frantically stitching in any spare moment to try and get the present ready in time. Its been tricky as I've had a pretty busy week. And I still haven't finished! In fact I should really be stitching now but I need a break! I decided to make a cross stitch picture using some butterfly designs I found in Crossstitcher magazine.

Here's the results so far of my frantic stitchery! And the process my brain goes through when I start making something.

Day 1: Monday

"Right, this is going to be great. I think I'll do a sampler with 9 butterflies"

"Aaaah, I'm enjoying this. The butterflies do seem to be taking longer than I expected though"

Day 2 - Tuesday

"Hmmm....these actually take quite a long time. Its probably not great to stay up til 2 am sewing every night"

Day 3 - Wednesday

"I'm so tired. I shouldn't have stayed up so late stitching last night! I'll just fit in one more butterfly before I go out tonight"

Day 4: Thursday

"I'm not sure I really like this. Maybe I should put in the black back stitch to see if that makes a difference and check they really look like butterflies"

"Yep, starting to look more like butterflies now. The back stitch part takes ages though. Maybe I haven't left enough time....."

Day 5: Friday

"Aaaaarrgggghhh. It's Friday. I'm never gonna get this finished!"

And that's as far as I got by the end of yesterday!! I'm still stitching away and hopefully I'll have it finished by tomorrow! I think I like it but I'm never sure til I've finished something. And its going to have to be 6 butterflies rather than 9 which is disappointing. Aarrgggh - why didn't I start planning earlier?!! I never learn....

Right back to work! I'm trying to bake a birthday cake and wrap up my aunt's pressie at the same time! Hope you are having a lovely (and not too frantic) weekend xx

Granny Blanket Progress

2011-10-02T13:30:00.000+01:00

I was finally reunited with my granny squares on Friday! WOOHOO! (Is it sad I was so excited by this? Probably! I don't care!) I had to leave them in France with my parents three weeks ago when I had to severely pare down my luggage to a small rucksack which was manageable with crutches. I'd been looking forward to getting them all back with their buddies at home and seeing what they all looked like together. And here they are:

I couldn't remember how many I had but I thought it was either 80 or 100 altogether so I was a bit disappointed when I gathered them together and found out it was only 60! Still, they are pretty big squares so I thought I must have the makings of a blanket by now. But actually when I lay them all out it still looks quite small!

The squares are roughly 10cm square so arranged like this they give a blanket of 60cm by 100cm. I think I'd like it to be at least double this size if not triple so I've got a lot more work to do!! I wish I'd chosen a cheaper yarn - this is going to be the most expensive blanket ever!

I've got another 40 squares on the go at the moment but have decided to join these ones together first to save having to do it all at the end and get some sense of how it will look. I've not done this before so I have done some samples of different ways of joining the squares to work out which I like best. Any opinions would be much appreciated!!

Method 1: Whipstitch together through both loops

Method 2: Whipstitch through the front loop only

Method 3: Weave through the back loops

Method 4: Single Crochet (or UK double)

Method 5: Slip stitch

Phew - that's a lot of photos! Sorry about that. I thought it might be useful to put them all here for future reference!

What do you think? Any thoughts? I think I am erring towards methods 3 or 5 at the moment. I like the fact that they are almost invisible so don't take away from the squares themselves. I am definitely not going to go for single crochet - I don't think I want a ridge between all my squares.

I'm looking forward to getting on with this soon....although maybe not today! Its hotter in London today than is California so sitting with wool on my lap might be a bit much!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

xxx

Patchwork Scottie Dog

2011-09-20T20:55:00.000+01:00

Hello there! More pink patchwork today I'm afraid....!

I fell in love with this pattern for a patchwork scottie when I saw it on Denyse Schmidt's website.
The pattern is based on an old traditional pattern and it says on the website: "We're not sure where the pattern originated, but it probably appeared in a very popular women's magazine (due to the proliferation of Scotties out there), possibly around the 1940’s."

I'm actually fairly sure my Grandma helped me make one of these when I was little so seeing it was a bit of a blast from the past for me. I couldn't wait for an opportunity to try it again. I decided to make one (using my extensive stash of pink materials) for my friend's daughter's 4th birthday. Here's what I came up with:

And the other side:

Cute eh? I'm really pleased with how he turned out and don't really want to give him away! He's been sitting on the sofa for a while now and I've got used to him being there - I'm going to miss him! I'll just have to make another one for me!

If you want to check out more patchwork scotties there's even a flickr group devoted to them here.

Dotty xx

PS. This scottie and I are getting up very early (4am eeek!) tomorrow and travelling to Germany to go and visit my friend. I won't be around for a little while but look forward to catching up with all your blogs when I get back!

PPS. I know it seems like I go on holiday loads but I don't really!! Just happened to have two short trips in September!

Another go at quilting

2011-09-19T16:25:00.000+01:00

I was getting a bit fed up with sitting round the house after my accident on holiday and I didn't have any plans for the weekend so when I saw that my local craft studio was running a beginners quilting weekend course I jumped at the chance. I've made a quilt once before and although it turned out OK I made lots of little mistakes along the way and I thought it would be useful to learn properly. Plus I am slightly addicted to buying fabric and I need to start using it!

After discussing possible ideas I decided to make a simple quilt with square patchwork to make the most of all the fabric I had. I took a few pictures along the way but, as always when I get involved in something, not as many as planned. (Apologies for the photo quality - some are on my phone and it was a miserable day on Saturday).

I cut 96 six inch squares using a rotary cutter and ruler and roughly arranged them to sew together. I seem to have been drawn to pink fabric (again!) so this is going to be quite a pink quilt but I tried to balance it out a bit with some turquoise and blue patches.

After much pinning and sewing and unpicking and resewing and swearing at the sewing machine I came up with this for my quilt top:

I didn't take any pictures of the next stage which involves making the quilt sandwich with wadding and backing and then loosely tacking all the layers together. Once that was all done it was finally time to do some quilting! YAY! Unfortunately making the quilt top had taken longer than expected and by this stage it was 3pm on Sunday and I was flagging! I just had time to start quilting but would have to take it home to finish off!

My initial plan was to free motion quilt in a swirly pattern. The teacher got me started on this and I had a go. I don't know if it was because I was very tired or it just isn't my thing but I found the free motion quilting SOOOO stressful! I just couldn't get the balance between the stitch speed and the speed to move the quilt around at so I ended up with wildly differing stitch lengths! After much huffing and puffing I'm ashamed to say I decided to admit defeat and give up. I really want to learn how to quilt beautiful swirly patterns but I don't think this is the project to do it on - I think I will have to start with something smaller and less challenging initially.

By that time it was nearing the end of the class so I just had a go at quilting a couple of straight lines on my quilt and brought it home to finish off.

Unfortunately that means I now have another thing to add to my WIP list! Since I got home I've been thinking about this more and I think I might unpick the straight machine quilting I did and hand quilt this one. I really like the effect of hand quilting and it is an opportunity to try something I've not done before. Plus I like the idea of sitting with this on my lap and feeling cosy whilst I quilt on a cold Autumn evening. It also means I won't have to fork out for a walking foot for my machine! It would take a long time though.....I'll keep you updated!

Dotty xx

Glass Lightcatcher - Autumn Sunset

2011-09-16T14:57:00.007+01:00

Autumn always feels like a time of new beginnings to me - probably stemming from my school days. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things - going to my evening classes, cosy evenings in with some craft, getting back into a routine. I'm particularly looking forward to going back to my stained glass classes, especially as I have FINALLY put the finishing touches at the piece I finished last term. It wasn't planned that way but the deep colours feel very Autumnal to me:

This is the first piece I have made incorporating fused glass into a leaded piece. It was a really good learning experience and I am definitely going to do this again. I'm having trouble getting a decent picture which really shows the rich colours (glass is SO difficult to photograph!) so here is a picture in front of a light box:

Each element of the glass was fused before being leaded up.

The pieces making up the sunset are coloured glass (purple, pink, amber) fused on top of iridescent glass - this gives them a lovely sparkly effect that can't really be seen on the pictures. In between the two layers I have used purple and amber frit (finely ground glass) to try and give the impression of the colours blending together. I think this is the part of the design that worked least well and I would probably change it I did it again!

The green glass was fused in different ways to try and give the impression of fields and give the piece some different textures. When fusing glass you can lay it on plaster in the kiln and any texture you put into the plaster transfers to the glass - this leads to some interesting effects.

I really enjoyed making this piece and it was really good to work with fused glass and find out the different challenges of leading it up. The main difficulty is that the glass changes shape (usually expands) in the kiln and this is not completely predictable so even a perfectly cut piece of glass may not fit the design after firing. The fused glass is also thicker than the glass normally used because several layers are fused together - I bought special lead to cope with this.

