Stitching Minion Update

Another of my stitching minions has been cracking on with the pattern and you can see a couple of the progress shots the lovely Laura (haha, it was fate!) She's doing a smashing job, it's always fascinating to see what colours people choose. It really is a personal thing. I know I've in the past chosen not to do kits because I didn't like the colours, my laziness showing through, could have easily used different threads, but you know how it is..

Feedback thus far has proven most useful, just need a bit of time to spend on working through it and ping a wee email off to BBKA. It's amazing how quickly time passes and how work can easily get in the way. I also have a lot to sort out for the craftshow too! Eeep.

Minions and Craftshow

It's about to insanely busy for me this month, for both my stitch business and my day-to-day work. And you know what I don't mind, sure I am probably going to end up crashing in late December but until then I'am happy if not a little prone to the odd tendency to rock back and forth...

So reason for this sudden change?

I am doing a craft market in December. I don't often do them but I try to around Christmas just a natural time to hawk your wares, so to speak, and for me even if I don't sell a whole lot it's all part of the process of getting people to know you and what you do. You know what, I feel more ready for this than I have ever done in the past. I've got some really clear lines and they look bloody good. There I blew my own trumpet for a change.

So when and where will I be?

I'll be at the We Make craft market taking place at Battersea Arts Centre, London on the 1st December. I've just paid for the stall so as and when I get a bit more details on times extra I'll be posting that up and hopefully some of you that follow my blog will pop along. 

On the run up to the market I'll be sorting out a bit more stock to take along with what I already I have, working out stall layout (I already have a sparkly Christmas Tree to take...) and then about the week before I will be closing my Etsy store. Mainly so that I don't have to panic, though it would be a lovely one, that I'd be sold out of an item that I want to take with me.

Along side working on that the commission continues, starting to breath a small sigh of relief that I have actually started to make some noticeable progress, I will show you a picture some time in the near future. I also have a couple of smaller commissions to work on too but thankfully I can delay working on those till December. 

So plenty of stitching to be getting on with.

On a silly note, I will also be trying to stop myself from stroking my lovely Filofax, aptly named Guildford (was meant to be), I can't distract myself with it just yet. Soon, soon I can. Then dammit I'll never forget another birthday again.

Fingers crossed....

Photograph by Jessica (Needle & Thread)

What else? The other day you might recall that I did a shout out for some Stitching Minions, and several of you stepped forward to lend a hand to help me test out on of my recent patterns 'Hi Honey'. Gawd love you all for willingly helping out, even though I can't give you much in return. One of my lovely minions has already started to blog about her progress, Needle & Cloth.

I will keep everyone in the loop of how everyone is doing, and how the pattern is shaping up, I've already received some very useful feedback. 

That's it my lovelies. 

Want it Wednesday: Share a Pot

There is nothing better than a pot of tea when you have friends round. I regularly get my hand-crafted teapot out (much loved gift from a dear friend) to indulge in my favourite drink of choice, tea.  Here are a wee selection of some of my favourite pots you can buy...and if you haven't the room for a teapot then why not a print?

If you have a favourite teapot why not show yours off, leave me a comment!

White Lace Hand Painted Teapot by Dprintsclayful

Handpainted Teapot by RoomforEmptiness

Teapots Art Print by lauraamiss

Raw Chocolate Teapot by clamlab

Update: Minion Quote Filled

WANTED: Some willing victims/stitcher's...

I am looking for 2-3 stitcher's of varying abilities. Who have a bit of spare time to test out one of my hand embroidery patterns. I want to make sure that the instructions are easy to follow, that the designs themselves print out fine on standard printers and above all that the design is nice to work.

If the pattern turns out to be utterly fine then you will have the pattern for free, my undying love, a shout on my blog and a little thank you gift. If they need tweeking then I'll also send you the revised version for you to keep.

The pattern itself is readily available but I am in the middle of reviewing it as I have a chance to sell it on the BBKA website, so I want to double, double check that they are perfect. 

Please only contact me if you are sure you can spare a bit of time to do this, ideally you'd be in the UK but I'd be open to International, and be able to do it in the next couple of weeks or soon as you can. 

The pattern will be emailed to you, and all I need is you to keep me posted on your progress. A picture or two would be great along the way also.

Leave a comment here if interested! Or contact me on Etsy.

