Some New Cards in the Shop

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. So far, in between the festivities and visiting family, I have had one day playing  and felt like making some cards.  These are luxury blank cards and are now available here:-

Pop over and have a look.  Hope you have had time for being creative too.

Button Floozies Christmas Ornament Swap

On the Button Floozies blog

I recently took part in this swap with the festive season approaching - we had to make 3 button ornaments which could either be hung from a Christmas tree or  accent a table or shelf.  They had to be decorated with buttons but buttons did not have to be the only embellishment.

I decided to decorate 3 blank wire heart hangers by adding a main strip of ribbon, then sewing on assorted mainly vintage buttons and adding ribbon or other trim.  Here are the finished hearts, which my swap partners have now received. (Sorry the photos aren't very good - they were taken on a dull day so the light was bad.)

The deadline for posting is today (we were all early in our group) and next weekend I can post piccies of the ornaments I received back, so watch this space.  Actually, I can't at the moment post any pictures as our main computer is kaput and I am working on our very
slow backup computer which can't load photos.  I will try and post when I can but my swap partners were Zoe (who doesn't have a blog); Sherry from Sherry's Simple Blog and Mrs A from It's An Alien Life.

A New Festive Collage Sheet

Just listed this new Christmas collage sheet in my Etsy shop.  I have been very remiss in keeping it going recently and hope that in the New Year I can once again turn my attention to making some new stuff.  Hope you like it.

What I've Been Up To This Week

I  have seen some lovely pincushions around the web this week and although I have several, mine are too small for all the pins I use.  So I found an easy pattern on You Tube, adapted it to suit me and knocked this one up in an hour or two. I used some lovely fabric from the Moda "Etchings" range and of course, I had to add a few vintage bits!   I am quite chuffed with it actually.

You may remember a previous post about crumb piecing. Well, I quite enjoy doing this at times (not all the time as it can be very fiddly indeed) but with perseverence my crumb pieced item is starting to slowly take shape.  I have no idea yet what it is going to end up as but for the moment I am trying to fit in various types of scrap blocks and get it to balance out and then I will decide whether it will be a throw, tablecloth or whatever. It is a slow work in progress but very satisfying to use up lots of scraps which would be otherwise thrown away.

2 new scrappy blocks

I haven't taken part in any swaps this year due to health issues but as the festive season approaches I have relented and joined the one over at Button Floozies.  I have to make 3 Christmas ornamentsto hang or be displayed on a shelf, containing buttons but can use other items also.  I have 3 swap partners already in the UK and must get these made by 28th November.  I have finished one and nearly completed the second.  Can't show you anything yet as we cannot post until all swap members have received their ornaments.  So busy, busy, busy.

My 200th Follower!

Congratulations Lois on becoming my 200th Follower - I am overwhelmed to have so many people interested in my blog.  Lois, if you could email me with your details, I will send you a little gift as a thank you - please let me know whether you are interested in digital collage sheets, lace, fabric, buttons or home decor.  Thanks again.

A Lovely Autumn Walk To Blow The Cobwebs Away

Some of you will know that this has been a terrible year for me and I have been trying to cope with everything that has been thrown at me.  As if things weren't bad enough, I had more terrible news last Friday regarding a family member and my head was screaming to get out of the house.  As it was a lovely autumn day yesterday, we went for a stroll to Buscot Weir and it really did me good to do it.  It doesn't change the news I had or how we will all cope with it but at least I was able to forget my worries for a little while and appreciate nature.

Here are a few photos:-

Memories of Rye .......

Mr V-B has now uploaded all our photos from our week in Rye last week. There were so many to choose from but here are a selection I have made into 4 collages.
                                                               
                                                          Great Dixter House & Garden

Rye, Smallhythe Pace & Dungeness

Fabulous sculptures dotted around at Pashley Manor Garden

Scotney Castle

 Hope you like them.   

Crumbs - a new meaning!

As promised here is what I discovered:-  ladies, ever have lots of these (tiny little pieces of left over fabrics):-

but you think they are way too small to do anything with them but keep them anyway as they are too pretty to throw away but haven't a clue what to do with them?  Well, I have quilted on a small scale for many years now and so had absolutely loads of scraps hoarded away in jars and cupboards.  Anyway, whilst on holiday and having the luxury of time to surf the net, came across lots of useful quilting and scrap blogs and this article on crumb piecing fascinated me so I had to investigate and find out more.  Each scrap is referred to as a "crumb" and by piecing them together in random fashion, you can end up with all sorts of blocks, which in turn can end up as quilts.  Here is the crumb piecing tutorial for anyone who is interested:- http://www.quiltville.com/crumbs.shtml .

photos courtesy of Allison Aller at http://alliesinstitches.blogspot.com/2010/10/crazy-crumb-piecinga-tutorial.html .
I expect you more experienced quilters will already know all about it but I learned something new and have been crumb piecing like there's no tomorrow in the quiet evenings whilst away. I may not make a quilt but have ideas for new little items for my shop.  Here are a few photos of my first very basic crumb pieces.