I haven't decided what to do for my next stained glass piece - I'd really like to do a big window but I don't really have any space in my flat for anymore. I think I'm going to have to get a friend or member of my family to commission me!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Dotty xx

PS. Thanks for the sympathetic comments about my ankle "incident". I am on the mend and starting to hobble a little faster that before!

Holiday Pics!

2011-09-14T18:59:00.000+01:00

I've just got back home from a few days in Northern Spain and Southern France. It was nice to get away and see the sun again. I didn't take that many pictures but I thought I'd share these few with you here, all from the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.

We fell in love with this huge dog all covered in plants by Jeff Koons.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the building which was a shame although the building was amazing and a work of art in itself:

I did manage to get this snap on one of the outside balconies of another Jeff Koons piece:

which bizarrely reminded me of the colourful crochet hooks I treated myself to recently!

Unfortunately, after Bilbao, things went downhill somewhat. I stepped down from a step badly and fell, spraining both my ankles and, after an afternoon in French A&E checking they weren't broken, I spent the rest of the holiday on crutches feeling sorry for myself! Oh dear!

Unsurprisingly there aren't so many photos from that stage of the holiday! I did manage to get some work done on my granny square blanket which I will show you in a later post (the squares are still in France at the mo - I had to leave them with my parents to cut down on luggage for the flight home alone and on crutches!).

Luckily the ankles are healing pretty fast and I'm now installed on the sofa hoping to catch up on some crafting and all of your blogs!

Back soon!
Dotty xx

Packing the Essentials

2011-09-04T14:20:00.001+01:00

I'm off on holiday for a few days tomorrow and obviously have to take some kind of portable craft project with me. I think I may have a problem - the idea of going somewhere without something to sew or crochet makes me a bit panicky!! And I actually can't even remember the last time I watched TV without something crafty in my hands! So for the last few days I have been working frantically to turn these:

into these:

I've got a few more to do tonight before I go tomorrow. I'm only taking a small hand luggage case so the idea was that if I took a load of centres I would only need to take the creamy-white yarn to do the outsides. A few balls of cream yarn and 40 centres are still taking up quite a lot of room but hey, who needs a toothbrush and suncream?!

Hopefully when I get back I'll have another 40 squares to add to my original 20. And then I can start doing some joining! I haven't decided how big I'm going to make it yet - I would like to make it huge but I seem to be already getting crochet RSI!

(The one above is my favourite square so far!)

Because of all the crocheting I haven't had much time for other crafting this week but I have managed to make a card for the family friend we are going to see in France:

Its all embroidered on card and I'm quite pleased with it but I wish I hadn't done the wording in black - it looks a bit dark to me. If I make another one I think I might try in a grey....

Hope you are all having a good weekend and have a good week - I'll hopefully be back with some pics and a case full of granny squares next weekend!

Dotty xx

Silver Clay Jewellery - Learning Something New

2011-09-02T12:00:00.000+01:00

Last week I took a silver clay jewellery course. It was something I've wanted to try and have never done before so it seems the perfect opportunity to link to The Crafters Apprentice's Learn a New Technique (LANT) Challenge. For those of you who don't know Wendy has challenged her fellow crafters to try out new crafts they've never done before and then write about what they have learnt. If you need any ideas for crafts to try then Wendy has compiled a huge list of ideas for you!

The course I took was a four day intensive course to teach how to work with metal clay with the aim of coming away having made at least one piece of jewellery each day. There are various different types of precious metal clays but we just used silver. The silver clay is a combination of water, binders and very fine particles of silver. This can be moulded into whatever shape is required and then fired. When it is fired the binders burn away and you are left with a solid piece of metal that is 99.9% pure silver. The first time you see this happen it seems like magic! Or alchemy! I wish I had taken more pictures of the whole process but I was enjoying myself so much I forgot.

We were given three sorts of silver clay to work with - packets of silver clay (similar to polymer clay or fimo), a little bottle of silver clay paste which could be painted onto things with a brush and a syringe preloaded with silver clay for piping.

The first thing we made was a pendant with the metal clay. After playing around with polymer clay to work out a design it was time to use the real thing! We only had 7g packets to work with and the metal clay is quite expensive so it is important not to waste anything. The clay itself is funny stuff - very sticky so you have to constantly put olive oil on your fingers to stop it sticking to you and it dries out very quickly so it is best to work fast. The best thing about the silver clay is that until it has been fired you can keep reworking it - if you make something and you don't like it you can add some water to it, work it for a bit and it becomes clay again. This is excellent for people like me who have a tendency to make lots of mistakes!

This is the first pendant I made:

The texture was added using a rubber stamp with the texture imprinted on it and the circle was cut using a small cookie cutter. It was curved slightly over a domed mould to give it that convex shape and a clay bail was stuck to the back. After the clay was dry we fired it with a small creme brulee torch. It was then polished and stained using liver of sulphur to give the darker look in the crevices.

After that I was away. The next thing we made was a ring, this was using another 7g packet of metal clay and I decided to use a small stone in mine. It is a cubic zirconia - apparently you have to be careful about which stones to use as not all of them can withstand the heat, diamonds are fine but a little pricey for my second piece!! This is it:

Making a ring is a little tricky because you have to allow for the 10% shrinkage of the metal clay when it is fired. Even though I did this you can see that this ring is a little bit small which is a shame. Although I think it will fit in winter when it is a little colder and my fingers are less swollen!

The next thing we made were 3D "cage" pendants which was brilliant. And I actually remembered to take a few step by step pictures of this one so here is what we did:

Step 1: We made the shape of the pendant in cork clay. I chose a teardrop shape for mine and hid a little cubic zirconia crystal in my cork clay so that it would be in the middle of my pendant. We added a fine silver loop to the top (this is where the pendant will hang from). The cork clay was thoroughly dried and then sanded down to ensure it is exactly the right shape. I ended up with this:

Step 2: Using the syringe loaded with metal clay we piped a pattern all over the cork clay. We made sure we paid special attention to the top loop to ensure it was secure and that the loops of metal clay overlapped and were close together so there would be no holes where the crystal could fall out. At this stage it looked like this:

Step 3: We let the clay dry thoroughly (it has to be completely dry before it is fired). We did this using a hairdryer and a hotplate. After that the pendant is fired in a kiln. During firing the cork clay is burned away and you are left with a hollow shape. When it first comes out of the kiln the silver looks white but after some polishing, ta-dah:

It is difficult to see from the picture but the crystal that I put inside the cork clay is still inside the pendant and gives it a bit of sparkle as it catches the light as well as making a cute little tinkling sound. I really love this piece.

Phew! This post it getting a bit long - not long to go now I promise!

The last day of the course we were told to bring in a leaf to use to make a pendant. We spent the morning painting this with lots of thin layers of silver clay paste, allowing it to dry thoroughly between each coat. When the paste was thick enough to make a strong pendant we fired our leaves. During the firing process the leaves burned away and we were left with something like this:

Cool, eh?

During the course there was the opportunity to buy more supplies and there was time to work on other pieces here and there. In the end I made another couple of rings and a small piece including a bit of glass to test whether this would work. Not a bad haul for four days work:

I really enjoyed this course and would definitely recommend it to anyone who was thinking about having a go at using silver clay. I was amazed by how professional looking the results were after only a few hours of practice. I am also really excited by the idea that I will be able to make things at home now with very few materials. The one downside is that the silver clay itself is quite expensive but I think this is more than offset by the lack of expensive tools needed and the speed with which you can make things.

I'm really looking forward to having a go at making more things! I know what everyone in my family is getting for Christmas this year....!

Dotty xx

PS. Sorry this is such a long post - there was just so much to say. Congratulations if you made it this far!!

New Octomonsters!

2011-08-28T15:25:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post today - I thought I'd show you a couple of octomonsters I've just finished.

I've done this design before and they've been popular so I thought I'd have another go. I'll be popping them in my folksy shop as soon as it stops raining for long enough to get some decent photos. These are quicker to make than the ones with the hand stitched dots on them so I will be able to charge less and hopefully entice someone to buy them! That's the idea anyway....

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Dotty x

PS. I have given my parents the stained glass lightcatcher (from the previous post) and they seem to be very pleased with it - hurrah!

Oooooh! Glassy!

2011-08-24T20:09:00.009+01:00

I haven't blogged about it much before but one of my new(ish!) favourite things to do is make stained glass pieces. I've been doing classes for about a year and a half now and I love playing with all the colours and designs and coming up with a new piece.

I now have loads of glass in my flat - some leftover from other pieces and some bought because I was in the shop and saw something so beautiful I couldn't resist! (Seriously, going to a glass shop is like going to a sweet shop - there are beautiful things on every wall and you want them all!)

I seem to gravitate towards blue pieces and had lots in my stash so I decided to make use of all the pieces I have accumulated and design something modern and abstract using bluey greeny colours.