Boston Adventures

Last year you might recall, around the same time, that I went off to Washington DC this was my ultimate must do trip on my own. I loved it even if it was a little daunting at times and a little dull (only so many times you can say awesome out loud to yourself.) This year I had the opportunity to go to Boston, this has been on my list of places to go for about as long as I wanted to go to DC.

Old State House

This time round though I didn't go alone. I went with my mum. It was great, thoroughly enjoy my mum's company. So for five whole days we walked all over Boston from all the way down South Station all the way up to Cambridge, we boarded trains out of Boston to Providence and to Salem. We ate some great food (Boston City Diner - AWESOME) and some very bad food. Meet and spoke to some lovely folks (especially one lady in Salem) and got thoroughly annoyed with people's lack of manners. We came, we saw, we got tired.

It was a really good trip, but Boston for me, really was a case of being able to strike it off a list of places I want to see, it's not a destination say like Washington that I want to go back too. Not that it wasn't great, it was more the case I saw what I wanted and...that was enough. It certainly has made me want to venture out and away from the big cities to go further into New England and I will. I also really want to have a chill out break in Cape Cod (when bank account allows me).

Yay, Halloween

I got the bug for wanting to get away from doing city holiday's from when we went to Salem. This was my trip more than my mum's I wanted to do it, mainly for a bit of a laugh, after all we are on the run up to Halloween and partly because it seemed nice from what I did from my research. It really is very pretty town, folks are really lovely (and the food is good). I even found a Bead shop and needle point store, I can sniff them out at fifty paces.

Pretty easy to get to from Boston, 30 minute train ride away from North Station. It's also, like Boston, dead easy (see what I did there..), to navigate and most of what you want to go to is easily done in an afternoon. Though I think I might have liked to have spent more time wandering around. As we didn't actually hit the Peabody Museum which is in top museums in the USA, and no it's not about witches. It's an arts museum but we weren't quite up for walking around for a couple of hours as we had gotten up really early that day owing to jet lag. So I wouldn't mind hitting Salem again but perhaps coming from a different place, not Boston.

Burn the witches...technically they only hung theirs,
it was just Europe that liked to burn them.

We did, as I said, do another excursion to Providence. This time was my mum's choice and I'll gloss over it. Wasn't a great day trip the weather turned pretty darned sour the very moment we arrived. Horizontal rain and ice cold wind. Not quite prepared to traipse round in the weather we stayed long enough to have something eat. Believe me by that point moods were sour, we are both the sort to get very grumpy very quickly, when we are cold, wet and hungry. We had our fill and off we trotted back to Boston for more walking.

Scary baby heads out the back...

I should point out that during this trip we probably stopped for tea, around 20 odd times, if not more, and I drank more versions of Earl Grey than I care to count. I think I can only count 2 times that I actually liked what I drank and one of them was actually at a coffee place. I am such a Earl Grey snob.

The remainder of the time when we weren't heading out of Boston was spent meandering around. We tried to avoid the main tourist traps of the Freedom Trail, as it's not our thing but you can't really escape all of it. Eventually we did give in but not until the Sunday. Other key highlight of the trip was the Museum of Fine Arts. Quite expensive to get into about $20 it did surprise me that you did have to pay given all the museums (most) and galleries are free to get into in DC and New York but I think that solely comes down to funding. Not sure. Anyway, it's beautifully laid out and it was nice to see a Edward Hopper (fave artist) in the mix, the modern art was actually not that bad even though I'll admit I am simply not a fan of it. I would say it certainly made me want to take some time to go to the National, British and V&A when I get back and oh, Tate Britain for the Turners.

In all, I thoroughly had a good time, even though I had dodgy shoulder all the way through it which made for a miserable flight home. But I didn't let it get in the way, and mum did what she could to help. Plenty of hugs. Even at 28 you can't beat a hug from your mum.

I forgot to mention about the flight over, my dad knows a lot of folks through his business and one of them happens to be a pilot and whilst he wasn't flying the plane we were on he made sure that during our flight we had a nice treat. This came in the form of champagne and chocolate. It was great! It certainly kicked off the trip. 

Thus concluding my mini adventure in Boston. I feel like I missed something out, a nugget of information or ancedote like me getting the fit of the giggles stepping off the plane when we landed back in the UK. Nearly wet myself from the unexplained bout of crying laughter, I blame the chewing gum....

