Something Old, Something New

It's been a while since I purchased any craft books - I find such a wealth of inspiration through blogs, Flickr, etc - but I still love to leaf through a good craft book. These are two I rediscovered this week, well I found one and searched the other one out as I knew I bought them both together. I meant to have a look at them yesterday but ended up working on my sewing machine all day - well I learnt a few things, and managed to simplify one of my 'tweedie' designs, so hopefully that will pay off in the long run!

I did love my old Singer sewing machine and don't think I've bonded so well with my new one (a Janome) but we were quite 'pally' with each other by the end of the day! It's a good machine really, I'm just a bit of a 'hand-sewing' fanatic - I like the peaceful, meditative nature of a sewing needle and thread - it can be very relaxing. Anyway these are the two books, one is all about doll-making - various techniques, styles, etc - I think I'd managed to teach myself the basics by the time I'd bought the book, but it's an interesting resource nevertheless. The other is really a compendium of crafts - really well illustrated, published by Dorling Kindersley and written by Miranda Innes - I love all the different crafts it covers, from mosaic to quilting, to glass painting, really good fun!

Well that was the old (books) and onto the new . . .

. . . a little set of matryoshka dolls which I made earlier in the week - they are about 3.5 inches tall, so quite dinky - I had a notion for making a set of mini-matryoshkas! I am lucky enough to have three shades of pink Harris Tweed at the moment, so I thought I'd make a 'raspberry ripple' selection of little dolls. They aren't listed yet - maybe later today after I've browsed through my books, as I'm relaxing today after all that slaving over my sewing machine yesterday - I have two 'tweedie' laptop sleeves made as a result though, so I'm feeling quite smug, hehe!

I'm going to start work on an order from my local Gallery shop (An Lanntair) this week - I wasn't sure if I was going to go the 'retail outlet' route this year, but it's good to have a presence in a shop, and even nicer to get a cheque in the post from time to time, so . . . :)

Off to have a nice relaxing day now and browse through some of my crafty books - think I deserve it after yesterday's 'sewing marathon'!

Happy Sunday :)

their creative space . . .

I'm all 'tweedied' out this week, so I'm handing over to my 8 year old who has been doing some far more interesting stuff! After giving his bedroom a good 'gutting-out', my Other Half and he, unearthed a kids art book with heaps of papier mache model instructions/ideas - a great book which has been used a number of times by both kids already. So this is what they are making . . . in the middle of the living room floor of course!

This is what it will look like when they are finished and I'll get my living room rug back - I'm sure we'll find some other kiddie junk to fill it with though!!! Bring back the lego - all is forgiven, hehe!

More creative peeps over at Kirsty's fab place :)

P.S. He is very excited about the gold belt buckle which we had to purchase a special tin of Airfix gold paint for - it had better work well or there'll be tears at bedtime, mark my words! : /

New 'tweedie' Matryoshkas

I had a real notion for making a 'tweedie' matryoshka doll in jet black Harris Tweed, so I made this largest one at the weekend. I held back from showing it on my blog yesterday though, as I really wanted to have a go at making a threesome, nesting on the little hessian bags I use for packaging. There's something about making three of them like this that I like - they look so cosy all together! There's a hint of the orient here - it emerged from nowhere but I quite like it.

I used wool felt for the embellishments and had more fun with sequins - Oh, I do like a bit of bling! They look quite cute with their little heads popping out of their hessian bag . . .

I would love, love, love, to try them in different colours - so for this reason I'm going to add them as a 'made-to-order' item on my own website and also on Etsy. They do look quite slick in the black though. Next weekend I would like to have a go at making them up in some of my 'winter white' Harris Tweed - yes, I AM going to cut into it, hehe! These are such fun to make - I enjoy the whole process, and embroidering the faces gives them their own little personalities.

Pink, red, yellow, green, blue, traditional herringbone, plaid - I'd love to try them all!

Later in the day I decided to make a little set of miniature Matryoshkas which I think would be really fun for little girls (or Big girls!). These ones won't have any sequins, just a bit of embroidery - I'll show them later in the week :)

I will, will, will, get some 'froggie' kits made up this week - as soon as I pull the reigns in and make myself 'behave'! Coming soon I promise :)

P.S. I think I will be handing over 'my creative space' to 'Little S' this week - he's got some interesting things going on, will make a nice change from my 'tweedies'!

Bye for Now :)

Using Felt - Eureka!

Over the past four years since I started making 'soft-toys/softies', I must have spent hours trawling the internet for the perfect felt to use in my projects. I've always loved using felt with Harris Tweed - the contrast in the textures is lovely! At the weekend I decided to try a little experiment which seemed to work really well.

Firstly though, I thought I'd share a little of the knowledge I've gleaned over the years about purchasing felt on the internet. I've always found this to be extremely hit and miss - there's a multitude of quality, weight, acrylic/wool, etc. I've used all types - acrylic, acrylic/wool mix, 100% wool, I think they all have their own individual use, depending on what you're using them for. The one thing I've recently taken notes on is the thickness of the felt, which for one reason or another is quite important to me.

Apart from using felt in my 'softies', I also use it as a lining fabric. If you're looking for felt of a specific thickness, this is the guide I've taken notes for, for myself. Not hard and fast rules - just a guide!