I also had never leaded up a circle before and its something I wanted to try so I decided to incorporate that into my design. Normally, when doing a straight edged piece, you lead into a right angle made with two blocks of wood - because you can't do this for a circle it is slightly more tricky! Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures whilst I was leading up - the one above is after I had leaded and soldered but before cementing and polishing.

This is the finished piece:

It has been cemented to keep the glass secure in the lead, the lead has been blackened and the whole piece has been polished to give it a shine.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, I just need to secure the ends of the chain and then it will be hung in the window as a lightcatcher. I think I am going to give this to my parents this weekend - I hope they like it! Just one more close up of those lovely blues:

I have also made another leaded circular piece of a similar size which incorporates pieces of fused glass but I will have to show you that another time. As well as finally finishing my glass pieces I've been taking a precious metal clay course this week which has been lots of fun and I'll have the results of that soon.

Happy crafting!

Dotty xx

Work In Progress (WIP)

2011-08-18T15:16:00.011+01:00

The problem with doing so many different crafty things is I often get involved in a new project without properly finishing the previous one. I always have several projects on the go at any one time which is great because if I get bored with one I can always pick up another but it does mean I have lots of unfinished work hanging around my flat!

With this in mind I've decided to start doing a regular (maybe monthly?) Work in Progress (WIP) post - partly to show you what I've been up to, partly to try and shame myself into finishing them! Hopefully by the time I do my next WIP post some of these will be finished:

1. Emily Peacock Hug and Kiss cushions

I finished my Hug tapestry over a year and a half ago and the Kiss one sometime last summer. These have now been sitting around for over a year waiting to be turned into cushions. I've bought the backing fabric, the bobble trim and the cushion inserts and yet somehow I still haven't managed to spend a few hours making these into lovely cushions for my bed. I have no excuses!

2. Granny Square Cushion

These granny squares have been sitting around the house since the early summer waiting to become a cushion! They were originally going to be a blanket but the cotton I was using was really splitty and I decided it would drive me mad making a whole blanket so a cushion it is! I need to block these first (I've not done that before) and then decide how I am going to attach them together and how I am going to back the cushion - either fabric or more crochet. All this indecision has left me doing nothing!!

3. Fused glass jewellery

I've got loads of these pretty glass cabochons waiting to be turned into jewellery. Most of them are made of dichroic glass which really sparkles - they should be lovely when I get round to doing something with them!

I've also got these ones which have been attached to jewellery findings already. I want to take some decent pictures of these to put in my folksy shop. I've had a go a few times now but haven't managed to get any good enough photos yet - it is difficult to photograph glass!

4. Emily Peacock and Rob Ryan tapestry

I was given this kit for Christmas and it is a perfect present for me - I am a big fan of both Emily Peacock's and Rob Ryan's work. This is actually going quite well at the moment. I started this in the Spring and am about halfway through it now. I have finished most of the tricky picture part of the tapestry and now I am just working on the background. This means it is perfect for evenings in front of the TV when I want to do some sewing but need something that doesn't take too much concentration.

5. Granny Square blanket

Even though I have decided to make my other granny squares into a cushion I still wanted to make a granny square blanket with a white background. I am using a granny square pattern by Jane Brocket that I found in Mollie Makes magazine. I love this pattern - it makes quite a large square with a really nice squishy feel to it. The pattern is based on a blanket of 54 squares but I would really like to make mine bigger than that so I think it might be crocheting this one for a long time yet. I've done 20 squares so far so we'll see if I change my mind when I've got a bit further! I've realised that I probably shouldn't have chosen such expensive yarn - this is going to be one expensive blanket!

6. Fused glass photographs

I am currently trying to take photos of my fused glass pieces. Mainly to keep a record of what I have made and also to show you on this blog. Also I am thinking of trying to sell some pieces in future - there is only so much glass I can fit in my flat but I would like to keep making so I think I will have to sell some to stop myself getting buried in it (this is only a small fraction of what I have made) and also to help fund future making!

7. Stained glass pieces

I have two small stained glass pieces which I need to solder some chain onto for hanging and then polish up so they are finished. I won't put any pictures here as I am hoping to do that in the next couple of days (ha! a likely story...!) and then I will put up some pictures then.

8. Plushies

I have various monsters and fish in various states of completions that I am making for gifts and my folksy shop. These look a bit sad without their stuffing so I'll put some pictures up when I'm finished!

Phew! That was a long post! I feel a bit exhausted thinking about all the things I need to get on with, let alone actually doing them! Hopefully next time I do a WIP post some of these items will be finished.....

Dotty xx

PS. Sorry if the pics are a bit dark - its a horrible day here. Not good for taking photos but perfect for staying in and making!

Fused Glass

2011-08-11T22:33:00.005+01:00

I haven't had much time for blogging this week as I have been taking a fused glass course all week. With all the things I normally do in the daytime having to fit into the evenings everything has been a bit busy!

I'll show you some pictures of what I have been up to this week when it is all out of the kiln but in the meantime I thought I could show you some of the pieces I have made over the last year since I started fused glass.

A lattice piece which has since been slumped over a mould to make a bowl:

A coaster made with loads of stringers (thin strips of glass):

A flat piece in some of my favourite glass colours which I am planning to make into a shallow dish:

A multicoloured light catcher which glints and sparkles when I hang it in front of a window:

I love fused glass so much and I'm so glad I have found such a fun and exciting hobby! I'm sure I will talk about this in later posts as I can't get enough of it and would really like to move into selling some of it at some point but for now I hope you have enjoyed these pictures!

Dotty xx

PS. Thank you to all of you who have popped over from the folksy forums to comment or follow my blog. It is so nice of you to come by and I am so pleased that you have. I am looking forward to investigating all of your blogs in more detail after my course finishes tomorrow!

Creating a buzzzzz!

2011-08-05T19:02:00.005+01:00

Just a quick post today - I thought I'd show some pictures of a softie I made recently as a gift.

He's been received now so I don't have to hide him any longer!

I was thinking of making some more to pop in my folksy shop. What do you think?

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Dotty xx

New loves – Crochet

2011-08-02T15:16:00.016+01:00

I have decided to do a series of posts on crafts I have picked up whilst I’ve been away and not blogging. I thought I’d start with crochet. I only started crocheting at the beginning of the year and I am completely hooked! (Sorry, I never get tired of that pun!)

I’ve always liked crochet but for some reason thought it was something I would never be able to do. I suppose it’s because I have always associated it with knitting and the one time I tried knitting was disastrous – I was so uncoordinated with the needles and ended up in a grumpy impatient mess!Then earlier this year I noticed that a new crafts venue near where I live was offering drop in crochet and knitting on a Wednesday. So I headed to The Create Place and Marie gave me my first ever lesson in crochet. At first I found it so hard and couldn’t find a way to hold the hook that felt natural but eventually managed a couple of rows of single crochet. I was just getting used to that when Marie suggested I try a double crochet and then once I had mastered that a triple crochet. By the time I left that morning I was grinning wildly and I was clutching a square of purple crocheted yarn that I was insanely proud of......so proud in fact that it sat on my mantelpiece for about a month!

After that I was addicted – I went straight to the shops and bought some yarn and hooks and began trawling the internet for interesting (and simple projects) I could try.The first proper thing I made was the wrist warmers using the tutorial on the wonderful Attic24 blog.

These are coordinated to match a scarf I already have and were a really good beginner project. Plus they taught me a new stitch – half treble (which I call half double because I learnt the American terminology – v confusing!).

After that I was away and started work some circular cushion covers inspired by those in Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. I couldn’t get the pattern in the book to work for me so with some more help from Marie I came up with these:

And in closeup:

At the same time as I was making the cushions I became obsessed with the idea of making some crochet bunting. There were loads of lovely bunting patterns about there (just look at this flickr gallery that Lucy from Attic24 put together) but there wasn’t anything that was exactly what I was looking for. In the end, after a lot of trial and error I came up with my own pattern and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

I’m only giving you a sneak peak here as I was thinking I might do another post on the bunting and maybe even a tutorial if anyone is interested?

Finally, what would a crochet post be without a mention of granny squares! After a few months of crocheting I asked Marie to give me a lesson on granny squares. She showed me how to make a classic granny as well as her own pattern (similar to a sunburst pattern). I went away and this is what I came up with:

I was originally going to make them into a blanket but I decided a cushion would be better to start with! The cotton I used split really easily and it was going to be too frustrating to make the hundreds of squares I needed to make a blanket. Now I just need block these squares, attach them altogether and work out how to make a cushion cover…..that should be easy enough, right?!

I’ve actually already started on some squares for a blanket with different yarn but I think I’ve rambled on enough now so I’ll save that for another post!

