#Crafting365 Days 56-73: Juggling Lots of WIPs + Trying New Things

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of crafty goodness along the way!

On day 56 of my #Crafting365 challenge, I finished stitching the final few squares of the Christmas quilt I'm making for my sister. There's still lots of sewing to do before this is an actual quilt, but it's great to have the patchwork finished after all those hours of hand stitching.

When I tried to take photos of the finished quilt top, our little old lady cat demanded that I pay attention to her instead of this weird thing on the floor so most of my photos turned out like this:

On day 57 I did some relaxing knitting in the evening, and soaked up some creative inspiration from UPPERCASE magazine. UPPERCASE is always awesome but I'm especially loving this colour-themed issue.

I did some more knitting on day 58 and (with rainbows on the brain) I sorted through my stash of squares and planned out the colour order for my rainbow blanket.

Don't all those bright colours look delicious together?

Day 59 involved more knitting, although with slightly less colourful yarn than the stuff I'm using to knit my rainbow squares!

This is a much neglected project with a woodland animal theme. I've got lots of hours to put in on this if I'm going to meet my planned deadline of Christmas (and it's nearly the end of November already, eek!)

On day 60 I went to Renegade and spent several hours oohing over all the awesome wares for sale and doing a bit of shopping. In the afternoon, I visited the Foundling Museum to see their current (excellent and very moving) exhibition, The Fallen Woman. While enjoying a cuppa and a very tasty brownie in the museum cafe, I doodled a whole bunch of new project ideas on a napkin.

I love visiting exhibitions, etc, on my Nice Days Out but I also love the time to think that a day out on your own away from work and deadlines gives you. I often find myself scribbling down new ideas in cafes or on my train journey home after a busy day of going new places and seeing new things.

(Psst - that awesome crafty tattoo is a fun temporary one from Floss & Mischief)

I was feeling a bit under the weather for days 61-64 so I just ended up doing lots and lots of simple knitting while curled up watching TV. Not very exciting crafting, but better than nothing and look at all the squares I finished!

On day 65 I decided I'd had enough of all this sleepy knitting and had a Making Day - minimising my screen time to focus on Actually Making Stuff.

One of my projects for the day was to finally cut out some more felt flowers for my in-progress cushion project. I ran out of flowers back in September and the project has been on pause ever since. It was nice to get back to working with all this colour!

I started adding the new flowers to the cushion on day 66 - pinning and tacking them in position ready to sew later. Finding the best place for each shape is a bit like doing a felt-y jigsaw puzzle!

The next evening (day 67) I did some knitting and some relaxing colouring in while we watched TV. This is a fun Evolution-themed colouring book which I was sent to review - well, you can't review a colouring book without actually colouring it, right?

On day 68 I revisited a project that has been sitting half-finished in my "in progress" box for years: felt bird ornaments from a vintage craft kit I bought way back in 2011. I am so terrible at finishing my personal projects!   

Fingers crossed I can finally get all the birds finished in time to display them this Christmas!

Day 69 involved yet more blanket squares. That yellow is growing on me more and more with each square I knit.

 

Then on days 70 and 72 I tried something a bit different from my usual makes.

I've done a few projects for docrafts Creativity magazine of the past couple of years and the magazine always comes with a crafty cover gift (or three!). I thought it was high time I used them to make stuff.

First up: card making with decoupage kits and coordinating papers from the Forever Friends range (very cute!).

The next day I put together some more card toppers - foiled Christmas designs, cute kittens and vintage-y florals. I don't have any of the proper mounts/dots you're supposed to use to stick the layers together, so I got creative and used double sided sticky tape and little pieces of white felt to create the 3D effect :)

I've never made any kits like this before and I don't often work with patterns and pictures, so dipping my toes into this kind of card making is proving to be a really fun creative challenge.

I was back to my regular crafting on day 72, doing lots of sewing with a kitty keeping me company!

Those Christmas pudding ornaments are based on one of the earliest tutorials I shared on my blog. I cut the pieces out last year planning (I think) on making a few different versions of the pudding ornaments to show how you could vary the pattern. Sadly I failed to write down what I'd planned to make and I've since forgotten! Oops. So, instead, I'm just stitching up the ornaments and I'll be adding them to my sample sale sometime soon.

Then yesterday (day 73) I worked on a whole bunch of different crafty things.

I almost finished the vintage bird ornaments (I need to buy some ribbon before I can actually finish them but at least they look like birds now!)... I finished the Christmas puddings... I put together some charming Gorjuss decoupage kits (more Creativity freebies) ... and I used some colourful crepe paper samples to make some stripy cards.

