Winnie The Witch

K's school have combined World Book Day and Red Nose Day this year, meaning you only have to do one day of dressing up etc. This is a good plan as they're so close together, and it gave us plenty of time to let rip with our creative efforts. K is a huge fan of Winnie The Witch, written by Valerie Thomas & Laura Owen and illustrated by Korky Paul; and so am I, for that matter. Korky Paul's attention to detail is something I really admire, and having a familiar character who goes with you from picture books to longer-form stories has been a great help in building K's reading confidence. When you're five with a reading age of nine, it's very hard to find the right books and Winnie has done us proud.


(I wish I could get a bigger image here so you can compare but I don't want to fall foul of copyright and I don't understand "fair use" regulations so please go to Winnie's Official Website to compare our effort to the original illustrations!)

We also went to see the Watershed Theatre production of Winnie just after Christmas - that was amazing, do go and see it if it tours near you! Watershed are really one of those theatre companies it's worth going to see any time, whatever they're doing. A lot of what's aimed at children feels like it's second-rate because "kids won't notice". Well, they do - and I do - and Watershed never skimp on the details.

I was a bit dubious when K first suggested Winnie as her costume because it really is quite complex - I know my sewing skills definitely aren't up to making it from scratch (especially having seen the Watershed-made costumes recently!). Then I remembered her older cousin had given her a bagful of outgrown dance costumes (thank you R!), one of which was blue with a pleated skirt. That was all I needed to get my brain churning on how I could adapt it and add the accessories. Because just as Watershed never skimps on the detail, neither does K. She is a tough task master and a stickler for detail, so it's a good job I'm a slightly obsessive crafting nut, ahem.

Here is her completed costume, and I'm going to describe each step we took in case they're useful for anyone else in the future. I also think it's a great journey piece, pulling together lots of different crafting techniques and ideas. I'm quite proud of what I've managed to do here, and whilst it may be a bit OTT for a school costume to some people, I've really enjoyed it and K's very happy. Which, in the end, is what's important, no?

The completed outfit

Dress Frill
First things first: you'll need a blue dress to cannibalise and pretty much anything will do. Could I get the frill on the dress? Yes, it turns out - 8m of lace later! I got this as an offcut from eBay, it's 14cm wide stretch lace and I just scrunched it as I stitched it to the bottom of the skirt; stitching along the middle of the lace so it flopped over and made a double row of frill. Between the pleats and the weight of the lace it twirls beautifully - an added bonus K was chuffed with!

Dress frill, tights and shoe buckles

Red & Yellow Tights
Next up, those tights. Have you any idea how impossible it is to find red and yellow striped tights? Go on, have a Google. There just aren't any. But having stitched the lace on, I wasn't going to let the seemingly impossible beat me. I batted around various ideas with my mum, like hacking up yellow leggings and stitching them onto red ones; but eventually decided on buying red and white striped tights. These are easily obtainable from costume shops (I got ours via Amazon as the nearest fancy dress place had sold out), and then we painted them with yellow fabric paint. Well, that was quite a job - if you ever need to do it, stuff the tights with plastic bags (turn the bags inside out or you get ink transfer from the print) and make sure you have somewhere you can hang them to dry. And three spare evenings. And an extra pair of hands (I roped in A for this job; thanks love!).

Shoe Buckles
The buckles were a last-minute idea - I'd racked my brains for weeks trying to work out how to come up with blue, gold-buckled pointy shoes which a 5yo could still run around the playground in. Sadly this bit defeated me - if I'd had another week I'd have tried to make a felt overlay, but the weather's so unpredictable it probably wouldn't have been worth it. Last night it occured to me I could still make buckles, though. Cut two yellow rectangles of felt, and two black ones the same size. Now cut out a square from the centre of each yellow square, making sure to line this up with where the shoelaces are. Glue the yellow to the black, pierce holes in the black and thread through the laces, knotting securely behind. Voila, shoe buckles.

Cardigan
Winnie's cardigan is adorned with little pearl buttons - I don't know if Korky Paul did this deliberately or what, but they're actually on the wrong side for a woman's cardigan! Again, you'll need a purple cardigan to cannibalise - go for a big size (this is an 11-12) and you can probably find one on eBay for a quid just as I did. Ditto the buttons; 20-odd 7mm ones here just stitched along the edge.

