I’m back!

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:

More detail in later posts…..

I’m looking forward to it.

Dotty xx

Hours of Stitching

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

Latest Monster!

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.....

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!!

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!

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