Right, time to stop blogging and to go do some more making...

#Crafting365 Days 49-55: Autumn Colour & Lots of Glitter

The past week or so of my #Crafting365 project has mostly involved snatching small bits of creative, crafty time between work tasks and other things on my To Do list. I'm half sad that I've just been crafting in these little snippets, and half happy that my #Crafting365 challenge made me focus and actually use that time to make stuff instead of just letting it slip away.

I must try and schedule some proper making days this month!

On day 49 I used the felt leaves I'd cut out the day before to make an autumnal branch. I'm not 100% sure this works (it maybe looks like the branch is on fire??) but I quite like it, and it was a very fun make. Three of these displayed in a vase would look awesome!

I'd actually painted this branch aaaaages ago - I painted a few twigs when working on this bird mobile, as featured in docrafts Creativity magazine, then chose my favourites to use as the base for the mobile. It seemed a shame to just throw away the leftover branch, so I kept it... waiting for just the right project to come along.

If you want to make your own autumnal branch, it's very easy. Collect a fallen branch/twig and (if needed) let it dry. Paint it white (I used two coats of white acrylic paint from docrafts' Artiste range). Cut out a selection of leaves in autumnal colours - I used felt but you could use coloured paper or card instead. Then when the paint has completely dried, use a glue gun to attach the leaves to the branch.

Day 50 was a very busy deadline day, so I just did some a bit of colouring in to help me relax and wind down in the evening. Have you caught the colouring in bug yet? I am well and truly hooked, and delighted that there are so many great "adult" colouring books to choose from these days.

Day 52 involved lots of glitter! I needed sparkly silver baubles but couldn't find them in the size I wanted, so I used some glue and lots and lots of glitter to turn plain white baubles into super sparkly ones. Messy but lots of fun!

I also did some more simple knitting in the evening, which was also my craft of choice the evening of day 52. Knitting these simple garter stitch squares is such a great way to switch off my brain after a hectic day of rushing around ticking things off To Do lists.

I couldn't resist taking a snap of my knitting with some leaves in the background. Such yummy autumn colours!

The knitting continued on day 53...

I finished the orange squares and started knitting with the next colour: yellow. My mum was slightly concerned that I had started a crazily bright orange blanket (she is not a fan of orange) but I explained that these squares are just for the orange and yellow section of my happy rainbow blanket. With just a few colours still to add, I am getting quite excited about seeing this blanket come together!

The next day (Saturday) was supposed to be day 54 of my #Crafting365 project, but I took a Nice Day Out and went to Bath and spent a long and lovely day exploring the city, visiting lots of museums and exhibitions and generally enjoying the glorious autumn sunshine... then when I got home I just crashed on the sofa and forgot to do any crafting! Oops.

One of the exhibitions I visited - Nahoki Kojima's amazing Honey Bee paper cut sculpture, at the Holburne Museum - was kind of crafty? But that really doesn't count, does it?

So, instead, I am counting Sunday's craftiness as day 54. I've skipped two days of this daily project in about 50 days, which isn't too bad, right??

On Sunday I took a break from all that knitting and added the final rows of squares to my Christmas Quilt (I'm making this as a gift for my sister - you can read all about it here). 

I'd hoped to get them all stitched by the end of the evening, but with a few inches left to sew I started getting tired and thought I'd better put the project down before I stitched the wrong thing or stabbed myself with a needle! Just a few more stitches then I can start on the actual quilting! (exciting!! scary!!!)

Then I was back on my knitting obsession on day 55, but not loving knitting with the yellow yarn as much as the orange. So, I decided to mix things up a bit and alternate between knitting squares in three of the remaining colours: green, pink and yellow. These shades look so great together - so bright and zingy, like yummy boiled sweets (hard candies).

P.S. Here's a bonus photo from last week: a smart-looking pencil I was using in some step-by-step tutorial photos, with the actual (short, scruffy) pencil I'd actually used to make the project :)

#Crafting365 Days 36-48: The Joys of Embroidery, and of Orange

Time for another #Crafting365 catch up! Time flies when you're having lots of crafty fun...

On day 36, I cut my hair. I'm not sure if DIY haircuts really count as a creative task, but I am counting this one anyway! A bit messy, but not too bad and my hair has been looooooong for ages, it's a nice change to have it shorter again.

Day 37 was all about embroidery. You know that feeling when all of a sudden you just have to work on a particular project RIGHT NOW? I just could not resist the urge to work on some embroidery... so I sketched a whole bunch of new patterns and started stitching up this one which has been on my To Stitch list for, like, ever.