Pocket Contents
I forgot to check if the cardigan I'd bought had pockets, doh! So I just stitched on a felt one. Winnie often carries a frog around with her - just draw a leg and webbed foot onto green felt and stitch it down to the top of the pocket. She also carries lots of wands and I was a bit worried about this, not wanting to get K into trouble for any poking-with-sticks shenanigans. Then I hit on the idea of black plastic straws - safe and light to carry and not likely to hurt anyone accidentally. I just painted the ends white (in retrospect I would use acrylic paint or a poster paint/PVA mix because just poster paint alone did start to flake off early on).

Red Ribbed Cuffs
This is where we're getting deeply obsessive now, be warned. Winnie's purple cardigan has red cuffs! Good grief. I made these by crocheting as follows (UK instructions):

Ch5. Dc in 3rd ch from hook, dc to end (3 st). Ch1, turn. Dc in back loops only (3 st), ch1, turn, and do this for as long as strip as you need to go around the cuff. Double crocheting in the back loop only gives you the ribbed effect, and was inspired by the trim on the jacket I made for K's monkey. Thanks to Crochet For Bears To Wear for that one.

Wig
This was probably the most difficult part of the outfit, and next time I think I'd look into buying one. It's worked ok, but it's not so easy to keep on (K has been in school for an hour now and I'm guessing it's already been abandoned!). I just used loads of black yarn knotted around a soft stretchy Alice band, then plaited the back and added a wide yellow ribbon a la Winnie.

Hat
A real challenge - you'd think a conical hat would be simple, but no (it probably would have been if I'd made it from card!). A felt cone, reinforced with stiff interfacing and glued together with lots and lots of PVA gives it shape, with a sneaky stitch and some twisting of the end as it dried to give it that devil-may-care trailing end. Then stripes and shapes of felt glued over the top. If I'd been able to excavate my sewing machine, and had time to sew during the day when not baby-wrangling, I'd have cut the stripes out as curves and appliqued everything together. So this is a bit of a bodge job and is held on through stitching to the wig hairband, elastic, and lots of hope.

Finally, we added two long fake-pearl necklaces and bracelets (from Primark, ethical gods forgive me; ideally you want to dig these out from a charity shop or somesuch), and Snazaroo face paints for Winnie's long red nose and black lips. One more thing I'd like to have put with it - an amigurumi cat like the one I made for the Cat Swap last year - Winnie needs her beloved Wilbur. But I remember that took two week's worth of evenings to make. Maybe there'll be one in K's stocking at Christmas.

Abracadabra!

Newness

Well...sort of. I'm very short of time and hands at the moment - the vast majority of my sewing has been stitching in name labels to K's uniform as she starts school this time. And D has not been left out; I've made her two very quick stripy hats just in time for absolutely awful windy weather up at Grandma's over the bank holiday. That's nicely stashbusted my remaining Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK...now to find something to use up all that chunky Cashmerino on. But first, on with the Mr Sun commissions which have been quietly stacking up over Summer, oops.

I do love Autumn; much more than January it feels like a time for fresh starts. Which is, I suppose, all tangled up in the new school year and the old idea of Halloween being the start of the Celtic year. So here's my new workbox, which I "accidentally" picked up at Debbie Cripps when I went looking for cute buttons last week. It's SO nice to have everything in one place at last - although I have no more excuses to ignore the mending because I can easily find everything I need now! It's just about the right size for a couple of small crochet projects, some cross stitch, sewing or some combination thereof, although it's not big enough for a hoop. It's also safer, I think, I've had a bad habit of scattering my equipment left, right and centre.

A lovely box demands lovely accessories, so imagine my glee when I spotted Ali at Craft Matters was having a sale! A new pincushion and needlebook are mine, hurrah. Ali is also making me a new make-up bag. Mine is bursting at the seams and I can't see any way of getting to my sewing machine properly for the time being. I'm not sure what it's going to look like yet as I've chosen three gorgeous fabrics from Julia at Gone To Earth and asked Ali to surprise me. How exciting!

Speaking of Ali, she is moving - do catch up with her new blog at Very Berry Handmade and get in on the housewarming giveaway when it's up!