Yay, the start of the famous Fall. Apparently it has to be really cold for the leaves to turn, any wet and you can forget it.

 I dragged my mum round on a Tourist trip to the USS Constitution, though she was tired and I ended up going around the Museum bit on my own (whistle stop). I have to point out to get to the ship meant I had to walk over a bridge with open grate flooring. I have a uber fear of open grate walkways, and I chickened out the first time. One stiff cup of tea, and holding my mum's hand very tightly (I am my late 20s), I walked across it at quite a pace and on the way back too. 

Paul Revere, I felt like was going to turn to ash or something as a Brit but it was a nice part of the Freedom Trail, very interesting little streets, old (but not that old in my mum's books) houses, church etc. Of course, lot of groups of tourists and school kids. Easy to navigate past. 

I did snap at a school kid for not saying thank you when I held the door open, OR rather I opened it to step into the building and they barged past. The irony that it was in a building next to the church associated with Paul Revere made me chuckle afterwards. 

Featured in &Stitches e-zine

You might recall sometime ago that I was working on a secret project, and that one day I'd be able to tell you about it. Well...I can finally tell you about it. I was one of the Stitch Challengers for the latest edition of & Stitches e-Zine, this edition focused on Scandinavia and the stitch I had to use was raised herringbone stitch (very pretty). 

A behind the scenes shot of me working my stitch challenge piece

A sneaky little close up

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and was rather pleased with the outcome. Now I won't spoil the finished piece as I'd encourage you to check out the magazine. It's a great stitching online publication, click here to buy your copy and if you enter the following code LILLEHAVFRUE you can get 10% off the regular price (though note it ends in 2 days time...the discount not the magazine.)

The actual finished piece is going to be available to purchase in the future as I am actually going to turn it into a box, rather than the framed piece it currently is. I'll keep you in the loop on that!

I have Returned

I have returned from my trip to Boston, a little bushwhacked but settling back into things.

A proper blog post of my adventures in the USA at the weekend.

Etsy store, will be reopening tomorrow.

x

Halloween Crafting: Make a mini Pumpkin

Following on from my wee little broomstick tutorial its time to make a wicked, little pumpkin. Make several and your'll have your self a little pumpkin patch. Great decoration for your table too.

You will need:

• Orange, green and black pieces of felt

• Matching threads

• A Needle

• Sharp pair of scissors

• Toy stuffing

Step 1

Cut out a circle of orange felt that is 12 cm in diameter, of course, feel free to make it bigger or smaller. To get a perfect circle I found it easier to draw round something. Thread up a needle with a fairly long length of thread that will allow you to do a simple gathering stitch around the edge of the felt, stitching 5 mm from edge. 

Step 2

Grab both ends of the threads and pull to gather it up, stop half way to put some of the toy stuffing in, then carry on till you have a nicely gathered up shape (bit like a little bun), which will end up with a small opening. Sew the ends in to stop it from undoing (do not stitch up the hole). Then with a blunt end of a pencil, push more stuffing into the opening, keep going till you get a almost firm feel, but not too over stuffed that you can't push the pencil into the middle.

Step 3

Cut a strip of green felt 9 cm (length) by 2.5 cm (width), before you begin to roll it up tightly, get a needle and thread ready as you will need this to make a few stab stitches through one end to keep it together. Do as many as you feel will keep it from unrolling.

Step 4

With it rolled up, simply stuff it into the small opening at the top of the pumpkin, leaving 1 cm showing. Stitch the stem into the pumpkin, using the orange thread. Test to make sure it doesn't come out.

Step 5

Here comes the fun bit, designing what you want the face to look like. Once you have, cut it out of black felt. Now there are two ways in which you can apply the face to the pumpkin, small dabs of fabric glue, or stab stitch (small tiny stitches around the edge and middle of the black felt), I did the latter...because I am a sucker for punishment. 

Huzzah you now have a tiny little pumpkin. Go nuts and make a patch full of them!

Halloween Crafting: Make a Felt Broom Tutorial

This is a mini Halloween Tutorial in which I will show you how you can make a mini Halloween broomstick, with substance, for your flying pig (other flying creatures or plushies will also do). I should point out Calico, the pig, doesn't really need the broom to fly he just thinks it's cool and adds to his outfit.