Have any of you tried crochet? What patterns and crochet blogs do you like? I’m always on the lookout for new ideas!

Dotty xx

I’m back!

2011-07-28T22:56:00.030+01:00

Hellllooooooo! Anyone out there?

I’m back! Finally! It’s been a while….and I’m sorry I left you for so long. Things got pretty complicated in my life for a while and I wasn’t very well. And then by the time things started to improve I’d got out of the habit of blogging.

Anyway, you don’t want to hear about that – you want to know all about the crafting! You’ll be pleased to hear that the lull in blogging wasn’t combined with a lull in crafting. In fact I think I’ve been doing more and more. I find making things very therapeutic and it has been very helpful in improving my health. I’ve carried on with sewing and monster making but I’ve also learned some new skills which I am looking forward to telling you about.

But, before all that, I wanted to talk about this post. I signed up for pay it forward AGES ago and started working away on my gifts for the people who had signed up. I had most of my gifts complete months (years!) ago and then things went a little bit downhill and the PIF project fell by the wayside. I feel really bad about it, especially as Beaky sent me such a lovely gift. So, before I started blogging again I wanted to make up for it and send my PIF gifts on and start with a clean slate. I managed to get hold of Sue from BeeDesigns and her gift is on its way as I write. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sandra or Wilkie and both of their blogs seem to be defunct now :o( Guys, if you are out there then please get in touch…….

Right, that’s the business out of the way. Now for some sneaky previews of what I have been up to in my time away……

There’s crochet:

And fused glass:

Screenprinting:

And stained glass:

Patchwork:

And Tapestry:

And finally a spot of mosaic:

Hours of Stitching

2009-12-03T15:33:00.004Z

I never thought tapestry would be my thing until I spied some beautiful designs by Emily Peacock. They are much more modern and funky than most of the tapestries out there. After some very heavy hinting I was given a set of two kits for my birthday to make a HUG and a KISS design (Picture is from Emily’s etsy site.):

So, since the summer I have been spending my spare hours quietly stitching away in front of the TV. And it has been a lot of hours! And finally something to show for it:

Although I made a few little errors along the way I am really pleased with the results. As the days (months!) passed my technique improved and I’m hoping KISS will turn out a bit neater! I also found it a very relaxing craft and once I got in "the zone" I could stitch away for ages - very therapeutic!

One down and one to go! Next to start work can’t wait to get the KISS tapestry finished too….

I haven’t decided what to do with the tapestries once they are both finished. Emily shows them made into cushions on her website but I think they might get damaged too quickly in my flat (I have a propensity for throwing red wine around the place!). I am thinking of getting them framed and putting them above the doors as they are just the right size for that. Anyway, if it takes me as long to complete KISS as it did to do HUG I have a few more months to worry about it yet….!

Dotty xx

The Pig of Happiness

2009-11-26T12:33:00.001Z

Latest Monster!

2009-09-19T15:51:00.004+01:00

Thought you guys might like a quick peek at my latest monster creation.

There haven't been many monsters recently so I was pretty pleased when I came up with this scary fella. He was actually created to be one of my PIF gifts but my mum saw him and has claimed it for herself! Aaarrggghhhh - back to work!

Dotty xx

PS. I am starting a photography course this week so hopefully we'll see an improvement in my pics!

Its been a long time.....

2009-09-10T17:01:00.005+01:00

Hellllooooooo! Anyone still there? Its been a long time since I wrote my last post....a very long time! Sorry! Its been a bit of a strange summer but I'm back!

I lost my crafting mojo for a while and motivation was at an all time low but something has finally happened to kick me back into gear. A lovely package arrived on my doorstep. And what was in this lovely package I hear you cry. These beautiful things:

Look at those pretties sent to me by the lovely Bonita of Beaky Crafts. Aren't they gorgeous? The little Russian Doll is lavender scented and oh so cute. The felt ball bracelet is almost permanently on my wrist and the cute little crotchet daffodil brooch is pinned to my black coat ready to brighten up my winter.

My dodgy camera can't really do them justice - check out Bonita's shops on etsy and folksy for some much better shots!

Thank you so much Bonita :o) I have two reasons to say thank you - first for the lovely PIF gifts and secondly for giving me a kick and making me feel like a spot of crafting again! The people who signed up for my PIF gifts will be pleased to know that i am nearly finished making my gifts (finally! sorry guys!) and they will be winging their way to you shortly - I am setting myself an absolute deadline of the end of September.

Right - time to get back to crafting!

Say CHEESE!!

2009-07-01T21:01:00.003+01:00

I do like a bit of cheese. Well, more than a bit actually, often a lot! And on everything.... But I'm trying to cut down so had to feed my addiction another way. A few months ago I decided that I simply MUST make a pin cushion that looked like a block of cheese. Once I had the idea in my head I couldn't rest until my creation was complete and ta-da:

Oh dear....not good, not good at all! Not really how I envisioned it! I showed it to my mum, who said, and I quote: "Ooooh that's nice, love the colours. Erm, what is it?" What is it? WHAT IS IT???!!! It doesn't even look like cheese when I put it on a plate with crackers and grapes.

At that point I had to admit that it didn't really look like a piece of cheese at all. It was too curvy. But I couldn't rest until I had my perfect felty piece of cheese, there must be a way to make it work, I couldn't embark on anything else until it was done! (Hmmm....maybe I am a bit stubborn and should learn to admit defeat...)

Some head scratching, felt snipping, bondawebbing and blanket stitching later I thought I might have cracked it:

What do you think? Much better I think (hope?!) you'll agree. Almost good enough to eat!

Although I have no idea what to do with the original....a similar thing happened on my quest for giant liquorice allsorts but I think that is a story for another day!

Dotty xx

TWIT TWOOO!

2009-06-22T12:25:00.010+01:00

Have you noticed that owls are everywhere at the moment? For some reason crafters love owls. Maybe its that the big eyes mean you can make an impossibly cute softie. There's so many around that it takes something really special to catch your eye.

So imagine my joy when I was browsing round Paperchase (my favourite shop EVER) and I saw the owl range designed by jilly p. I couldn't resist the tea towels - gorgeous design and such a bargain!

Man, I really wish I'd ironed them before I took those pics! If you want to see more pictures of the range then take a look at this Print & Pattern post - much better pics than mine!! (Print & Pattern often features other Paperchase designs and is a fab blog so you should read it anyway!)

But the more I looked at my tea towels the more I didn't want to use them for drying dishes - they were way too nice for that! So, I formulated a plan to turn these fab prints into little softies. I embroidered round the design, added some buttons and used the small owl print fabric on the back and ta-da!

My own set of four jilly p. owls. Not bad for £5 tea towels eh? I leave them sitting amongst my books looking wise and learned!

I'm hoping they haven't sold out in Paperchase because I need to go back and buy another set to actually dry my dishes on!

Dotty xx

Exciting Times

2009-06-15T10:34:00.005+01:00

Its been over a week since my last post - eeeek! I've had a bit of a tough week with very little crafting but some exciting things have been happening in my absence.

Firstly, thanks for all the lovely comments on the Disco Fish I featured in my last post. I had some great comments and emails and a couple have people have asked if I sell them or sell a kit to make them. I don't sell them at the moment but I'm currently thinking about prices and whether to make them into kits or not. I'll keep you posted! Thanks for all your support guys :-)

The lovely Patti from It's a Wonderful... was so taken with the fish that she featured them on her fab blog. And look at the little bubbles she added to my pic - such a cute idea. Thanks Patti :-)

Buoyed by every ones comments on the fish I decided to submit a picture of them to the One Pretty Thing flickr pool. If you don't read this blog then you MUST check it out - it is basically a roundup of all the craftiness going on in the blogosphere - loads of tutorials, advice, party ideas, giveaways....everything you could want really. It is one of my favourite blogs so imagine my excitement when I saw this post - my disco fish are featured - I am so proud. Thanks Rachel :-)

As if all this wasn't enough I got an email yesterday from Alex (full name Aleximo Croissant!) telling me that my strawberries had been featured in a strawberry based posting on the FolksyFinds blog. If you want to check out all the other lovely strawberries featured then take a look here. Thanks Alex :-)

I'm so excited I might burst!! And its motivated me to get back to my machine so hopefully I'll have some new goodies to show you soon....

Dotty xx

Disco Fish!

2009-06-05T11:37:00.005+01:00

These are some softies I've been working on recently. I call them disco fish - partly because of the bright colours and partly because I think they look like they are grooving away :-)

The blue one is supposed to be a puffer fish and I just made the others up. Haven't decided what to do with them yet - considering making a mobile and I might put some in my shop. For now they are just hanging from my mirror - chilling and looking cool!

Dotty xx

I'm back.....

