crafts

A new gift shop has just opened in George Street, St Albans, it's not just full of gorgeous gifts and cards but knitting yarns too. Katrina, who owns the shop, told me she hopes to specialise in items handmade by local craftspeople as well as the quirky gift and toy lines she already stocks.  In the future, with stocking the knitting yarns, Katrina would like to set up opportunities for knitters and stitchers to get together.

In charity shops you can often see a pile of doilies languishing unappreciated in with the linens, it's a shame as obviously a lot of time and effort went into hand crocheting these cotton doillies. Pondering their plight I had the idea of up-cycleing them into jug/bowl covers, to keep flies off food and drink in summer. All you do to give them a new lease of life is attach, by sewing, glass beads* around the edge. 

Here's how to create your own fantastic crystal cake stand. A one tier structure would be good to display a cake. Multi tiers would be perfect for a very individual cupcake stand for a wedding, christening or birthday. You could even use it for a floral arrangement or as a tiered fruit bowl!

After doing previous projects using the Suffolk puff (yo-yo's), and being pleased with the effect they give, I wanted to try something else. I liked a brooch I saw on The Eternal Magpie it was another twist on the Suffolk puff. This is my version of the flower.

I used a fine cotton lawn fabric, from this I cut out six circles for the petals and one in a contrasting colour for the centre.

I bought some ribbon before Christmas, from the local market, wired edged ombre ribbon. Because the colours are graduated I thought they would make interesting flowers. I cut a length of ribbon 70cm long, removed the wire, by pulling it, from one edge, the base edge. At either end of the ribbon I folded over the ends, as shown in the photograph. With a needle and thread I sewed a running stitch along the length of the ribbon. I pulled the thread, to gather the ribbon, not too gathered or the flower would look like a rosette!

Today I did a sketch of my kettle, turned it into a line drawing then embroidered it. Redwork is addictive, no household object is safe from the Redwork treatment, the more mundane the better! Find out more about Redwork, history and method here

Yesterday I drew an espresso coffeepot, today I have turned it into an embroidery. I wanted to try Redwork. You can find out more about Redwork, the history and method here I traced my line drawing, of the coffeepot, onto white cotton fabric, I don't have a light box so used my window to do this. I traced the image using a red propelling pencil, this gave ma a fine line, the same colour as my thread. The stitch I used was backstitch, couldn't be easier.

This year, as part of my Christmas decorations, I wanted some red and white bunting. If you want to make this simple trimming just follow my tutorial above. With a little adult supervision children could easily make this too.

On Saturday 5th December, it's the Aboyne Lodge School Christmas Fair. My children use to go to the school and for many years I was on the school committee (ALSA), helping to raise funds for the school. This year a friend and I have been invited to have a stall at the fair. We will be selling some of our crafts, knitted, sewn and crocheted. So if you're looking for gifts and decorations, something a little different at reasonable prices, and your in the area pop in.

I was thinking about making a needle case when I came across this tutorial by Skebba. A little letter needle book, perfect! I adapted the pattern slightly. Then the thought came to me, my needle case could do with a companion, a pin cushion. Keeping to the postal theme I designed a parcel pin cushion, over stuffed and tied with string. I think this postal pair would make a perfect present.