I will add bits of lace and maybe a button or two and whatever else happens to be suitable.  I will post again when I have actually made them into something.  

I've Been A Little Bit Quiet .....

.....having a week's break down in Rye on the South Coast. It has been a lovely, restful week and Mr V-B and I are just getting into the swing of being on holiday.  What  a shame we have to go home tomorrow.

I will post again when I get home with piccies of some of the things we have seen on our travels and also something I found very interesting on ..... crumbs ......, yes, crumbs!   See ya!

A New Mini Wall Hanging In The Shop

I meant to post about this last week but never got around to it. so here are a couple of sneaky peeks of a little fabric and lace hanging I have put into my shop.  Hope you like.

Guess What I've Been Doing

This is what I started off with:-

  a pile of snowy white lace, broderie anglaise, tatting and other bits of net and trim.

                                       Here are the same items afterwards:-

                                         varying degrees of subtle pinkness. Yummy!

Yup, you guessed right - avocado dyeing again.  DH is the avocado fan in our house - I don't like them and he used this up at the weekend and I asked him to save me the skin.  I wasn't ready to use it at the time so it was put into a plastic bag in the fridge for a couple of days and brought out yesterday.  I wasn't sure if it would work as it had been in the fridge and not used when fresh and ripe.  I found that it took longer to boil this time maybe as a result of this but I ended up boiling it all for an hour and a half (much longer this time) until I could see a murky brown colour in the pan and I knew it was starting to take.

I put the skin inside a piece of cotton scrim to boil this time as it is a fairly messy job with all the little pieces of avocado pith floating around and it seemed to work quite well at keeping them all inside.  I don't think the colour was as strong this time but it's still pretty and some of the pieces are such a delicate shade - not quite white, not quite pink, as every type of lace takes the dye differently.

It's quite a time consuming job but well worth it I think.  Now to use it!

Sneak Peeks - New Goodies Now Available

Here are a few sneak peeks of new items I have listed  in my shop this afternoon. - pop over and have a look.

New Digital Collage Sheets/Background Papers

Here are sneak peeks of 3 new papers in  my Etsy shop.  Pop over to see the whole sheets. Hope you like them - I haven't done many designs just lately but I'm on a roll this week!

Shabby Patchwork Heirloom Heart

I have had a lot of time on my hands of late and although I haven't been as creative as I could have been, I managed to make this little heart.  I had been going through some old Australian patchwork magazines and came across an applique heart pattern which I thought I could use.  I amended it slightly and made various shapes for the patchwork, then assembled bits of fabric, silk sari ribbon, old lace and printed or stamped canvas for the body of the heart and assembled some of my absolute favourite buttons and embellishments as I wanted this to be the kind of thing I would buy for me.

It was very fiddly and sometimes I wished I hadn't decided to make something so intense but continued on.

It was quite tricky in some places as I decided to use hessian for the backing and it was quite tough to sew but eventually got there through trial and error as some of the patchwork pieces didn't fit quite right.

Well here is the finished result and I love it - I will hang it onto one of my rustic door handles.  Hope you like it.

Homework - First Attempts at Free Motion Stitching

Carole over at Madness and Mess has been giving free video tutorials on free motion stitching in readiness for her new online course which is starting fairly soon.  This is to enable anyone wanting to do the course without free motion stitching experience to be up to speed ready for sign ups.

I have always wanted to master this but it has always frightened me - putting the feed dogs down and the fabric wandering all over the place is very scary indeed!  Here are my first attempts for Carole to have a look at!

Very tiny, scrunched up writing!

Getting a bit better.

Not too brilliant but better than when I first started - what do you think Carole?  I know I need much more practice.  I find it quite tiring holding onto the fabric, making sure the needle doesn't run away with it!

Flea Market Goodies

As is so often the case, I went to the local bric a brac market with a view to sourcing more supplies for my shop but nothing really grabbed me this week (apart from a couple of items which I ended up not buying because I thought they were way too expensive for what they were - some dealers really put their prices up high) but there were several items which I could use in my home and ended up buying these lovely goodies for me!

 a pretty pink flowered crocheted doily; two gorgeous silk hankies with lace edging;

 an embroidered  piece of linen with raw edges which hasn't been finished off, but I thought I could do something with;

 and another embroidered piece which is shaped to go over a coathanger, so a few ideas for this piece.

Finally Revealed - What I Made With My Erosion Bundle Contents

You will remember seeing my posts on this project and my recent sneak peeks on what I was doing with the contents.  Well, it is now finished and the result is  this little wall hanging - here are a few photos for you:-

This hanging will be available for sale in my  shop later today.  Thanks for looking.