2009-05-30T12:05:00.002+01:00

..........from 10 days away in North Cyprus. And I've missed you all lots!! Thank you so much for all the lovely comments on my first quilt that greeted me when I got back. They really cheered me up and helped me through my post holiday blues!

Since I've been back I've been catching up on all my favourite blogs and look what I found - my shoes! It was a bit of a surprise to find my pics on someone else's blog - I'd forgotten I'd emailed them over. Laura from Glue+Glitter has a fab feature on her blog where each week she gets a reader to show off their shoes and last week mine were featured! Check it out here if you are interested!

I've actually been back for a couple of days now but it has been a busy time - my brother has just got back from travelling round SE Asia for 6 months so there's lots of catching up to do and photos to admire (over 4000 pictures in fact!). With this in mind I promise not to bore you with lots of my holiday pics but I thought I'd just show you a pic of this little chap we met on the beach:

He was sooo cool and the way he walks is just brilliant. We think he is a chameleon (he had those eyes that rotate all the way round independently) but not totally sure. Anyway, they may be really common where you are but we enjoyed meeting him :o)

The only other pic I'll show you is this one - a photo of the abbey in the place where we stayed and an amazing view to look at whilst we had dinner!

I'm going to sign off now as I don't have much crafty news to share but don't worry I'll get back to work soon!

Dotty xx

Finished Quilt (& all the things I learned making it)

2009-05-17T16:30:00.011+01:00

In my previous post I mentioned I was making my FIRST EVER quilt from Amy Karol's book "Bend the Rules Sewing". I have finally finished it - hurrah.

Before I read about the lap quilt in the book (and a few articles in Sew Hip) I never thought making a quilt would be something I could do - they seemed to big and time consuming and intimidating. Surely only proper grown ups with fancy industrial machines made quilts? It took a few weeks to convince myself that this was something that I could actually make but once I took the plunge I really enjoyed it. There were a few dodgy moments along the way but I am really pleased with how it turned out.

My quilt is not perfect (don't look to closely at the straightness of the lines!) and I have no idea what I am going to use it for (a bit pink and small for my bed) but I am sooo proud of it! Every time I look at it I can't believe that I made it. I learnt absolutely loads making this and next time it will be even better.

Since I mentioned I was making a quilt a few people have said that they had been thinking about doing the same so I thought I would give you a list of things that I learnt and found useful along the way. This is a bit of a jumbled list and is in no way complete or "correct" but hopefully someone out there will find it useful. Some of the points are a bit simple and may be obvious (this is definitely a beginners list!) but I put them down because they are things I want to remember next time I make a quilt. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone:

1. Making a quilt (even a simple one) takes quite a long time. When you are used to making little softies and pin cushions that can be done in less than a day this is a bit of a shock! The sense of achievement you get when you complete something keeps me motivated so I split the project into stages - choosing material, cutting material, sewing quilt top, cutting the batting and quilt back and pinning together with the top, quilting, making binding strip and finally sewing the binding onto the quilt. Splitting it down like this made it feel a lot more manageable.

2. Of all the stages cutting the pieces for the quilt top seems to be the most important. If the edges of your pieces are wonky then your quilt won't be square. I marked pieces up with a 30 cm ruler and cut my pieces by hand. I will never do this again! It took forever and was really difficult to get a decent straight line. If I make another quilt I will be investing in a rotary cutter and a decent straight edge.

3. Everything in quilting is referred to in yards and inches. This is very confusing when you have spent your whole life thinking in metric! I wasn't completely sure what a yard was until I asked my mum a couple of weeks ago. It still doesn't come naturally to me. Each time I want to work it out I have to think in stages - a yard is three foot, a foot is 12 inches, that's about 30 cm which means a yard is around 90cm, so just under a metre! I'm getting used to it slowly!

4. Don't start too big. The quilt I made is just over a metre square - much smaller than most quilts. When I was planning my quilt I was quite tempted to go bigger to make one that would fit on my bed, for example. I am SO glad I didn't. Even a metre square feels quite large and unwieldy when you are used to dealing with smaller pieces of fabric. Do your sewing on as large a table as possible - this makes it easier to move the quilt around.

5. Those fabric markers with ink that disappears after a couple of days or after washing are really useful - well worth the investment and much easier to use than chalk.

6. Once you have cut and arranged your pieces in the order you want take a break and come back and look at it again with fresh eyes - you might see a better way of arranging the pieces once your stepped back for a bit. When you are definitely happy with the arrangement take a photo so that you can refer back to it when sewing it all together. This was suggested in the book and is a really useful piece of advice. Remember to refer back to the photo - I didn't at one point thinking that I was confident I could remember the order and had to spend a boring half an hour unpicking one of my pieces!

7. When you've finished the quilt top iron it but be gentle otherwise you may stretch the fabric. On the other hand, if everything is a bit wonky a little bit of stretching can help things look more even! The book I used didn't specify how the seams should be pressed but a 10 minutes spent in Borders having a flick through some of the quilting books revealed that the general consensus was to press the seams to the side rather than open.

8. Once you have got the batting sandwiched between the quilt top and bottom correctly then hold it all in place by putting safety pins all over it, starting from the middle and working out. This works much better than holding it together with pins and is much quicker than basting / tacking the layers together. I believe you can buy special quilting pins to do this but I found regular safety pins worked just fine.

9. Treat your machine to a new needle before you start quilting - this makes such a difference when you are sewing through three layers of fabric. Also, check how much thread is on your bobbin regularly - it is so frustrating when you are halfway through a quilting line and your thread runs out!

10. Take regular breaks - I found if I didn't do this I got a bit impatient and ended up rushing the quilting which left me with a few wonky lines! It seems I need some practice sewing in straight lines!

11. Making your own binding is much easier than it sounds and actually really fun. Now I know how to do it I am going to use it in lots of other projects. I used one of these tools but I think it is fairly easy to do without the tool.

12. If you aren't that confident about something, in my case the binding, then it is definitely worth searching the internet. I found a flickr group for the BTRS book which had some useful discussion topics about the quilt. I also used this tutorial to check my understanding of the binding was correct. I also found this tutorial (thanks to Polka Dot Daze for the link) which uses a slightly different method but looks really useful and shows how to make binding without the tool.

13. Try not to be a perfectionist! This is my biggest problem. I could have spent ages unpicking and redoing bits of my quilt but I would never have finished. This time I was very disciplined and tried not to give into my perfectionist tendencies. I probably should have redone a few of my quilting lines but since I knew this was a learning exercise for me I decided to leave them in as reminders for next time. It is the overall effect of the quilt that matters and any little flaws just make it look a little more handmade (that's what I keep telling myself anyway!).

14. The final step is to wash and dry your quilt to give it that used, crinkly look. I can't give you any tips on that since I haven't done that yet. I keep putting it off as I am scared of it all going wrong and ruining all my hard work! When I do wash it I will let you know how it goes.

Finally, here is a list of useful quilty links I found:

Jaypeg gives some useful tips on designing your own quilt in her blog over a series of posts in January (scroll down). I will definitely be using these when I design my own quilt.

The two binding tutorials mentioned above are here and here.

And loads of free quilt patterns here, here, here, here and here. Some of these are quite tricky looking! Personally I am planning to do this one next - I love the zig zag effect.

I hope that was useful. If you made it this far down this marathon post and have any thoughts / questions / compliments / comments / abuse then please let me know!

Dotty xx

PS. Just to let you know, I am off on holiday tomorrow (woohoo!!) so there won't be any blogging around here for 10 days or so. I'm a bit worried I will miss being crafty so I have supplies with me: Issues 1&2 of Sew Hip which I have finally managed to get hold of (only issue 3 to get now!), a subversive cross stitch kit and a sketch book. Hopefully I'll return rested and full of crafty inspiration. Missing you already...

Fab weekend :o)

2009-05-11T17:56:00.009+01:00

This weekend was one of the best I've had in ages and it was full of crafty goodness. Most of the weekend was spent at a fab workshop in London playing with these:

Yummy mosaic tiles. I've wanted to learn how to mosaic for ages so my hopes were pretty high for the course. I wasn't disappointed. Our teacher, Jo, took us through the basics of nipping mosaic tiles into different shapes and how to fix them and then we were away. After drawing a brief sketch on a piece of mdf we started nipping tiles into shape and sticking them to our boards. First we were all quite nervous - gently nibbling at the tiles but after half an hour or so small pieces of glass and ceramic were flying everywhere as we descended into a nipping frenzy. I was in heaven - the tiles were all so pretty and shiny and I got to play with them.

The design I had in mind before I arrived was for some stylised modern poppies but it turns out that red is one of the rarer shades of tile and there were no enough variations to make my plan work. In contrast green and blue came in every shade you could imagine since most tiles are made for the swimming pools! As I worked I started to understand the shapes I could make and the properties of the different tiles and adapted my design accordingly.