On day 38 I dug some pretty fabric out of my stash to plan something new. I adore these colours together.

The embroidery obsession continued on day 39. I thought I didn't have the right sized hoop to stitch up the patterns I'd sketched earlier (I think I used to own the size I needed but used the hoop to make a mobile? and then forgot to buy a new hoop to replace the one I'd cannibalized for my project? That seems like something I would do, anyway) ... but it turned out I had a bigger hoop that worked okay, hurrah hurrah.

On day 40 I started a new shade of yarn for my happy rainbow blanket: a lovely zingy orange. I am loving orange at the moment, and was actually wearing my orange cardigan (pictured at the top of the post) while knitting these squares :)

The orange-square-knitting continued slowly over the next few days, but I squeezed in some other crafty things too. I spent the afternoon of day 41 sticking lots of things into my "things that are too beautiful or interesting to throw away" scrapbooks. It's been such an age since I've added to my scrapbooks, I used up a whole glue stick adding all the new clippings!

Then on day 42 I was doing some filing and rediscovered a vintage pattern that had been "lost" for ages (because I'd put it in my filing pile along with accounts paperwork, etc, instead of a place where you'd think to look for an embroidery pattern - oops!). I'm delighted to have found this again and am really looking forward to stitching it. The pattern is designed for tapestry wools, but I'm probably just going to stitch it up with standard embroidery thread/floss. I'm also quite tempted to adapt the pattern to make a felt applique of some kind? Decisions, decisions.

By day 43, I was building up a nice pile of the orange blanket squares...

... and was finishing up the orange yarn on day 44. I'm knitting large garter stitch squares from each ball of yarn, and using the leftovers to knit mini moss stitch squares for my random patchwork blanket. Sticking with my orange obsession, my next chosen colour = a bright satsuma orange. So cheerful!

Day 45 saw more blanket square knitting, and more embroidery. My handwriting can be a little illegible at times, even when I write "neatly". My mum thought this pattern said "Poe the PEST..." and, well, she has a point, doesn't she? (It actually reads Be the BEST version of YOU). Terrible handwriting aside, I do love stitching handwritten text - though it does involve lots of teeny stitches to get round all those curves.

I finished my trio of embroidered designs on day 46 (I'll blog about the finished pieces soon, I promise!). The fabric I'm stitching on is so pale, I've taken care to keep the back of my work neat and to not carry any threads between sections.

 

I was feeling a bit sleepy on day 47 so I opted for something super simple: adding some more blocks of stitching to my scrappy cross stitch project.

When I do some cross stitch or embroidery and end up with a bit of thread/floss left over that's too short to really be worth keeping but long enough that it could be used to stitch a few stitches, I set it aside. Then when I've collected a few threads I use them to add some more blocks of colour to my patchwork project. I am so pleased with how this is turning out, and I adore how it's growing organically over time depending on the other makes I've been working on and what threads happened to be left over.

Then yesterday (day 48) I was gripped by the sudden urge to make something leafy and autumnal, so I grabbed some felt and got snipping! Fingers crossed this turns out how I'm picturing it in my head...

Looking Back

One of the very best things about blogging, and taking pictures of all my crafty projects is being able to look back over the months gone by and see just what I've been doing with my time!

Here's 2008 in pictures (two photos per month) .... click on it to view it larger, or follow the links to the individual photos:1. Crafting 365, day 140 - finishing some brooches and starting some others, 2. Crafting 365, day 160 - Violets, 3. Crafting 365, day 173 - pink teacups, 4. Crafting 365, day 184 - Tasty Cakes, 5. C365, day 207 - Rainclouds, 6. 365 / 212 - 320 pieces of Felt, 7. C365, day 233 - little felt rainbows, 8. C365, day 234 - Catching Up, 9. Floral Hairbands (Crafting 365 day 260), 10. Catching up: days 238-242 : a field of poppies, 11. Corsages (Crafting 365, day 269), 12. Masks (C365/275), 13. Secret Swap: sent, 14. Flower-y Hair, 15. Tiny Trees and Crafty Cakes (C365, day 326), 16. Needlework (C365, days 332-5), 17. Snowy Owl!, 18. Birds! - Crafting 365, day 365, 19. Ornithology, 20. Ribbon Heaven!, 21. British Vogue..., 22. Pompom Parcels, 23. Snowflake Curtain, 24. First Batch Finished...