Spring Loveliness

I can't show you much of my own work at the moment, I'm afraid - between keeping some things hidden for the Cat Swap and Little Bump giving us a worrying time over Easter weekend (we are both fine but it was very scary!), to be honest I've not got a lot done. I'm exceedingly tired and even sitting to crochet is at best uncomfortable and at worst just makes me nod off.

However, I can show you my lovely K in her second brand new dress from ilovebreadandjam.com - an Easter gift from grandparents, and well-deserved as she's put up with a lot over the last few days of my being too shattered to do anything fun with her. She looks more grown-up than ever, I think. Like the previous dress, it's a great fit and washes and wears beautifully. Can't reccommend this shop highly enough!


I also wanted to show off these fab Spring Creatures K made at preschool - aren't they fun?


I have no idea what they're "supposed" to be, of course, but she is most insistent that the larger one "definitely has boobs for feeding babies, just like you mum". Apparently these were specially chosen and the creature even has boobs on its back "in case it has lots of babies".


I have got one thing of mine I can show you - apologies for the terrible picture; natural light in our house is hard come by and involves a certain amount of climbing/crawling; at almost 30wks pregnant I'm finding it very hard to reach! This is a stripy jacket for Little Bump in the 12mo size. It's from Crochet in No Time, of course, and uses Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino this time. It's the first time I've used the Baby version - just as nice to work with as the DK but with being thinner, doesn't work up quite as quickly as I'm used to. Still, it's progressing nicely and both K and I are pleased with the colours she chose - it's so nice to work with something that isn't pastel for a small child.


I do like the clever way these cardigans are put together, same as the ballet cardigans I did a while back - the sleeve is crocheted in a flat piece (you can just see the other side of it peeking out from underneath), and then instead of stopping there and having to set the sleeve into the front and back sides, the side is extended down and worked in stripes up and over the shoulder, back and forth until you get the whole of the front side and half of the back done. Repeat on the other side, and all you have to stitch together is the sleeve seams and one seam up the back. Much easier and sturdier, I think.

I *really* love Bread & Jam!

Look at my gorgeous girl in her gorgeous new dress! Not one of mine, I hasten to add - my sewing skills are really not up to dressmaking right now, but if I could make something like this, I surely would. It is honestly my ideal dress for a little girl - plenty of room to run in, cool enough for summer and enough room for a top underneath in winter; not a faff to wash or iron, and best of all...just look at that fabric. Bright and feminine, but not a sign of baby pink, no slogans, just a perfect Little Girl Dress in simple-to-care for fabric. This is the Runaway Dress from www.ilovebreadandjam.com, who I discovered on Sunday via a tweet from Little Stuff (who you may remember featured some of my work last year). Actually I'm quite jealous cos I think they should make grown-up sizes in these too (particularly if there's space for Little Bump - so fed up of nothing fitting properly at the moment!).

Small girl is VERY happy. I can't see us parting her from this dress any time this week, and you know what? I think she may end up with several of these this year (and of course Little Bump will grow into them eventually!). The fabrics are fantastic and I love that they're limited runs rather than mass-produced - although I am slightly cheesed off that my favorite Japanese print is sold out, ho hum. K loved being able to look at the range of prints and choose her very own - this took her eye straight away, but she was keen to page through the swatches and work out which one she really wanted.

Delivery was super-fast - we ordered on Sunday and here it is today - with good communication. The quality is lovely; the fabric is crisp but soft, the stitching firm and the top half of the dress is nicely lined in the same contrasting fabric as is around the hem. It's fastened with a concealed zip up the side, the first time K has had one like this, so I don't know how she'll deal with putting it on herself - but I'm grateful that it's not fastened with the fiddly little buttons the high street shops seem to think are the bee's knees (do they not realise buttons catch on long hair and rip it out?).

I asked K for her opinion:

"I like it! I like the blue zip, and I can run around fast or slow, and I like the pattern and it's really comfy. I'm extremely happy and I'm twirling around!"