These were the results at the end of the first day:

During the second day of the workshop I really started to get the hang of cutting and placing the tiles. I was able to shape the tiles more accurately and I place them closer together. This was great although it did have the unfortunate side effect that I wanted to redo all the parts I did on Saturday! I resisted the temptation to do this (knowing I would never finish if I did) and this was the result by mid afternoon yesterday:

The last part of the process was to grout the tiles. As the colours I used were all quite light I went for a light grey grout. Its amazing the different that grouting makes - it completely changes the design. This was the finished result:

I am really pleased with it. It looks nothing like my original plan but it is more professional looking than I ever expected. I can't say that it is what I would do if I had the chance again - I would do something in much brighter colours (I think mine is a little wishy!) with different patterns (I'd like to do something more geometric I think) - but that is what learning is all about. One of the other great things on the course was seeing what everyone else was doing and seeing how it developed. I'd really like to have another go now I have a better understanding of what can be done with the tiles, how the colours look and what the grouting does to the design.

In the middle of the mosaic-ing weekend I also found some time on Saturday night to make 20 cards for my mum whilst watching a recording of Kirstie's Homemade home (my quilt is never going to be as good as hers!). The cards are good luck cards for my mum to give to the other performers in the amateur show she is in (it has a Mexican theme!). I think they are quite effective for something so cheap and quick to make:

Just before I stumbled off to bed last night exhausted but happy something supremely exciting and momentous happened. At 20.41 exactly I made my FIRST EVER SALE in my folksy shop. I am so pleased. YAY!

This little fella is already winging his way to a new owner. I know I will miss him but I'm happy to share his love with someone else! Plus, there is plenty more where that came from...

Now off to art class....

Dotty xx

Fabric Stash!

2009-05-08T11:52:00.004+01:00

At the request of the lovely Sandra at Pepperberry&Co here is a quick glimpse of the fabrics I bought on Wednesday whilst that pesky Clive the carrot was hijacking my blog!

This is also a sneak peak at the quilt I am making (I didn't take any before pictures as I was itching to get started!). This is my first ever quilt. I'll post some more pics of it when I'm finished - I've only done the top at the moment. Its based on a pattern in a fab book called "Bend the Rules Sewing" by Amy Karol (check out her fab blog Angry Chicken). The quilt is a bit too pink (I wanted to use turquoise but I couldn't find enough matching turquoise fabrics!) and I have no idea what I am going to do with it but I am already insanely proud of it - I never thought I'd be able to do something like this. Bit worried about the actual quilting and binding but we'll see what happens.

I've got this lovely Cath Kidston fabric to put on the back. I don't normally buy Cath Kidston as it is a bit expensive but I couldn't resist this!

And as if that wasn't enough look what arrived in the post this morning - yay!

I LOVE these fabrics and I have lots of plans for them. Unfortunately they were a bit soggy when they arrived - thanks Royal Mail!! They made it all the way from the US unharmed and then they got wet being delivered this morning!

There won't be much blogging going on round here this weekend as I'm going to a weekend mosaic workshop. I am very excited - I have always wanted to learn how to make a mosaic. We are supposed to bring a few ideas with us and I already have a notebook full! Hopefully I'll have lots of pics to show you and a lovely mosaic at the end!

Right - I'm off to paint the bathroom - woohoo! The fun never stops...

Dotty xx

PS. Sorry about the rubbish pics - stupid English weather is not giving me much good light at the mo!

A message from Clive the carrot

2009-05-06T22:58:00.004+01:00

Yoo hoo! Hello? Anyone there?

That dotty one is too sleepy for blogging today. (She's had a hard day shopping for fabric to make her first ever quilt!) I thought I'd take advantage of the situation so I've snuck on to do a quick blog myself.

My name is Clive. I am a carrot. I can see very well in the dark but that doesn't make up for the fact that I'm a little lonely....the dotty one hasn't made me any friends to play with :o( She doesn't really know what to do with me and I wonder if she thinks I'm a bit pointless really.....

I do make her smile though. That dotty one loves a bit of silliness. I'm trying to convince her to make a whole comedy vegetable basket to keep me company. Do you think that would be a good idea? Here's hoping you can convince her....

On no - she's coming. Better go before she catches me!

HELP! I'm turning into my parents!

2009-05-05T11:23:00.011+01:00

Yesterday was a bank holiday Monday in the UK. Hurrah! An extra day off work - we simply must celebrate. So me and my parents decided to do what all British people are compelled to do on a bank holiday - we sat in a traffic jam bickering whilst it slowly stated to rain. This is an ancient British tradition and one that we will no doubt revive later in the month when there is another bank holiday Monday - woohoo!

We decided to go to Kent to a craft fair and a garden with a tulip show on. Fortunately Kent is amazingly beautiful and this was our view as we sat in traffic blaming each other for setting off so late:

Mmmm pretty :o)

The craft fair was HUGE. There were over 250 stalls and even my Dad found something to amuse himself with - the food tent and the wood turning displays. Me and my Mum had lots of fun looking round the EIGHT marquees of stalls but amazingly we didn't buy a thing. I thought we would come back with a boot full and I would have loads of pics to show you but no - not a jot! It wasn't that there weren't beautiful things to buy - there were - but they were so expensive! I tried on an amazing silver ring but when I asked the price it was over £200! That is not the sort of money I spend on impulse on myself - especially when I'm not working at the moment. A lot of the crafts were very traditional and so whilst clever and beautifully executed they weren't really to my taste. I was hoping to see the sort of things I see on etsy and folksy but it wasn't really that kind of thing at all. I think I'll stick to my favourite London haunts in future.

Undeterred we went on to the tulip show at Pashley Manor. Ironically the little shop there had more things that I wanted to buy than the whole craft fair! I took loads of pics of the amazing gardens and tulips. Here are a few:

You may notice that I seem to be drawn towards pink!

I so want to live in this house:

As I settled into bed at 9.45pm (!) I couldn't help but notice that I appear to have turned into my parents. Looking round gardens on a bank holiday Monday! What happened to drunken barbeques at friends houses? Staying up too late on Sunday and sleeping all day? Man I'm getting old.....

Shameless plug....

2009-05-03T16:07:00.009+01:00

I've bitten the bullet, taken the bull by the horns, jumped in the deep end and.....um......other similar phrases. I've opened up my own little shop on folksy. Yay - how exciting!

Its got these:

And these:

(For those of you who don't know, folksy is similar to etsy but is based in the UK and prices are in UK pounds.)

I opened the shop a couple of weeks ago but have now finally got round to stocking it properly. I'm really pleased because a few of people have added it to their favourite shops already. I think the first couple of sales must be the hardest because at that stage there is no feedback on you to reassure buyers.

If you'd like to take a look round then click here or on the folksy button on the right hand side. I'd love it if you would. No pressure to buy anything of course, but any feedback would be gratefully received. Any views on the pictures, descriptions and, in particular, the prices, would be very useful. I promise not to be offended! Its so hard to decide what to charge. I started off by looking at other peoples products to see what they charged but that confused me even more!

I've also been thinking about setting up an etsy shop but can't decide whether to or not. I think more people would see the products if I did but I'm not sure if its worth it with the current exchange rate. I think I'll see how things go on folksy - can't wait until I make a sale!!

Hope you are having all having a lovely bank holiday weekend. I'm off to some gardens and a craft fair tomorrow so hoping to come back brimming with inspiration :o)

Dotty xx

Miaaooowww!

2009-04-30T14:37:00.006+01:00

Here's sock cat relaxing in front of the TV after a hard day's prowling.

I made this as a present for a friend a week or so ago and since then I've had the theme tune from Top Cat running through my head (although obviously with the words Top Cat replaced with Sock Cat)! I really need to sort my brain out....

Dotty xx

Busy, busy, busy.....

2009-04-28T11:19:00.016+01:00

Sorry for the lack of updates around here recently, I've been a very busy bee! (Note: I didn't take this pic - I didn't have the energy to chase bees round the garden waiting for the perfect shot!)

Working on some cactus pin cushions for my folksy shop. (Geddit, catctus - pins, needles.....man, i'm a genius ;o) )

Playing with my parents camera and taking pics of my mum's beautiful orchids.

Working on my PIF gifts for Sue, Wilkie and Sandra. (If you still want to get involved then visit their blogs and find out if they have any places left or who their gifts will be going to.)

Tending to my sunflower seeds. (I know most people grow sunflowers when they are about 8 but I love sunflowers and clearly I'm a late bloomer!)

Helping my Dad clear up this tip (this is less than a quarter of the junk - he has issues throwing things away!!)

Experimenting with my felt balls (more of which in a later post!)

Enjoying the rare British sunshine. So rare in fact that when I tired to take a sunshiney picture below the sun went in!