2008 has had its ups and downs for me - over a month without the internet, meeting Doctor Who, totally failing at my Design A Day project (partly due to internet troubles but mostly just due to life getting in the way ... very inspiring while it lasted though and I will definitely be revisiting the suggestions in the new year!), completing my Crafting 365 project (albeit a little late), all sorts of lovely features (including my first appearance in real live magazines) making lots and lots and lots of stuff (see above!) plus all the other things that've gone on inbetween.

I am incredibly pleased with the progress of my little business and this blog during 2008. Looking back at what I was making and selling a year ago, I feel like my crafty universe has completely transformed - and taken over the house in the process, as my boyfriend would no doubt point out!

2008 has been a year of huge inspiration, so many crafty projects & schemes, and more felt than you can shake a stick at. The support of the crafting community (my lovely fellow Etsy sellers, all my lovely blog readers and Flickr friends, plus all my wonderful customers of course!) has been invaluable in giving me feedback, confidence-boosts and good advice. Basically you make it possible for me to carry on doing this and I love you all.

I will stop gushing now, but basically: hurrah for 2008, and here's to a super-crafty 2009!

Finished!

The final day of Crafting 365. Wow. I know it's taken me about 5 or 6 weeks more than 365 days to complete it (breaks taken for illness, broken boilers, and other domestic disasters) and I've not posted exactly every day (mostly because of my camera and internet connection letting me down, but sometimes due to laziness and forgetfulness too!) ... but WOW it feels so great to have those 365 days under my belt! I'm really pleased with all my pictures and how much I've sewn and how the Crafting 365 group has developed ... and I think my work has really progressed since the start of the project. I'm still going to be photographing and blogging my projects, but I may miss a day here and there from now on :)

I wanted to do something special for the last day, so I picked a project I've been wanting to work on for just ages - turning my big pile of bird sketches (made in June) into actual brooches. They need their beaks and eyes and, you know, sewing together but they're starting to look like birds already...
Very typical of me to post a work in progress shot! And very very typical to be blogging about this a day late! Ah well - thanks to the delay, I've got some finished birds to show off now too as yesterday I sewed together the coal tit, greenfinch and bullfinch. Here they are along with "one I made earlier", a blue tit:
Also late: my penultimate Crafting 365 pic, a box lid filled with craftiness ...
... I started a batch of little robins and then a bit of trial and error finalising my large robin design. Got there in the end after lots of tweaking!

Watch out for the whole flock of birdies arriving in my Etsy shop over the next few weeks...

UPDATE: My robin design is now available as a sewing pattern and my other birdies are coming soon! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

It's the Little Things...

A little while ago I did an interview for a fantastic new Chinese magazine called Little Thing and today I got to see what my pages look like!
It's my very first mention in real live print, and seeing my work amongst features of awesome artists like sushipot, jengsshop and kjoo (whose work you can see on the final spread) and the most gorgeous, whimsical fashion shoots ... *sigh*
I love what they've done with all my little pictures (especially the teeny tiny bluetit next to my web address). I'll put the English text of my interview up sometime soon - in the meantime see if you can spot the snippet of it here:
I am so excited about this, and have spent the whole day with a huge grin on my face. I'm even excited about appearing on a contents page! Right, calming down for a moment I did manage to take my 365 snap: On day 363, lots of lovely autumnal-looking poppies! I think "to poppy" is practically a verb now, I am so obsessed with making these. I poppy, you poppy, he/she/it poppies, etc. On second thoughts, perhaps not! Too much excitement for me today I think...

UPDATE: My poppy design is now available as a sewing pattern! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

Show and Tell (C365/361)

Lots of lovely pictures to show you today! First up, here's the product of last night's sewing session:
Sprigs of mistletoe! It's lovely to be making these again this year, and it's always interesting to revisit old designs. This year's are sewn onto thicker red felt to make them a bit more sturdy and I've decided that I rather like the bolder, more solid shape made by leaving the middle bit of red as it is. Of course I only worked this out when I'd cut out the first one and had it side by side with the others for comparison! Ah well. I may list both options and let the customers decide which is best!

Next up: some shots of a few special items I've been working on recently...

I got a fun custom order this month to make an embroidered teabag - the reverse is embroidered with details of the occasion & the reverse of the tag (rather obviously) says "tea". A simple but very sweet idea for a gift I think!
I also finished some long-delayed gifts made as a "thankyou" to the girls who did some felt modelling for me back at the start of the summer... some sets of hairclips...

... and a couple of snowy owl brooches:
Here's a peek at some of the owl sketches I've been doing since making that last brooch (I'm plotting a whole little series of owls for my shop) - this was pinned to our noticeboard today by my boyfriend who was slightly annoyed and greatly amused at how I'd scribbled all over his to do list in my owl-sketching frenzy: "typical!"