Just add a little flower

There is something quite sweet about little clothes in classic blue and white stripes.

It's kind of summery and positive and so I couldn't resist this little number for 'C' when I went for the weekly shopping last week.

as soon as I saw it I had ideas of how I could make it look much better

with a little french knitting ........

and a few carefully chosen buttons
one from each jar red, white & blue

(by' C' of course she insisted she had to pick)

as she is quite tiny for her age the 2~3 yrs was still way too long

so I added a pin tuck around the bottom.

pretty as a picture!

think I might send a picture to GEORGE

A little corner of my studio

This little corner of my studio is so much busier these days so I took some more pictures.....
Remember my little shelves, they are filling up, not all are new purchases I might add, most have been hiding in drawers and bags and baskets now I can see them all and be inspired to use them more often in my work.

I added a little spice rack shelf, another charity shop find, painted white, it cleared the top shelf above, 

better used to store these little chunkier ones, perfect for mixed objects

I stole this idea noticed when I visited my sister Theresa in her little Bizzy Blue Bee studio she was using her mug rack to hang all her scissors on while mine was lurking under my jewellers bench looking, and probably feeling totally unloved and unwanted .... :)

its perfect and simple, they used to hang out in all sorts of places, around the sewing machine cluttering up the table, under fabric bundles in the thread caddy, or under the samples and stash in the shallow wooden tray on the table............. now I see them all....thanks Theresa x

I knew these boxes were perfect for my little scraps when I spotted them in Poundland

the lids are hinged too which makes it so much easier to access those little scraps

I'm thinking I need 2 more........ for my sheer fabric scraps and my lace pieces.

I'm using this space so much more now, I love it! .... and it keeps my sewing table free of clutter.

Inchies 4 spare

These are the 4 spare inchies left over from the ones I made for my mother

They wouldn't all fit in the frame which I decided best suited her colour scheme

Here are the 12 inchies chosen in the frame.

I have been making some changes in my workshop & having a clear out its been quite a busy 2 weeks but I'm quite excited that it has all been for a good reason. More pictures to follow shortly......................

Inchies ~ Natural colours

This is another set of inchies I have been working on in natural colours of cream, greens & sand. I thought I would show you the whole piece before I cut it up. I stitched over the piece with some free machine embroidery in gold thread.

All cut up! and ready for the next stage .........

This time I only used 12 of the 16 inchies in the arrangement.
This was due to the size of frame which I had decided to use.

I will post a picture of the other 4 pieces and the finished framed piece when I get a chance to photograph them, my camera battery died on me before I got any more shots.

The finished piece was a gift for my Mum who celebrated her 81st birthday today we had a family lunch gathering at a nice Italian place near her home then back to hers for an assortment of desserts, coffee, wine and some 'Singstar' fun.

Happy Birthday Mum x

All things Rosie!

Rosebud collection.......

A selection of adornments I have been working on

2 Cuffs, 2 hairbands, 2 flower pins & 2 pendants

All available in my new Folksy shop.

This little collection was inspired by a banner I was working on for a little girl call Rosie who recently celebrated her first birthday. The fabric is so sweet I love working with it its nearly all gone..............

This is the end triangle which was the inspiration for the Accessories.

Rosie's banner you can see more pictures in my Flickr album here

And
to my surprise my friend Vicky came over on Friday with her little boy Adam and brought me these beautiful Roses! ....I feel blessed to have such lovely people in my life .........


Have a lovely day :)

Inchies in Aqua Blue

16 Aqua inchies for my sister Theresa

It's nice to be stitching these little inchies again,

I think I might do some Neutral ones next.

Update. Photographic prints of all my inchie sets are now available from my Etsy shop

A little bit of colour

Charlotte wrapped up snug in her Ellaroo wrap on a day out at St Andrews beach

This is another banner I did for Charlotte's little friend at group who celebrated his first birthday

I thought the colours in the wrap made the perfect background to compliment the bright colours I used for the letters.

Has it really been over a year?!

I'm back

I cant believe its been over a year since I last posted, so many times I have sat down to update and have had to stop, Charlotte has kept me busy and happy....I have not stopped creating just haven't been able to get on here to keep posting. I have so many pictures ...........

These are the end triangles for my niece Lois's banner The one at the top of the post is from her sister Grace's banner. I used the leftover leave samples from Charlotte's swing crib drapes which I blogged about last year. You can see more pictures of the banners here

Machine applique and decorative stitches using my fab Janome sewing machine

More to follow .........

Pretty in Pink

I have been working on orders two more banners.

Both with a 'girly pink' theme.

First a selection of some of the triangles

And the two finished banners

Six different 'Pink & Cream' themed triangles

&
Caoimhe

This is an Irish girls name, pronounced 'Queevi'

I hope the girls like their banners.

Inchies ~ my latest batch

My latest batch of 'Inchies'.

16 in total with a blue green theme.

12 of these have gone to Dot with whom I'm delighted to be doing a swap with. Her blog is filled with much to inspire anyone who enjoys, creativity especially with fabrics and embellishments.