Can't give a better review than that, can you...:D



I have no real craft news, sorry. I have managed to finish a few more preordered bits and pieces, but I'm on my third play-through of Dragon Age and the expansion pack is out in the US today...it should be with me next week. I think my brain is starting to pack to come home from a rather extended vacation, though - on Sunday K and I designed and stitched our very own pattern on some Binca and she learned how to cross-stitch, at least a little (a cat, natch). Once I can work out a downloadable format, I'll put that up - I've noticed a real dearth of free patterns for Binca so perhaps I'll do some work on that; it's a great way to start sewing and helps those all-important fine motor skills. Whilst I don't yet have Gamer's Thumb, I have wrenched my shoulder a bit just from sleeping awkwardly so I'm pacing my return to "work" easily when it comes to crochet and sewing myself. Making patterns should avoid that!

Course, I probably shouldn't have joined the Cat Swap over at ilovespoiltpig.com...but I have these gorgeous amigurumi kitty patterns I've been dying to try out!

Rocket Ship T-Shirt

Rocket Ship T-Shirt, as requested by K - she's at preschool at the moment, so I'm looking forward to seeing her face when she gets back! I'm quite pleased with this, other than the red and yellow pens being not so good - the yellow seems run out already, and the red comes out as this wishy-washy pink. The blue, green and black have come out well, though, and I like the sketchy effect from the black. They're brush pens, so a little difficult to control on a stretchy fabric like this, but overall I'm rather chuffed.

Must go and get the soda bread on...so much for working with the buttons this morning!

Iraqi Bundles of Love

What are you doing this afternoon? This weekend? Stop whatever you're doing for half an hour and destash. That's all it takes to get involved with this absolutely brilliant project. Face it, if you're a crafter you've got too much stuff. It's true of us all, whether you live your crafting life out of ugly plastic boxes like me, or have a full-on studio and all points in between. You know you've a yard of cotton or a handful of fat quarters doing nowt, that never fit into any project you can think of. I'm plenty sure you've a boxful of buttons, maybe some beads or sequins, an extra pair of scissors or some knitting needles you'll never use. Oh, and those spare balls of yarn that don't match anything, and short ends of ribbon? Grab them too, because whilst you don't really need them, there are plenty of women who do.

Iraqi Bundles of Love (yes, I know it's a little cheesy but bear with it) was set up by a serving soldier with the US Army in Northern Iraq. I found the link via SouleMama. He's from a family of quilters and clearly his mum (and his wife, natch) brought him up right because he knows crafters are generous people. Aren't we just? And that when we hear of fellow crafters not even having enough material to make their own clothes and keep themselves warm, we can't help but spring into action.

Here's the story from the horse's mouth, but briefly:

Iraqi Bundles of Love is a short-duration project, set to last about six weeks, originally intended to surge fabric and sewing (and knitting!) materials into the area around which I live in Iraq. It is timed to coincide with both Ramadan, and the departure of my units from Iraq. If you’re reading this, well — it’s kind of grown. It’s going to help a little bit more of northern Iraq than just the area around where I live.

It is intended to be a simple project, requiring little effort and little expenditures from those wishing to participate. It is based upon my assessment that sewing fanatics and quilters and knitters tend to have stashes that far exceed their actual needs, and that sewing fanatics and quilters and knitters are passionate both about sewing / quilting / knitting, and about sharing with others.

The stated intent of this operation is to put sewing and quilting and knitting supplies into the hands of two types of recipients: locals who desperately need such things, and local sewing co-ops and other small businesses who have received grants or loans (typically to purchase sewing machines, rent space, etc).

Got it? So you're already thinking about what you don't need, aren't you? Start digging. Here's the sort of stash needed and here's how to put it together. Rope your kids in, if you've got 'em, your cat if not. Or both.

HypnoKitteh sez "DESTASH NOW!"

Enslave small child to sort buttons (her idea, actually)

Now, if you're in the US (hello!), the mailing methods are within the last link; you'll be sending by APO and it'll cost you about $12 or so. Easy peasy. Hop to it - leave a comment on the IBOL blog anywhere to get the address. You need to get your parcel in the post by Tuesday. If you're in the UK or indeed anywhere in the EU, just find yourself a box that's roughly 12x12x5.5ins - ours was a bit longer and flatter, but you're looking to get somewhere between 1-2kg of stuff in there, ideally. Wing it - no excuses. Then leave a comment on the IBOL blog, making sure you write where you live, and you'll be emailed back with an address in the Nederlands (sadly there's no UK address) who will forward it on to Iraq for you. Now off you go to the post office. I sent ours by airmail, it was 1.9kg and cost me just over £10; obviously it'll vary depending on what you put in it - I included some heavy upholstery fabric so that did push it up a bit.

