Craft, Hobby & Stitch Show

I spent the day the Craft, Hobby and Stitch Trade Show at the NEC, which is always one of the highlights of the year. Maybe its because I went on the Monday and not the Sunday, but it did seem a quieter show than usual. This was actually an advantage as I was able to spend plenty of time stopping to chat as I met old friends and also meant that I could get close to the demos.
Here is Tim Holz demoing a resist technique with embossing powder and Distress Inks...

and this is his floral wreath made from grunge paper.

I also watched Suze Weinberg demonstrating Melt Pot art - nothing particularly new, but it did make me promise myself to have another play with this technique later in the week.

I went back to the Personal Impressions stand 3 times in the hope of seeing my friend Lindsay, but each time she wasn't there!! Where were you Lindsay??

My other favourites from the show were all textile related. Viridian was definitely the best yarn stand -

http://www.viridianyarn.com/ . They produce wonderful sock yarns and have some great designers on board. My hands hurt too much if I use the finer yarns these days, but I still like to admire them.

There were plenty of Ooohs and Aaahs on the The Button Company stand. As well as selling buttons, they are distributing for The Cinnamon Patch. This is a french company producing wonderful kits that are a unique mixture of patchwork and embroidery and combine felt with cotton fabric. They were right up my street! http://www.thecinnamonpatch.com/

So its been a fantastic day, full of eye candy, and a wonderful antidote to the grey, biting cold outdoors. My head is swimming with ideas - now all I need is the time to put them into practice!

Where DID January go?

I can't believe how fast the time has gone, and how bad I've been at blogging this month. So what have I been doing that has kept me otherwise occupied, you might ask.....well very little it seems!

At the start of the month I revelled in the snow - the breathtaking beauty of it all, the way normal activities just ground to a halt and the way everyone was talking about it. I went for long walks in it, I spent ages clearing it off my car every day and I just looked at it. If it was beautiful during the day it was mind bogglingly incredible at night.

I had a large order for knitted baby shoes, so that kept me out of mischief for a while, and then a few days ago the same person asked if I could come up with a baby beanie with a flower embellishment. This was just the push that I needed. Having spent the month tootling along, basically enjoying myself I was up for a new challenge. Although I have knitted all my life, I have never really mastered crochet properly. i have a blitz every now and again,trying to improve my skill, but always revert back to knitting. I managed the daisy fine, but then I tried to do a crocheted leaf. Uh oh! I spent all one afternoon trying to do a crochet leaf! I was never ever happy enough with my efforts, so in the end I knitted them. I'm really pleased with the outcome, even though I'm not going to enjoy sewing them up - all those ends to sew in !

I've also been doing some more bookbinding, and perfecting a new technique, but I'm going to leave that for a February blog!

Walking on water

I thought I would share these pictures of one of our cats that we took a couple of days after Christmas. The snow had just dissappeared from the lawn, but the pond was only just beginning to thaw. It has one very large, free floating sheet of ice across it. This is Saffie, gingerly testing it out to see if it would take her weight. As you can see, water did immediately flood over the top of the ice, but I'm happy to say she made it safely to the other side.

Christmas was a very hectic as we has a total of 9 people in our house but was thoroughly enjoyable. I have managed to do some crafting since though. These are two pictures of a hard backed journal I have made using an exposed binding style called Long Stitch, Link Stitch. It is one of my favourites at the moment.

The dream wording is stamped and then inked to co-ordinate with the cover papers. I made the book cloth for the spine specifically for this journal. I cut the cloth a little wider than I needed, but backed just the
correct width with Bondaweb. This meant I could fray the edges before I ironed on the backing paper

I'm pleased with the effect, so I think it will be popping up on a few more of my jounals soon.

Finally, I thought I'd just share one of my crafting Christmas presents with you

- "Taking Flight" by Kelly Rae Roberts.

It is as it says on the cover a mixture of techniques an inspiration. Its a book to dip into many many times, each time finding something new, and above all its a book to pick up when you are feeling negative or frustrated with your craft work, because I can assure you it will change all the "I can't"s into "I can"s. I thoroughly recommend it.

Sssh! Don't tell

I have been hiding away in my workroom for the last few days making a couple of Christmas presents. I'm taking a big risk here - I have to hope that the people they are meant for don't decide to look at my blog until after Christmas!
This first journal is made mostly from re-purposed fabrics and the nice thing is that the person who receives this one actually gets their own item back in a new form! She was just about to put a favourite old dress in the charity bag when I stepped in and requested it. It had an under skirt with a gathered trim along the edge and a small floral print cotton top layer. I have managed to incorporate both pieces into the front of the journal, added some extra lace trim and finished the edges off with a decorative machine stitch.
I set an eyelet into the tab so that I could loop a suede leather cord through to use as a wrap around tie to keep the journal closed.


The second gift journal is made in the same way as the one I showed you in the long stitch tutorial. Its even got the same decoration on the front, but in a different colour.
Yes.. I know..."No imagination!" I can hear you saying, but Hey guys it is Christmas, and just like the rest of you, I'm pushed for time and right out of ideas!

I think this might be the last post before Christmas, so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry time and hope that you get all the crafting goodies that you are wishing for!!

Eureka moment

Ever since I was a child I have always hand made many of my Christmas gifts. One of the more memorable ones was a "granny square" crocheted poncho for my little sister. It would probably be wonderfully retro now. I remember staying up half the night to finish it and even then I think I had to give it to her with threads hanging and sew in all the ends later.

Last year I was frantically devising excuses to lock myself away in my bedroom and frantically knit a cow shaped cushion for my son - that was after completing a quilted knitting needle case for his girlfriend and a few other projects. I always naively think that 2 weeks is ample time to make the creations that I have dreamed up as being "the perfect gift" for a particular person.

You wouldn't believe the "still to make" list that is in my head at the moment!

Besides these gifts I also volunteered to make a couple of pairs of baby shoes for new family members of my sons' girlfriends. They had to be posted abroad and I wanted them to retain their shape. ( I was also thinking I might put them on Etsy as well).

I spent far far too long looking for suitable boxes to buy that didn't end up costing more than the baby shoes themselves - nowhere did the right size. I realised that I had to make the boxes. Now I quite like making boxes, but my lids are never a perfect fit for the base (this is the perfectionist in me talking). Most people say they are fine -but I always end up with at least half a dozen boxes because I think I'll just have one more go at making a better fit, and then another and then...... yeah, you get the picture!

Frustrated, I looked across at an scrapbook style explosion box I had made at least four years ago, still sitting on the coffee table......

......and that was my Eureka moment! It was a box, the lid size was not crucial as the sides will always spread to fit the lid. A pair of baby shoes was likely to fit in the bottom and the parents could fill it with photos and keep the shoes in it once the baby had outgrown them.

So this is what I made. I shortened the sides of the traditional scrapbook style box so that the shoes didn't look lost in the bottom and I co-ordinated the papers to match the shoes.

Now all I've got to do is get on with the rest of the handmade gifts!!