Taking my first painting and drawing class. Not sure about the results but it was fun :o)

All of which I present as an explanation for not giving you the bloggy love you deserve! And also a chance to show you what I've been up to. I'll be back with some proper crafty bloginess soon.

Dotty xx

Other People's Projects Post #2

2009-04-23T09:56:00.005+01:00

Time for another look at something I've made using a free pattern or tutorial donated by a generous blogger. This project comes from Alice at the fab blog futuregirl. She has some great free tutorials and three free pattern downloads. I chose to make this one but I am also planning to make the other two - a seahorse and a set of four supercute sea creatures.

The pattern is really well written and easy to follow. So may I present my very own Sigmund the Octopus:

I love him sooo much. He's so cute and he fits in the palm of my hand - much more delicate than most of the things I usually make. He currently nestles in one of the plants on my windowsill and gives me a little shock every morning when I open the curtains. I used a really bright piece of felt which I had been saving for something special - you can't really tell from the picture but he is so luminous he practically glows in the dark!

There is also a flickr group with photos for other people who'd used the patterns. I'm going to upload mine too. You should definitely check it out - particularly for the Christmas tree with 99 octopuses on!

I think I'm going to make the sea creatures next and make them into a mobile. Thanks for the fab downloads Alice :o)

Dottyxx

New Monsters and Advice Needed

2009-04-21T10:21:00.008+01:00

I know that you've all been worrying that things have gone a bit quiet on the monster front of late! Well fear not chums, I have been quietly working away and am now ready to present my latest monster creation. Well I think I'm ready. I can't decide actually.

I keep looking at them and I can't decide if they are finished.

I quite like their simplicity.

But maybe they need further embellishment. I just don't know. What do you think?

Dotty xx

PS. Anyone pointing out that they are in fact Octopuses (Octopi?) rather than monsters will not be popular!!!

Pay it forward update

2009-04-20T09:57:00.003+01:00

Hurrah! I now have three people signed up on my PIF post.

The three people who will be receiving handmade gifts from me are:

Bee Designs - look at her beautiful papercraft designs and all the gorgeous stuff in her etsy shop - I love that collage!

Turnip Creations - Wilkie shares my love of monsters and you should definitely check out some of her plush creations.....

Pepperberry and Co - Sandra has started a lovely craft blog which is also very funny....she would really like some more stalkers so you should pop over!

You should definitely go and check out all three of these blogs and if you still want to get involved in PIF then leave a comment on their posts....simple!

Now I need to decide what to make! I've seen that on some people's PIF posts they have given themselves a year to complete this but am going to try and complete my gifts *fairly* soon. After all, who knows where I'll be in a year....travelling round the world hopefully!!

Right - to work!

Dotty xx

PS. Welcome aboard ladies - please send me your addresses to my email: thedottyone(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk.

Folksy Shop & New Creations

2009-04-19T10:22:00.005+01:00

A few people have asked me if I've ever thought about selling my creations. My parents have also suggested it but I think they may have different reasons - their house is overrun with my various projects! I have been wondering about it. I spend ages on etsy and folksy looking at all the beautiful things people have made. Its quite intimidating and makes me think that the things I've made can't even compete! There are so many talented people out there. After umming and erring about it I have decided to throw caution to the wind and open a folksy shop - just to see what happens....after all there's nothing to lose!

I haven't had much time to put much in my shop yet. I'll put a link up when I've had time to upload some more items. In the meantime, here are some pics of some plush strawberries I've made which are in the shop. I'm addicted to making these - they are so fun to make.

I'm of to take some pics of some more things to upload to my shop. If anyone reading this has an etsy or folksy shop I'd be interested in any tips you have - please leave me comments!

Dotty xx

PS. There is still one place left to pay it forward if you want me to send you something lovely and handmade.

Pay it forward.....

2009-04-16T19:18:00.005+01:00

Exciting news!!! I have joined this thing called pay it forward. For those of you who don't know, this is how it works:

All you have to do is leave a comment. The first three bloggers to leave a comment will get a hand made gift mailed to them from me. (Please remember to leave a way for me to contact you). Once you have left your comment do a ‘pay it forward post’ ASAP on your blog. Then continue the gift giving to the first three people who comment on your blog…and on it goes - good idea eh?

I've decided that if I don't get three comments (this is a kinda new blog - I may not even have three readers!) I am going to do some toy society drops so that I still do my bit. (I will blog about the toy society in another post because this is another fab idea!)

I signed up for PIF on Beaky's blog. I'm very excited about receiving my gift from Bonita - look at the beautiful things in her etsy and folksy shops. I'm so lucky :o)

That's all for now - I'm off to do some crafting and maybe even plan some PIF ideas!

Dotty xx

Other People's Projects Post: Number 1

2009-04-15T10:27:00.003+01:00

When I first stopped working and got back into crafts I started reading lots of other people's crafty blogs (some of these blogs are listed in my sidebar although I do need to update it bacause I keep finding more and more fab blogs). There is so much great stuff out there and people are so generous with their ideas, many of them offering free tutorials and patterns. I've learnt a lot from following these tutorials and made some lovely things. I thought it might be worth sharing some of them here so this is my first........drumroll please.........Other People's Project Post!! I may have to start calling it OPPP for short - it takes too long to type!

First up a fab tutorial to make mushrooms and toadstools from a lovely blog called The Little House by the Sea.

The tutorial is great, really easy to follow. And look what I made:

I skipped the part with the embroidery on the stalks because I wanted to make mine more simplistic (and more importantly my emboidery is rubbish!) but you should have a look at the emboidered ones. So beautiful! I also had to alter mine slightly because the white felt I used was a bit too cheap and got all stretched when I turned the caps the right way round - easily fixed by adding an extra ring of white felt and I'm actually quite happy with the effect.

There is also a flikr group with photos for other people who'd used the patterns. I've just uploaded mine too.

This is another mushroom I made using the pattern. Its almost exactly the same but I put the stitching on the outside of the cap and used an old cotton reel to stabilise it.

Next time I'm going to have a go at the embroidery on the stalk.

Dotty xx

BALLS, BALLS, BALLS..........

2009-04-14T10:07:00.005+01:00

I'm in such a good mood today. Its sunny - yay :o) And look what I've got to play with:

Loads and loads of felt balls! Over 1000 apparently, although I haven't actually bothered counting them! And they are all the way from Nepal. I've got a plan for them that I am very excited about :o)

Just waiting for a few more balls to arrive and then all will be revealed. In the meantime I'm just enjoying looking at them!!

Dotty xx

MOOOOOOO!

2009-04-12T11:46:00.006+01:00

How cool is my Easter chocolate cow? He's so cute I almost don't want to eat him.......I'm sure I'll manage though!

Hope you are having a lovely Easter break.

Dotty xx

More monster action...

2009-04-09T20:26:00.008+01:00

Before I stop going on about monsters I just thought I'd show you a cute little family I made. These are my latest monsters and I think they are probably also my favourites.

Mum:

Kids:

And a group shot:

I need to come up with a name for this monster family but I haven't managed to think of anything appropriate yet. Still thinking! Suspiciously one of the kids has arms and the others don't - I decided to see what they'd look like with arms but I think I prefer them without!

I'm working on some more monsters at the moment - I've got a new idea for a shape and also I want to have a go with some different fabrics (pinstripe monster anyone?). I'll post some pics when I've made some progress.

In the meantime I'll be posting about some of the other things I've been making. I'm also thinking of doing a regular(ish) post on some of the stuff I've made using other peoples patterns and tutorials - there's so much inspiration out there and using other peoples ideas has taught me loads.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter break

Dotty xx

PS. If you get monster withdrawal symptoms then head over to Wilkie's site, Turnip Creations. There are some really great monsters and aliens on there, check it out.

Aaaarrrggghhh! They're everywhere!

2009-04-08T11:27:00.012+01:00

The monsters seem to be taking over the garden.

Hiding in the pots...

With the logs....

In the plants...

Out on the grass...

Climbing trees......

Even openly frolicking in the primroses....

I've managed to cage the two headed beast.....

but I'm going to need some help with the others. HELP ME!!

Dotty xx

Octomonster!!

2009-04-07T10:29:00.005+01:00

Hang on, there's something scary swimming into view....

OH NO! ITS OCTOMONSTER!

Ok...so he doesn't actually have eight legs but I reckon he is definitely some type of sea monster. Look at those suckers....

Adding all those dots took ages but I think it was worth it in the end! I think I will actually make an eight legged one next time.

Dotty xx

What's that hiding in the daffodils?

2009-04-06T09:28:00.008+01:00

Another scary monster?

Grrrrr...... Look at those teeth!

He might bite. Maybe we should keep our distance.....

Ok...maybe he isn't that scary! He just wants to say hello! None of my monsters seem to be particularly scary - I think I might have to start calling them something else!!