You will need:

• A pencil, a nice short one will do nicely
• 3 colours of felt - Black, brown and yellow or use whatever you have to hand
• Thread to match the felt being used
• Pair of Sharp Scissors
• A small bit of toy stuffing (not shown)
• A Needle

Step 1

First you will need to cut the felt that will cover the pencil like a tube, the pencil keeps the broom nice and straight). My pencil was 12 cm in length, add a 1 cm of allowance to this and cut out a piece that is 2.5 cm wide by 13 cm in length. My pencil was a standard HB, if you use a thicker pencil you will need to adjust the width.

Step 2 - Making the Handle

Thread up your needle, and take your piece of felt and wrap it slightly round the pencil, it might take you a minute to get a hold a hold of it all. Your pencil needs to be slightly down from the end of the felt, so that later you can cover it over. Your going to over-sew the edges of the felt so that it wraps snuggly round the pencil. Work you way down to the end of the felt, and then do a couple of slip knots near to the end to gather around the pointy end.

Head back to the other end and over-sew the top so you now have a covered pencil, exciting times!

Step 3 - Brush Time

Your now going to cut the felt out for the brush end of the broom. Get two squares that about 8 x 8 cms, you can adjust this so you can have a fat or skinny brush (to suit your mood). Your going to then cut out two identical shapes that  look like pig ears or candle flame, depending on your point of view. Place them together, and then like with the broom handle over-sew the edge, except for the straight bit which will be your opening for the handle. Make the stitches small and neat, and use a thread colour that matches the felt.

Then stuff it. Make it semi-firm, too hard and you'll find it hard to stuff the broom handle into the open end and gather it round neatly.

Step 5

With it stuffed, do a small gathering stitch around the opening, don't pull it yet. Stuff the broom handle (pointy end) into the opening, about 2 cm's will be sufficient. Now pull the gathering thread, so it's tight round the handle. Then using the gathering thread, the bit left over, stitch the brush to the handle, till your sure it's not going to come off.

Step 6 - Final bit

Just for a spot of decorating and to hide the gathering, cut a small strip of felt about 0.5-1 cm in width by 3.5 cm in length. Wrap this round the top of the brush, and then over-sew the narrow end of the strip together. 

Hey presto! You have a broom.

Little Saturday Crafting

Whilst my shoulders still feel really sore at the moment, it wasn't going to hold me back today, I wanted to carry on stitching, so I cracked on with a couple of small projects, till I feel ready to get back to the slate frame. I am off later today to see a very good friend of mine whose going to look at my shoulders and see what the issues are, and she's also just completed a several years in the making course, huzzah. I wanted to take a little something to celebrate this, so I delved into my favourite cross-stitch book and whipped up a little dotty heart in suitable Jenny colours, and turned it into a tag for a wrapped gift. I think I will be making a few more of these to adorn Christmas gifts because nothing beats a tag that actually can be kept.

I also finished another bauble and listed it today, in rather glam red and gold. With one complete in this colour way I really should make a few more, especially if I am aiming to do a Christmas market this year, though with dodgy shoulders I am getting behind with other projects....so we'll have to wait and see.

Really, really love this book

Can't beat brown paper.

A little square which I simply sewed through stranded cotton, almost turning into a slider and tied it round the package, which means it can be used for something else, she's a crafty lady too.

Another project, but this is about as much as I am going to show at the moment, as this is for another special friend of mine, fingers crossed I get this worked in time, again it's from the same cross stitch book as the heart was. 

Tomorrow I hope to have a little Halloween tutorial, something silly, hope you all have a good day.

Want it Wednesday: A little bit more Organised

This is a very simple Want it Wednesday. I've been uber forgetful of late and this has meant so many birthday cards have been neglected to be popped into the postbox, despite having the cards ready to post. So next year I am aiming to be more on the ball - fingers crossed! I think this friendly calendar will do the job nicely!

Birthday Calendar by Zubinski

What have you been uber forgetful about lately?

And the winner is...

And the winner of my little competition is number 11...

The Sewing Croft

Who'd call her pet Bumble Bee...Buzby.

Congratulations!

If you ping me a message via Etsy, with your details and I'll pop it into the post to you.

Don't worry if you missed out this time, there will be more mini competitions in the future!

Also, this week, don't forget to get the issue 3 of & Stitches magazine... someone you know might be in it, undertaking a challenge *coughmecough*