Here's our box:

First some fabric...

...then some yarn...

...got any notions?
We added beads, buttons, sequins, fasteners, scissors, needles and knitting needles

Now tie a bow - bonus cute kid

Optional going to town on decorating the parcel

Why do it? Because we, collectively, have made a right bloody mess of Iraq for years and years, first of all. Because it SUCKS not to have enough to even make your own clothes or blankets for your kids. Because this is something we can do, right here, right now, which will make a difference. Because winter's coming. Because it's practical - this is not your salary falling into a bottomless pit of charity donations, when you're never sure if your hard-earned pennies are going on office pencils or school textbooks. Because it's EASY.

This is sharing love - human to human, crafter to crafter, woman to woman, mother to mother, child to child. This is human. So get on with it. You've got a day or two before the deadline and it only takes half an hour, if that.

Poppies

A strange coincidence that this should arrive today. I tend to go for white poppies if I'm going to wear them at all (and I am not going to get into a debate about this, so don't bother - neither the time nor the place). I just happen to like poppies as a flower and they're easy to draw with a mouse. Maybe I should have had more white background on this!

Recently I had a go at designing some fabric via Spoonflower - a half-arsed attempt in the middle of the night, to be sure, but an attempt nevertheless. And it's here! Just a wee swatch, enough to tell me I need a lot more practice with The Gimp but it's quite hopeful. It's not bad at all, actually - perhaps a little thinner than I was expecting, it must be said, but I don't know much about fabric thicknesses so that's probably my misconception. It's about the same as some of the fat quarters I regularly work with so would be fine to order by the metre once I get a decent pattern going. The depth of colour is not quite what I'd wanted (I wanted a proper scarlet and it's a bit orange-y); again I think that's a fault of mine in not knowing enough about the graphics side of things. Given that the pattern was knocked up in 20mins flat at 2am I think it's not bad at all!

Spent last night cutting out fabric for the Out & About Books, and still have cake orders flooding in...guess I'm not going to get chance to have another play until well after Christmas. Ah well!

Three more sleeps till opening

And honestly, I'm shattered. All the first batch of pre-orders are done - that's well over 50 crochet cakes in a couple of weeks - and stock is piling up nicely. I have half a dozen little girl crochet bags done, a heap of "Out And About Books" (what are they? find out on Saturday!) and some pencil rolls to be starting off with, and several other things starting to germinate (stop, stop, my head is spinning and I still have at least 75 cakes to make!).

Some half-term. Between demos and enrolments for January, and all of the above, the last weekend in Wales seems like light years away already. I need a thoroughly good wind-down and quite possibly a mooch around Abakhan; I'm dying to try out Spoonflower but can't stay awake long enough to figure out The Gimp and get something workable going on.

Back to the sewing machine tomorrow...

Edited to add: what the hell. 30mins with The Gimp and $7 later, a swatch of my very own fabric design is on the way. It's probably rubbish because let's face it, it's 2am and I know sod all about drawing, let alone fabric design, but I just want to see how it comes out, damnit.

It's The End Of Term

...so I went to Hobbycraft. No, ok, it's not strictly the end of term as I still have two Wednesday classes to do, but it was the last of the Saturday classes for a couple of weeks. I am both relieved to have at least one weekend when I don't have to get up, and actually a bit sad - I've really, really enjoyed this term and I can't wait to see all the families again!
Anyway, I went to Hobbycraft because traditionally (if you can call two terms a tradition), I award myself a prize for a Job Well Done at the end of term. Last term I bought a nice necklace, but I couldn't find anything today so I went to Hobbycraft instead. I did need some brown thread to finish my tweedy bag - there is no reason I can't finish that now! I also bought:

• - Sparkley metallic machine thread in pale blue (Kerry, you are a BAD influence) - this is going towards making a mermaid tail skirt for K out of that bluey-green organza (many thanks to Dalerose for the idea).
• - Pale yellow ribbon with white dots, and 4 teeny-tiny ladybird buttons - these are for the doorstop I have in mind for K's room
• - 2m of 12mm elastic for making skirts for K with - she has suddenly decided she's into tights and skirts at the moment and she only has two which are still ginormous round the waist
• - A big plastic box for yarn
  
• - These two absolutely yum packets of fat quarters - these are my "don't know what do to do with these yet" indulgences because they were half-price

I also got Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker which I've been after for ages and was chuffed to find has a good explanation of yarns, a hook conversion chart AND a stitch name conversion (because, for example, double crochet isn't the same thing at all in English and American...argh!).