Felt Thickness

1 mm felt - your standard acrylic felt craft sheets tend to be about 1 mm, useful for anything - applique, embellishments, etc. Not very heavy obviously, but you can get it in all sorts of colours and it's fun to use.

2 mm felt - I've purchased quite a selection of 2 mm felt recently, partially for use as a lining fabric. I needed a stronger, heavier felt so 2 mm thickness seemed about right.

3 mm felt - now you're talking!! Some of my 'softies' require felt of an almost rigid thickness/quality eg. the antennae on my ladybirds, the bee-sting on my bumblebees, well you can't have a floppy bee-sting, can you , hehe!! 3 mm felt seems to be the correct thickness to look for if you're wanting a heavyweight thick felt.

'Sandwiching' Felt - Eureka!!

Sometimes I have to resort to sandwiching felt together using fabric glue to get the thickness I require. It's a bit of a 'faff' but sometimes necessary. However at the weekend, I decided to try another method of 'making' thick felt. I've had some Bondaweb in for some time - I only use it occasionally. I'm not sure what the US equivalent is, but you know the stuff I mean - fusible web for bonding fabrics together eg. for doing applique work, etc.

Well, it occurred to me, why not try using Bondaweb to fuse two layers of felt together to create a double thickness - Eureka!!, it worked! Quite often I use felt from Myriadonline - a lovely 100% wool felt in really pretty colours. It's probably about 1.75 mm thick, lovely quality but I wanted it to be thicker and the Bondaweb experiment worked - I was delighted to get the weight of felt I wanted at last! A lovely 3 mm+ thick felt. I've ony tried this once, so it's not a guaranteed success but it's a good start!

So if you're using felt in your softie-making, craft projects, etc, I hope this is of a little help. If you have a rough idea of the thickness of felt you're looking for, it makes it so much easier to purchase it online if you know the difference - thickness is often described in millimetres (mm). I'm off to 'sandwich' some felt now, well perhaps after I've done some darned chores, hehe!

Happy Monday!

Thinking . . .

'Smaoineachadh' is the Gaelic word for 'thinking'. I haven't embroidered any text for a while and this weekend I planned to take a little time out to think about what crafting projects I want to concentrate on, rather than rushing in madly like I sometimes do! Now, where was I . . .

Have a lovely weekend :)

my creative space . . .

At the old 'office job' today - but got home to a lovely delivery of tweed. The weaver lives to the north of the island in a village called Ness. I'd spotted a beautiful 'natural white' tweed amongst his selection, so I just had to . . . :) I was struggling to take a photo of it to show you how beautiful it is, so I draped it around my shoulders and now I really love it even more - darn you 'Creative Space'!!! - I'll have even more difficulty cutting into it now :D

Here's the lovely card which came with it . . .

It tells the tale of this beautiful cloth . . .

. . . I love this fabric - it makes me feel completely in tune with my culture and surroundings. Why wouldn't anyone love it - it's beautiful!

More creative spaces here :)

Oidhche Mhath!

All the Greens (almost!)

I'm trying to squeeze the last few days into one post - it's probably not a very good idea, but!!!

We've been busy trying to do a declutter of our little house on top of the hill - I think April has been officially earmarked as Spring-cleaning month, so I have to grab the urge before it dissipates, pheeeew, I'm tired just thinking about it! Horsing on though . . . . :) (Hope any family members are impressesd by this new impetus, if they are reading my post, hehe!)

On to more interesting topics though! I grabbed a quick unexpected hour or two at the weekend (we still had a couple of days of family holiday left) to cut out some froggie legs and eyes for my new kit - it was great to get this part done, as the instructions are all ready, it's just the donkey work of cutting and assembling remaining to do.

So Mr Froggie has been officially dissected - it was a very clean procedure though, no blood and guts, honest - just stuffing, tweed and felt, hehe!! He should be available as a kit, certainly by next week, just got to get a little assembly line going - now where's my youngest child gone? :)

Last night I was invited to the local church group to give a little display/demonstration of my crafts, along with 5 other crafty local ladies. Not being a regular church-goer, this was slightly alien territory for me, but it was a fun evening and I even sold a couple of my applique maps (at much reduced prices, hehe - well half my customers seemed to be relatives!!). Here's the map I was using to give a demonstration of my hand sewing techniques . . .

. . . and here's a finished one which my husband's aunt purchased off me - I'll be framing this one for her so she can send it to her daughter in Canada. I sold a ready-framed map to another lady who was also going to post it abroad to a relative (which is exactly one of the ideas behind making the maps - as gifts for Hebrideans now living further afield - the felt map is of the Outer Hebrides/Lewis and Harris).

The maps are a bit of a nightmare to cut out which is probably why I didn't really continue making them in batches, but I have a little store left of them, so . . . craft fairs coming up soon! I still love to make them though - I think they're a nice souvenir item for visitors, just pretty time-consuming to make! (they're available to purchase on my own site)

At the end of the evening the organiser of the church group asked the craft ladies to choose a free gift from their bring-and-buy stall as a thankyou for doing their displays - I spotted this lovely quilted pin/needle case and couldn't resist it - it's beautifully made:

All in all, quite a pleasant evening and I only had to go 5 minutes down the road - hmmm, perhaps I should start going to church, my mother-in-law would be delighted, hehe!! :)

P.S. One of the ladies demonstrating her craft was showing her beautifully handmade quilts (I think maybe she made the needle case) - I couldn't take photos though as it didn't seem quite the thing to do!