As usual with all the inchies I make, they are done in batches of 16.

12 to send & 4 to keep!

Sunshine

With the weather here in Scotland being so changeable on a day to day basis I thought I would post a little sunshine .........

& here she is ......... my latest Dotee doll

Inchies

These little inchies are great fun to work on and great for getting creative inspiration for other work. I have been tempted to do some for a while but it took signing up for a swap before I actually got around to doing some.

For my first swap partner I made inchies with a blue theme in mind...............

(click in the pictures for a closer look)

For my second swap partner I made inchies with a black theme in mind.....................

With this swap I have 2 partners each gets 12 inchies. So I made 16 of each colour theme and below are the 8 inchies I have decided to keep for myself. I figured I would soon build up a nice personal collection which I will probably frame. It will be nice to build up a collection in a variety of colours.

In return for the ones I send I will hopefully receive 2 sets of 12 back, and hopefully again these will be in my colour preferences so if I build up a collection of these they should also make a nice collection to frame.

So I have been thinking and wondered if anyone would like to swap 12 inchies with me, I would prefer fabric inchies, embroidered & embellished in your style. So if you are interested please leave a comment or email me privately.

Colour Button necklace

Colour Button necklace

This was the result of an experiment with machine embroidery on soluble fabric, buttons, beads and lots of fiddly sewing........very time consuming I have to say but I like the result.....

and 'Flowerdance' cuff this originated from a transfer crayon rubbing ironed to fabric with an organza overlay.....lots of machine embroidery..... then hand embroidery...there was never a plan just a wandering of 'whatever I felt like doing next' .... I like it.... it works....

Both available in my shop

Fabric & Embroidered Pencil Pot

At the EG Scottish Regional Day in Edinburgh I bought some goodies from the fantastic assortment of stalls, I love ‘The Silk Route’ for its collection of theme packs & I bought 2 of these ‘Titania’ & ‘Teal’. ‘Oliver Twist’ is just wonderful for all kinds of dyed threads and hanks of yarn I wanted to buy everything as it has been so long since I have had the pleasure of browsing their selection of goodies, I stopped going to the Creative Stitches Show in Glasgow a few years ago when they stopped holding a stall there. I opted for 3 reels of cotton in variegated blues and greens & 2 bags of ‘Short Lengths’ dyed, yarns in greens & teals. Next a bag of ‘Crafty Notions’ mid green merino tops, caught my eye on the ‘Grassmarket Embroidery Shop’ stall, such a beautiful shade too I’m looking forward to incorporating it into a needle felted piece. ‘The little bead shop’ had a wonderful selection of seed bead tubes I bought 2 tubes; one of turquoise blue one in a bright sunny yellow.

The Embroiderers Guild Edinburgh branch had a stall selling a selection of theme packs and books they also had reels of thread, some vintage some slightly used and a selection of fabric in bundle wraps and single pieces, I opted for three different pieces of fabric in the end and went for colours I don’t normally choose to work with, Yellow /gold shot organza, red/purple shot lame and a beige cotton with red flowers…all at a very reasonable 50p each!
Some of these goodies came in handy for my latest project…..

This year we are going on a camping holiday, in the past when we had our caravan there was always room to store a basket of art materials to take and enjoy some creativity in the van. This year space is more precious and everything must fit in the car!

I have been looking at the different things which are available for storing artist materials & in particular pencils & sketchbooks. There are some wonderful handmade items available on Etsy such as Pencil rolls and sketchbook covers with slots for pencils etc.
Although I liked the idea of a pencil roll I would need a really lengthy one in which to store my sketch pencils, glue stick, 6 inch ruler, eraser, sharpener & my 72 Prismacolors, I want to take them all, choosing only some would be so difficult........

So I opted to design instead a fabric Pencil Pot, which would protect, store and allow me to use the pencils easily.

I figured I would need a thick supporting fabric so I opted to use some denim form an old pair of jeans with a layer of thick artist canvas on the inside and base. The top gathering fabric is a double layer of blue and green shot poly/cotton mix I love this fabric and have used in so many different projects & for the pocket; some thick curtain fabric from a sample book in a nice mid blue. For decoration....I choose the ‘Oliver Twist’ Machine Cottons & the pretty little turquoise blue seed beads.

And here is what I made.........

Ribbon drawstring closure with clear spring toggle to keep it securely closed when not in use. I found some green toggle/duffle buttons in my button box and added these on the end of the ribbon .....just because their colour matched so well.........

Side pockets for storing drawing pencils, art stix, ruler & glue stick

This is how it looks when the top fabric is folded down ...... all my pencils to hand

Machine embroidered flowers ..........

With hand beaded detail..............

I’m quite pleased with my little pencil pot looking & forward to using it on holiday!

Banners for the Boy's

Boy's can have banners too! This one is for Penny's big brother Harry

....and this one if for our other nephew Ryan

You can see all the pictures in my flickr