Speaking of crochet...oh dear. I couldn't resist the gorgeous, gorgeous cashmerino and had to start my hat last night. I was going to get some more "superchunky"-type wool as a treat today and everything just felt so rough in comparison! I have been spoiled rotten, it seems. I did find some "eco-wool" - undyed stuff, which I was really interested in, but I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head to use it for.

Right. Three rounds down, thirteen and a flower to go. Happy hooking, cos that's what I'll be up to!

PS no, you are not going cross-eyed, I changed the template is all. Whaddya think?

Fair Trade Fabrics

Whilst I try, at the moment, to use as much old/unwanted/second-hand material as I can for my projects, it can sometimes be difficult to get exactly what you need. I've found bag linings a bit of a challenge, for example, because you need something fairly sturdy for every day use and I am very hard on bags myself. Many of the things I'm making at the moment are occasional-use bags so I'm not too worried, but at some point I'm probably going to need to buy material. Or I'll want to make something from new for K and so on. I've been fretting a bit about how to source fabric which is ethical - it's such a minefield; should you go organic, look for environmentally-friendly dyes, or go Fair Trade? My head hurts just wondering about it.

Anyway, this morning I was perusing Georgie's parenting blog
Motherland, and she happened to mention her BIL's Fair Trade blog. Lo and behold, there's an entry on Fair Trade Fabrics. Just what I needed! So many thanks to Paul for that, it is much appreciated by this crafter and I hope other readers will take note too. I will also take the opportunity to note these Fair Trade buttons from Debbie Cripps again as well.

Now...anyone know if there's any such thing as ethically sound interfacing?

And the hunt was good...

I did buy rather more than intended (ooh, a whole £13's worth, shock horror), but most of it has a purpose already! So above we have:

• a small red crushed velvet top - because you can never have enough crushed velvet

• a small houndstooth skirt - which has rather more fabric than you'd think as it's pleated. Smart bag with this one, I'm thinking black cat applique

• a bluey-green silk mix shirt - probably the lining for the Amy Butler bag

• a red satiny paisley dress - complete with lining, several posh bags from this one, I think

• a pair of Wedgwood blue/floral curtains. I was going to use the latter for the AB bag lining but prefer the silk-mix, so I think there will be a few totes made from these. There's plenty of it, after all!

Now, about that Etsy shop I've been thinking about...

Anyway. Off to start the embroidery on the grey/fur bag!

A-hunting we will go

K and I are going shopping later - bimbling around the charity shops, that is, looking for the perfect bag lining. I had a bit of a brain-blarg last night and now I have THREE bags cut out and in various stages of readiness! I did spend some time with the sewing machine yesterday and my tweedy coat-to-bag is almost finished, but I am really struggling with the tension for this one and the thread keeps bird's nesting like mad. Sometimes it's fine and then for no apparent reason it goes nuts. So I'm running very low on brown thread to finish it off - it needs the lining sewing in on three sides and a strap making, but that's otherwise done.

Last night I cut out an Amy Butler pattern from a sweater I bought last summer and felted down - it's a lovely graduated grey stripe and feels so cosy and soft. Unfortunately I don't have a good lining fabric for it so that's what we're going looking for. I have something in pale blue in mind, maybe with little white flowers or lacy pattern, but that's the joy of second-handing - you have no clue what you'll run across and fall in love with.

My second coat-to-bag conversion has also been planned and cut out - for this I have everything I need, of course, as the lining is the coat lining and I'll be using the old fur collar as a trim (that said, I still haven't quite got my head around how/when to attach the handles). But I want to bead/embroider the front of it; since it's grey fuzz with grey fur I'm going for silver beads and thread.

