Amazing Portraiture Art...

I just wanted to bring attention to the amazing art of my friend Mel Evans.  Mel is a self employed artist who has exhibited in Cardiff and Brighton and is currently taking very reasonably priced commissions.

All of Mel's portraits are painted from photographs, which makes things simple if you aren't in the same area or you have children or pets that won't keep still!  She uses a medium of predominantly oil on canvas and works from her studio in Brighton.

You can contact Mel through her website or become a fan on facebook

Angry Birds Plushies by Obsessively Stitching

I'm loving these Angry Birds toys by Obsessively Stitching!

Not that I've been at all addicted to the game (ahem)! These cute creatures are so spot on I couldn't help but smile :)

There are a whole crew of angry bird tutorials to be found for free on Obsessively Stitching's blog, and the original red bird is available on Etsy for the less creative of you.

Recycling old for new

I just found this awesome tutorial to turn a man's shirt into a child's dress on www.dana-made-it.com.

I love seeing anything that supports making and recycling old clothes rather than throwing them away and buying new, cheap disposable clothes and this is a fantastic idea!

Dana-made-it.com is a fantastic blog packed with ideas for refashioning new items from old clothes and lots of fab photos.

Take note!

Knitted Nativity!

How cute are these guys? My friend Steph donated them to me at the weekend thinking I might be able to give them a better home than her.  It seems a shame to keep them hidden away until Christmas!

Ethos...

When people ask "What do you do?" how many of you are excited by your answer?  I mean, really passionate about it?

This is just a little thing I've been thinking lately and I thought as it's so relevant to what I'm trying to do, I would share it with anyone reading.  I'm talking about sewing, dressmaking.. Buttons and Beeswax. 

I love the feeling of making something for somebody and playing a part in their excitement of having something new, that was put together just for them.  I like the idea that something as simple as an item of clothing can make you feel really good about yourself.  It can change your confidence,  the way you stand and how you see yourself in the mirror.

Creating things for people to wear is exciting because it makes them feel special.  It is a personal and indulgent thing to spend money on hand made clothing and I want people to feel like they are getting a treat.  That's what gives me a buzz.

Dressmaking started for me as a hobby, but I know that isn't enough.  It's what interests me, and if I have to do something to live then I want it to be that.  To give people that feeling I just described.  And if we have to spend most of hours working, why not spend it working on something we love?

James' Shirt

I've never been a massive fan of denim, but there's something about it.  I like the way it presses and how the stitches look when they are holding pieces of it together.  There's something very satisfying about creating garments out of it.  So when I was asked to make a shirt I was quite excited to get going on it.


The fabric itself is quite thin, for denim, however as it's a shirt and not a jacket this was important.  I chose the lightest weight I could find knowing that the yoke and the pockets would all weigh it down.


Here is the result :-)

Dad's Photographers Gloves

Prompted by something my dad had mentioned, I decided to go on and make him some gloves for christmas with a couple of bits missing... He'd said how gloves should have the tip of the right finger free, for pressing the shutter on the camera.  Thinking about this, I realised how generally it's quite useful to have a thumb free also, but without all of the missing fingers of fingerless gloves which frankly don't keep you warm in the winter!  (Yes I realise it's now March, but I've been terrible at keeping this blog up to date recently (possibly something to do with the excitement of moving from the south east back to the south west. ))


I digress..

Here are the gloves.. now tried and tested, they proved very useful! The pattern for the gloves can now be downloaded from here.

Shop

Have you checked out the shop recently??  Lots of lovely lovely things to get your hands on :-)

Ebay

Hola! So I've been away from the blog for ages again, mostly making christmas presents and all those aprons last year, but my excuse this time is the shop I have been setting up on ebay. I thought I'd have a go with these fun skull and crossbones/rockabilly type fabrics and see what I came up with.

Here's a baby dress to give you an idea of the sort of things I want to do - you'll have to excuse the rubbish photo I was in a bit of a hurry to get it all listed yesterday so it won't be permanant!

