Return of the . . . .

This morning I discovered an interesting (and purely accidental!) design feature of one of my 'reworked' tweedie creations - the ability to wrap itself up into a neat little egg-shaped parcel, handy for taking a snooze or for travelling from 'A to B' :) Can you guess what it is? A little clue - it's a smaller version of an older design . . .

I'll show a pic of some more of them when they're 'hatched' - still in the incubation stage, hehe :)

Make a 'Musical Note' Embroidered Badge - my 'ahem' first tutorial!

I've been making fabric covered buttons for some time now and really enjoy making embroidered buttons. I love the added texture that the embroidery gives to the button. However, I've been looking longingly at them and wishing I could make them into badges - but how?? With the possibility of the music festival craft fair coming up I though it would be fun to try and make some tweedie badges, so here's how I did it - this is a 'no glue' version, although I'm going to try the 'with glue' version later this week!

For the purposes of this 'alternative tutorial' I stole a few items from various members of the family and used other scraps in the process! If I was a little more organised I might have had them to hand :)

Just to note, I don't own a badge-maker, button-maker, or anything similar (although it would be fun to have one!). To make this 'Musical Note' embroidered badge you will need to 'steal' or find the following items around your home (excl button-blanks):

button blanks (available from good haberdashers), safety-pin (or steal one off your kid's old 'Dalek' badge like I did!!), fabric scraps (linen or denim would work equally well), matching felt for covering the reverse of the button, embroidery thread, old cardboard to mount your badge prettily for a gift or for sale at your next fair :) Oh, and a Guitar/song book for musical note inspiration!! ('hubby's Beatle songbook made for an 'arty' backdrop, hehe!)

Firstly, remove the metal wire loop with pliers, or your fingers, as you won't need this part of the button, then make up your covered button according to the manufacturers instructions. Now you want to cover the reverse of the button in order to attach a safety pin to it. Cut out a small felt circle (using a matching colour if possible), which is slightly smaller than the back of the button itself. Slip stitch the felt circle onto the reverse of the covered button at the very edges, just catching enough fabric to attach the felt.

Now attach the safety pin (the one you stole fom your kid's old badge if you don't have any!!), to the back of the felt covered reverse - use a few stitches to make sure it stays in place. Make sure the felt you use is quite strong or use double thickness of felt for strength.

You can now embroider whatever motif you like onto the button front:

I embroidered a musical note using a simple back stitch - just bring your needle through a little way from where you are starting to sew on the button, make a double stitch and start sewing - cut off the excess thread when done. I used tweed to cover my button but you could use linen or denim to make a nice backdrop for embroidery stitches. I cut some old left over corrugated card to display the button as a gift/craft fair item.

To attach the button to my 'doodled' card I sewed a small stitch on either side of the button, taking the thread through to the back. I used one of my address labels to hide the stitch and added instructions to remove the button, hehe!! ("Remove sticker and cut thread to release the music!")

I'm looking forward to trying a few other musical notes/doodles/flowers, etc to these, for my craft fairs - let's face it, anyone can afford to buy a badge in these hard times, surely!!? I'll try the 'with glue' version later this week when I get some brooch-backs. This would mean simply using 'super glue' and attaching a brooch back to the metal reverse of the covered button - ach, too easy!!! :)

Sorry, very long post/tutorial, but I hope it's of use if you want to make some fun embroidered buttons as gifts, or for sale - this is a 'freebie' tutorial, just don't use Harris Tweed pleeeease, hehe!! P.S. You could embroider numbers, letters, for fun kids-versions :D

Drat, wish I'd thought of this for my little nephew's 3rd birthday this week - Ah well, maybe he'll get a belated one! : /

Edited to add: I must credit ressurection fern for her tutorial which gave me the basic idea of how to convert the fabric button to a badge, by using a felt backing - thankyou :)

Oooooops!

Ooooooops! So busy, I forgot to blog about what I've been so busy doing! To be honest I've been having a busy week doing things that aren't really easy to blog about and put into words and pictures. Busy redesigning my iphone pouches and laptop sleeves - both of which I'm really pleased with. The lovely girls in the office where I work, tried and tested out my new iphone design and gave me some good pointers, so that was really helpful. They also really loved them, which was nice!!

I carried through the same method of making the sleeves/pouches for my laptop sleeves . . . or was it the other way about, now I can't remember!! Either way, I got there in the end :)

We are still having sunny weather here, but a bit cold - you can't have everything! I took this photo of a rusty washing line post, at the back of our house this evening - 'teenage son' and his pals, seem to have replanted it there for some reason - perhaps they thought it was modern art or something, hehe!