Dotty xx

Conquering the Sewing Machine

2009-04-04T19:23:00.008+01:00

The best part of making the sock monsters was giving them a face and adding embellishments, this is what gave them their personality. I decided to learn how to use my Mum's sewing machine and got very excited about how much time I would save on the basic sewing - more time to spend embellishing and embroidering! More time to spend sewing buttons and ribbons! Yay!

Full of enthusiasm I dragged my mum's machine to the kitchen table, declaring to my parents that I was going to teach myself to use it. Surely it couldn't be that complicated. I looked at the machine. It looked at me. I looked at the instructions. Hmmmm. This looks confusing. Bobbins....feed dogs.....zipper feet.....what??! No, I must be able to do this - when I was young I had a cute little kid's sewing machine which my Grandma taught me to do patchwork on. Somehow it didn't seem so complicated then.

Back to the instructions. The problem was that these seemed to assume a certain degree of knowledge which I didn't really have. I puzzled over the instructions. I had a mini tantrum. Then I went to fetch my mum! Mum is hardly an expert on these things (she only bought the machine to take up trousers which are always too long for her) but I thought she might know more than me.

Between us we managed to get the machine threaded, break and fix the bobbin case and FINALLY do some basic stitches. Some of this started to seem familiar again. I stopped sulking. Maybe my plan would work after all. Ooooh, those funny decorative stitches were pretty cool. I could use that when I was making faces for my monsters.... Hurrah! Excitement regained I spent some time practicing the different stitches, experimenting with different stitch lengths and widths and had a go at sewing a curve - wobbly!

I pretty soon got bored with practising and wanted to have a go at actually making something. I grabbed some felt, sketched a quick pattern and got started. Ta-da! My first machine sewn monster:

Ok, I know he isn't too great but not bad for a first attempt? I sort of forgot that if I sewed on the line of my patten then when I turned it the right way out it would be a bit smaller than planned! I also didn't have any suitable lavender coloured thread to stitch up the stuffing hole so I ended up having to do a kind of decorative stitch all the way round the outside. I know, I know it basically made the machine stitching pointless and it turned out a bit messy! Ho-hum. All good practice anyway!

Undeterred I decided to make another felt monster. I liked the basic pattern but he needed to be bigger. I also decided to make him double sided - different colours and expressions on each side. I did this partly because I thought it would be cool but mainly because I didn't have enough felt to do all of the body in one colour!! Take two:

Yay, that's better. Still not perfect but a great improvement. Plus I added dots. I love dots :o)

I was starting to enjoy myself now! I raced to the shops to get more felt with lots more ideas for things to make.

A week or so later I was getting pretty proficient with the machine and had made a few different things but I did go back to this design and make one more monster for my friend Vicky who had inspired me to start crafting again a few weeks earlier. This is her monster:

Bright enough for ya? Hmmm, maybe I did get a bit over exited in that felt shop! Still loving those dots though.

I will post more photos of the things I have made next time. I've got to get back to the machine now....

Bye

Dotty xx

Even more sock monsters

2009-03-31T15:50:00.011+01:00

I promise to stop blogging about sock monsters soon......but they are the things that got me back into crafts so before I do I just wanted to show you a few more!

First a couple of monsters made from those funny socks that seperate your toes like gloves:

I'm really pleased with these two - the stripey socks seem to work really well for sock monsters. These are the only ones I've made with socks I've actually worn but I did make sure they were clean first!

I also tried some with knee high socks.....

This is my first attempt - he is called Wigmore. My mum mentioned that she knew someone called Wigmore and I thought it was such a genius name that I knew I had to call one of my monsters that! He was fun to make although the long arms and legs do take a long time to stuff and it is difficult to stop them being a bit lumpy. I don't think I quite achieved it here!

Next I decided to try out an idea I had for using one sock to make a kind of snail's shell. I also decided to add some legs because, afterall, he is a sock monster and not a sock snail! I haven't managed to get him to sit up quite like I wanted but still, I think he has potential:

Lastly I decided to make a friend for Wigmore (and for my dad because Wigmore was his favourite!). He is called Waldorf. Unfortunatley the picture quality isn't that good but this picture makes me laugh - I think they look like a couple of old men, sitting on a bench and watching the world go by!

That's all for now. In my next post I will try and talk about something other than sock monsters!!

Dotty xx

The sock monsters multiply

2009-03-26T09:56:00.021Z

I'd enjoyed making my first sock monster so much that immediately I started on the next one. This time I wanted to design it from scratch myself.

This is my second sock monster. What do you think? I wasn't too keen to start with! He looked awful til I added the antennae. I think the problem was that you couldn't see he was made from socks and what is the point of a sock monster who doesn't look like he is made from socks! I decided to return to the original design.

Monster number three. Cute eh? And I think did the mouth better than I had done for Yerk.

Next I decided to have a go at Nicky's method for making a sock monster - where the heel of the sock is used for the bum rather than the mouth. I added features using felt and I think he turned out pretty well :o)

After that there was no stopping me....the sock monsters started to multiply....

The first sock monster

2009-03-24T10:28:00.012Z

In January I was bumbling around with nothing much to do except feel sorry for myself when I visited a friend, Vicky. We chatted and she showed me a present she had made for one of our mutual friends - it was an elephant made of grey socks. It made me laugh. And got me thinking....

I felt inspired and really wanted to make something to do. The elephant she had made was fab but I wanted to do something slightly different. I wanted to make something brighter and more colourful. I also wanted something that would be forgiving if I made little mistakes as I went along - the problem with an elephant is that everyone knows what an elephant is supposed to look like!

I vaguely remembered seeing something about sock monsters. That sounded appealing - no one knows what a monster looks like so there was an opportunity to be creative (and possibly make mistakes!). I hit the internet.

There was so much out there - who knew sock monsters were so popular? In the end I followed several patterns to come up with my own monsters. I used the Blue Peter website (if kids can do it surely I can!), the poster on Nicky's blog Monster-Munch (which is definitely worth a read, she has made some great things) and a tutorial for a sock monkey on Craftbits. I grabbed some M&S socks and was ready to begin....

When I told Vicky my plan she told me to take WIP (work in progress) pics to email to her so for this project I can even show you some of the stages.

(Sorry for the poor picture quality - I didn't know anyone was going to see them at the time!)

I think the mouth was the hardest part and it took a couple of attempts to get it right. The buttons were just random ones I had stashed. It was a simple little project but I really enjoyed making my little monster friend and I was pretty pleased with the end result. Meet Yerk:

Yerk looked so sad and lonely sitting there on his own - I knew I would have to make him some friends. Besides I still had the remains of that three pack of socks to use up!

I'll introduce you to some of Yerk's friends in the next post...

Dotty xx

Why start a blog?

2009-03-23T15:14:00.004Z

This is something I've been thinking about a lot over the last few weeks.

At the moment I have a lot of spare time on my hands. Too much time! I've been off sick from work since November 2008 for a variety of complicated and exciting reasons which I won't go into here. This has given me a lot of time to think. Maybe too much! I think I was starting to go slightly insane until....I started crafting again!

I always loved arts and crafts as a child. I was always cutting and sticking . I hoarded shiny pieces of paper, funny buttons and ribbons from chocolate boxes. My parents' house was covered with slightly wonky sculptures and gaudy handmade pictures! I wasn't particularly talented but I made up for it with enthusiasm!

Sadly, as I grew up and life took over I seemed to grow out of my most creative hobby. There were always too many other things to do - exams to take, Saturday jobs, more exams, friends to see, even more exams and then a high pressure job to work too hard at! You get the picture. I still fitted in making handmade cards for my family every so often and still kept random bits and pieces that inspired me but that was the extent of my creativeness.

In January this all changed. After being inspired by a friend (more of which in a later post) I tentatively began a small sewing project. Before I had even finished my head was swimming with more plans and ideas. I was excited. Thinking creatively seemed to make me feel more alive again. I even felt slightly healthier.

Since then my output has been prolific. Most of the things I have made are plush toys and pin cushions, some based on my own designs and some from other peoples patterns. The more I do, the more ideas I have. The more I explore other peoples blogs the more inspired I become. I don't have enough room in my head to contain all the ideas I have and all the crafts I want to try! My parents' house is once again covered in my creations!

I decided to start a blog to document my adventures and experiments in crafts. To keep a record of what I learn and what I make. I promise to show the good and the bad! I will also post links to other blogs and pictures that I find inspiring. Hopefully someone will read my blog one day and be inspired to make something themselves and maybe that someone will find it as therapeutic as I have...... That's the dream anyway.

Bye for now.

Dotty xx

PS. I may well add in some other non craft related ramblings as I blog. I'm not really sure how this will all work at the moment so I guess we'll just see what happens...... I'm looking forward to it!