My third bag wasn't cut out at all, actually, because it's a scarf-to-bag conversion for which I'll be putting up a tutorial once I get my head around Inkscape - this uses a 59ins fringed scarf to make a 10ins pocket bag, all by folding it back on itself to make the lining out of the same piece. If it all sews together properly, that is! I do have some embroidery to do on that; it has some multicoloured shishas on already but I want to add more and then the fringe will be beaded (and belled!).

I also have another two in my head planned out which I didn't get as far as doing last night - a small pouch bag from the black/brown patterned velvet skirt I bought on our last trip, and some kind of messenger bag from the fairly hideous turquoise/lilac check upholstry stuff I got from Unique Scrapstore last time. It looks like train seat fabric - and probably is - but I plan to cover it with crochet flowers (once I've learnt to do them). That needs a nice lining to be found, though, maybe we'll pick something up today.

So, that "not doing much" thing...it seems to have passed! And all of these things are recons, too - none of the fabric is new other than the interfacing, and some of the fixings I've bought specially. Even the beads and embellishments are all things I've got in, often left over from other projects. I think overall these 5-6 bags will cost me less than £30 to put together...not bad!

Hat!!!

Yippee!! Ok, I really don't go on eBay very much these days because I have tons of stash anyway, and it's probably a really stupid-ass time to start making a woolly hat (mind, if you've had snow like we've had today, it's not that stupid), but I've just managed to get a great big lot of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky for a fantastic price. And it's all lilac, which I love, plus a couple of balls of a pinkish colour. Brilliant, because the cloche hat I want to crochet has flowers on it. So stick that, Arctic winds - I WILL have warm ears next time we visit the NE!

Happy, happy, happy dance! I really have far too much wool in this lot for just one hat, though, so either everyone will be getting lilac hats for xmas, or I'll have to find another pattern which uses this wool. Given that I have half a dozen crochet books out from the library right now, I'm hoping that won't be too hard...

Right. I have an embroidery project to complete tonight, pic later. And perhaps I'll have the courage to get the sewing machine out, too. I will leave you with this link to Kitty-Craft, which I was introduced to today, who have the most INSANE Japanese fabrics which I am just drooling over.

Why is it...

...that the best ideas come to you when you're a million miles (metaphorically speaking, anyhow) from a sketch book? Last night cost me over an hour's sleep with fabric patterns floating around my head - I would have got up, but one of the mogs was determined to come up and be a pain and I'd had quite enough of barricading the stairgate so she couldn't! And I've just had to practically run down the stairs after getting K off to sleep so I could scribble down the perfect doorstop idea for her bedroom. It will match her picture book shelves and I need to practice ribbon embroidery to do it - just a very simple set of daisies and some nice buttons for the centres and some butterflies, and it absolutely positively has to have a green handle with a pale yellow and white polka dot ribbon along the middle. I like these Injabulo Fair Trade buttons, for example.

I'm so glad I got a nice big sketchbook and had the courage to get scribbling. There's not much in there yet but when inspiration hits, it's brilliant. I must dig out my little sketch book to go in my bag...


I've been furtling through my fabric boxes recently. I seem to have the most amazing amount of voile/organza stuff - not a vast variety, it must be said, but yards and yards of the stuff. I haven't the faintest idea what to use it for. The plain blue is the remnants of a cloak lining, the pale blue starry fabric has a half-finished Egyptian dance coin belt made out of some of it, but the blue-green and the silver are completely uncut. What can I dooooooooo with it? I thought about bag linings but no way is it strong enough for that, and I don't have any need for lots and lots of favour bags. Our house also has a severe lack of natural light due to the way it faces, so even net curtains are out (not that I'd be able to persuade the cats not to climb them) What else is it good for? I'm almost tempted to paint on some of it, see what happens, but I am trying not to spend much atm and that would involve a fatal trip to Hobbycraft for paints. Even if I did come up with a good pattern on it, I still have no clue what to use it for. Damn my magpie instincts, and damn .Abakhan Fabrics for having too much nice stuff. Crumbs, I haven't actually been there in years, not since probably 2000 or so when we lived in Manchester. That's how long this stuff has been lurking for!


Woodwork is happening in the kitchen; the cat-sized Swahili bed begins to take shape. I want a Martini but I'm too scared to go in there!