Some 'tweedie' beach-balls to make for the Gallery shop next week, and then free to do as I please 'craft-wise'. I've just heard that 'Sounds in the Grounds', the fun music festival I had a stall at last year, is on again and have been invited to attend again this year - I was delighted to be asked! 'Live' music and a craft stall - sounds good to me! Better get crafting :)

Now I remember . . .

Wild flowers, flotsam and jetsam, a happy boy with a buoy, blue skies:

Now I remember why a few hours on a beautiful Hebridean beach can be so pleasureable . . .

Hope you had a good May holiday weekend - I'm feeling refreshed after a little break from 'tweedying'. Some new designs emerged at the weekend and my Gallery order is progressing well after realising I have some stock ready made which will cut my work in half - hurray!

Back to some fun creating soon, as I hope to have a craft fair at the end of the month - always an incentive to get some new work done!

Cheerio an Drasda :)

Merry Go Round - April

It's the last Friday of the month, which means it's 'Merry Go Round' post time! I have joined with a lovely group of crafty/arty ladies who meet up once a month to discuss a chosen theme or topic. This month we each had to make something for another 'Merrier' in the group and then show what we have received in this post.

The handmade gift I received from Agathe was absolutely amazing, and as I mentioned to her, I think I gasped when I opened it as it was so unexpected and so fabulous! Agathe was keen to note the link between Scotland and France, and used this amazing hessian fabric which features a thistle emblem and a 'Fleur de Lys' emblem, to create this lovely and roomy shoulder bag - how cool is that!!

Agathe and I don't really know each other that well, so I thought it was quite amazing that she made something which appealed to me so much - she must have a little ESP I think! Here's some pics of the lovely bag:

Lovely button feature . . .

. . . and roomy pockets inside:

and her own classy designer label too . . .

Thank you Agathe - it was a lovely gift to receive and I know I will get lots of use out of it! My handmade gift was for Fabienne, if you want to check it out :)

See what 'goodies' the other 'Merriers' received below:

Mitsy at ArtMind
Kim at Vilt a la Kim
Sara at Saras Texture Crafts
Fabienne at Easterya Jewellery
Mariana at Florcita
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent
Lily at Lily Pang Art and Design
Ruth at Birdland Creations

If I'm a little more absent from my blog over the next couple of weeks it's because I'll be trying to get some of my Gallery shop stock together - I MUST be disciplined and get down to some hard graft, hehe! Well it's nice to get that occasional cheque in the post and it keeps my little business ticking over (just!). I'm sure I'll manage to peer out from my mountain of tweed from time to time though :)

Byeeeee!

my creative space . . . is very quiet

My creative space is a very quiet one today - Thursdays quite often tend to be my 'catch-up' day, when I try and do the 'other stuff' which I haven't got round to through the week, as I've either been too busy crafting, or at my office job. My youngest had a sleep-over at his grandparents last night, so it is extra quiet this morning - how weird does that feel! I have to say that last night I really missed having him about - I hope he had fun though and I'll soon hear all about it when he returns shortly, they have to grown up, don't they!

Here's some lovely leather buttons I got in the post yesterday - they are new ones as I was too impatient to wait to come across any old, unwanted ones but I'd love to use vintage ones too as they have such a lovely history attached to them.

I just spotted this piece of tweed in my stash this morning, so thought it would make the perfect background to take a pic of my new buttons. The tweed has been stamped with the official Harris Tweed Authority trademark - quite a cute memento to have - I'll frame it or something some day!

Visit some busier 'creative spaces' here :)

Old Tweed Jackets!

I was rummaging in the family button tin last night and came up with a new design for my Harris Tweed i-phone pouch. For a while now I've been wanting to come up with a more traditional/masculine version of my 'embroidered button detail' design which is very much a feminine i-phone pouch in appearance.

I've been musing about how to add a design feature to a more traditional style of pouch without it looking too 'girly' and I'm hoping this one, inspired by 'old tweed jackets' will fit the bill. I used a double thickness of strong black felt as a tab closure with velcro fastening - the leather button is a design feature. I can understand why they used leather buttons on tweed jackets now - I think they're lovely! The pouch would look very classy in some of my traditional herringbone tweed I've been using recently - once I source more of the buttons I'll add it as a custom design, but hopefully some 'ready-made' ones will pop up in my Etsy shops soon too!

Not just for the boys these - if you're like me you probably have a secret passion for these traditional 'suiting' tweed patterns, there's something very romantic about them!

Sheeeeesh, just look at me making gadget pouches, it's enough for me to remember to charge my mobile phone, at the best of times - funny old world!

Cheerio an Drasda - off to scramble about for more old leather buttons :)