Exciting Times

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!

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

Octomonster!!

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?

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

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