Check out my ebay shop here

Aprons.. lots and lots of them!

I realise I haven't posted anything for ages again - but I have a good excuse! I've not had a lot of time to myself recently as I've been crazily preparing for Christmas, making these lovely aprons which I will (hopefully) be selling at the Craft Fayre at the Komedia on Sunday in Brighton.

If you'd like one then they will be available in the shop soon, or if you can't wait then email me and I'll send you one. These aprons are reversible and made from cotton and viscose suiting fabric, so as well as looking stylish they are also fully washable (on a low temperature) so you don't need to worry about getting covered in cake, or steak, or whatever floats your boat.

I thought after all the cute girly aprons that I'd make something for the boys too, so these are available at £25 each.

Black with White Stripe with grey/white stripe:

Black with white stripe / Mottled black and white

Brown/Blue tweed stripe / mottled black/white:

Brown/blue tweed stripe / Grey/white stripe:

And more for the ladies! I've now got this lovely apples and flowers fabric with hot pink polk dot, cupcakes with chocolate and turquoise and a little tailored skirt apron made with the black and white stripe fabric and the grey and white material.

Tommy's Booties

These booties were made for a small person called Tommy.... They were knitted in Rowan Handknit Cotton and Rico Baby DK and the pattern can be found here

The buttons are made of coconuts :-)

Broad Street Mittens part 2

Gosh, I just realised I last blogged about these in January too, what have I been doing? I suppose the need to knit gloves in the summer isn't great really. Now finished, the mittens are no longer mittens, but proper gloves, and they fit and are soooo warm! I'll be glad of this in the winter.



I decided to keep going with the fingers as fingerless gloves are never really warm enough for me, even with the mitten flap. But having finished them I remember the reason I wanted fingerless ones was so I could knit in the winter so maybe I'll have to make another pair.



The yarn is a regia 4ply nylon/wool mix and the pattern is from knitty and can be found here I have changed the size (as I have small hands) so if you use this yarn I can't guarantee they'll fit you!

Business Cards!!

In the middle of making everything I managed to finally get some business cards printed! The design was inspired by my trademark photos on the floorboards, though sadly there will be no more of these as I've moved, and will therefore have to get more creative with my photography!

The cards were printed on 450gsm recycled card and I love them :0)

Emma's bridesmaid dress.

I made this dress for my friend Emma in September for a wedding. She was a bridesmaid and had just been told to buy a burgundy dress and that was it. I really wanted a bit of practice at making something for someone else, so I offered to make it for her as an excuse :-)

I did have more photos of this dress but I seem to have lost a memory card! The fabric and lining are both silk and it took about a week to complete.



It's actually the same pattern as one I made for myself (as a brithday present) Emma and I are a similar size so I was lucky that I could try it on when she wasn't around.

The pattern is Burda 7488 for anyone wishing to make one, I just omitted the contrast fabric from the bottom and instead used one piece.

Mat's Hat

Hello again! I've been a tad behind with the blogging due to an increased addiction to making, it seems. So here is the first of a few long overdue posts and photographs..

Back in January I agreed to make a hat for Matt Carver, a local electrician, with his business logo on it. Here is the original post. The logo for Lucas Electrics is a kangaroo and I was looking forward to getting stuck into a bit of fair isle knitting. This isn't something I'm massively accomplished at and I really wanted to give it a go.

However it didn't really work in the round, as I realised I'd be using up far too much wool carrying the yarn around when I wasn't using it, and it would make the hat unnecessarily thick. Also I was messing up the tension and spending far too long on it!

In the end I settled for knitting the beanie in the round and then swiss darning the logo on afterwards. This gave a lot more scope for detail and the end result I think is great. I haven't got a photo of Mat in it yet but he does seem to wear it a lot, which can only be a good thing! It's also 100% Merino so it should keep him warm in the winter months.

It also managed to grab the attention of Aussie comedian Adam Hills and played a part in his show! He mentions it in his blog here