Wood work!

In my efforts to make my little craft  (play) room  more efficient, I decide to make another change. Out went the wooden work unit and I purchased  a small unit from Ikea , which matched the other long unit. I now have one long unit with space and storage galore, a result at last!

Whilst there I purchased another one of these....

...now with two of them, I had plans for them both. But first I had to paint and decorate them.

The first one was given a wash with two Plaid paints...

...I used these two colours and just dry brushed them in, I didn't want it perfect and I didn't want the whole surface covered....

..it dried quickly. Whilst drying I set to with some wallpapers pieces which I'd been given...

..I roughly cut three pieces, two for the sides and one for the top, (the underside and back were just painted)

but they weren't quite right so I tore around all the edges....

...not being to careful and then I glued them on to the three sides.....

.....once dry I dry brushed a little paint over the torn areas of paper....

....whilst that was drying I set about the drawers. I decided to paint these with blackboard paint....

....but they were too plain. So using three complimentary stamps I stamped with white Stayzon and edged with gold Galaxy marker.....

...it matches with the design on the paper perfectly, right down to the gold edges.

There's plenty of room for me to chalk on the draw fronts what's in where!

I gave the three sides a coat of matt varnish....

.....The other one I just did without taking many pictures.

I gave it a coat of white paint (watered down as it's thirsty wood) and when dry it got another white coat.

I then picked four colours of paint and just dabbed randomly over it. After drying I made a buttermilk colour and gave it one coat. I wanted the other colours to show through. Before it was completely dry I used a damp cloth and rubbed in some Plaid glaze (New Gold Leaf) once again it was rubbed in randomly as I didn't want a perfect finish.
Once dry using black Stayzon and a small butterfly stamp, I embellished the whole front....

....and now it's filled with inks and pens....

...I'm pleased as I got the finish I wanted and they hold all my paints, pens inks and sprays.

I'm finally getting organised.  Next job.... well, I have more boxes to decorate!

Stitching through Time!

Well, May came...and went as just as quick. I've been stitching my way through the last few weeks, and making family birthday  presents and cards too. So here's a peek at what's been happening in my little hobby haven........
I told myself  (back in March) that this summer I would finish off most, hopefully all, of my incomplete projects. So I started with this......

...the patchwork blocks had been made about four years ago and were waiting to be stitched together. Yes, I know, I should have done it earlier. Well it's now complete. I used a flannelette sheet for my batting. I can almost hear the quilting purists alarmed at this, but I see it this way. When my grandmother (and hers before her) made quilts, they didn't have the vast array of "must haves" to complete their projects. They used what they had, and so did I! The backing is an Ikea quilt cover which I bought in the sale ( about three years ago) for £2.00.  The stitching isn't perfect, and neither am I, but it looks lovely and it goes on the bed in the spare room beautifully.

I had a lot of fabric left over from the duvet cover and made myself a pair of pj bottoms......

.....they look great with my red tee. I've made pj bottoms from quilt covers and sheets before. well I'm not going to pay the price they want in the shops for something that is so easy to make.

This is something which is for our eldest grandson.....

...  and his much loved football team, but that's all I can show of it at the moment. It's all complete, but when it's hanging in place you'll get a better picture.

I've also cut out a dress and another bunting, but this one is a different theme ( one for one of our grand daughters) One down, five to go!

When I look back, there hasn't been a time in my life that I haven't been sewing or knitting. These have always been  my two great passions.

I began like many others using my grandmother's old Singer treadle machine, and when I got my fist little machine it was one of these....

..given to me by an aunt. It was a chain stitch machine, it was fun, and it sewed crepe paper together wonderfully, we made all our decorations for Christmas.

As I grew up we had a Singer hand cranked machine. My dolly's dresses were lovely. I made so much ( with the help of my mum of course) and soon moved on to making little quilt covers and rag dolls.

This hand machine I used right up until I went to grammar school, and it was there I was first introduced to the electric sewing machine. It terrified me! I was so afraid that it would go crazy I always opted to use the Jones hand machines. The teacher soon sussed me out and I ended up on the electric one. It took a while, but I got used to it, in the end.

By the time we married in 1976, I was still using our old hand operated Singer. I shared it with my mum until March 1977, when my lovely hubby bought me an electric Singer 303 for my 21st birthday. It looked something like this....

...just a straight and zigzag stitch, no free arm. it was heavy, really heavy.  I was on cloud nine! My friends though I was mad wanting a sewing machine, "why don't you want a gold locket/bracelet, or go to Spain for a holiday?   Er, no thanks,  money was very tight and this was the perfect present for me.  I made, curtains, cushions, dresses, toys for family and friends .I made costumes for amateur productions, curtains and pelmets for friends moving into their new homes.

When the children came along  I made quilts, bumpers, bedding ,clothes, wall hangings, duvet covers, pillow cases, toys, presents for their friends when they were invited to birthday parties. All with the same sewing machine. Virtually everything was made and very little was bought. In fact it wasn't until 2005 that I bought a new one.

I'd got off the bus to go to work and I had to walk past a beautiful sewing shop. Something caught my eye, and it was this....a Toyota Quilt 50....

I went back to the shop in my lunch break and was there for the whole hour looking  and thinking and drooling!!

I had some money saved up and after much deliberation over 24 hours, I bought it. It's been  my work horse since then and I love it. I still kept my old 303 for a short while. When you think I'd had the 303 since March 1977 until May 2005 and it had only been serviced once in that time, and had never let me down it had been one amazing machine, but I couldn't part with it. In the end I donated it to a charity and they were very pleased with it.

I love this machine but I was now getting interested in even more stitches. In 2009 my lovely hubby bought me a 

Silver Viscount 9500E for my birthday....

it is a little beauty. But, between Christmas 2010 and May 2012, I didn't sew much due to the fact I'd had this dreadful fall on my knee. All my efforts were concentrated on getting fit and well and  to be able to carry on as before (hopefully) which I have done, thankfully.  So for the last six months, I have sewn as much as I have been able.  I have knitted and sewn for about 54 years out of 57, and hope that I can carry on doing so for many, many more. Along with many other things too!

....and I'm back in the room!

Gosh, it has been a while since my last post! There's been so much going on, not that I'm complaining. I love being busy.
I have  (at last)  some updates on my "what I do with milk cartons" project. Apart from using them as ordinary stencils, I use the cut pieces for embellishments and decorate them to use on cards or boxes.  As an example I cut various shapes from these dies....

........

.....

......

I also used the dress and accessories die, but I seem to have lost that picture somewhere!   Anyway, you can also cut out shapes with scissors if you prefer or don't have a die cutting machine. The plastic on these cartons isn't very thick ( it used to be) and is very flexible.

...

........

......

......

       On some of the shapes I stamped an image using Stazon black ink. Then I coloured with Galaxy marker pens  ......

.....

 they hold the colour  really well. I also used metallic gold and silver pens on this heart....

....this photo doesn't do it justice, it really does look pretty. I used some of these hearts stamped with butterflies on a card last year.   It worked so well and looked very pretty.

I also used Promarkers to colour in some of the shapes...

.....the handbag and the teddy were cut from the textured piece of milk carton. The flowers, once dried will  be gently heated with a heat gun, to make them curl a little more. ( Don't over do it or they become rock hard  as I can telly you from experience). 

I do have another couple of ideas which I've used, using Plaid Gallery Glass, and also heat embossing.

In the meantime I'm busy with a Kitty......

.......one of our grand daughters has a 5th birthday at the weekend. She adores Hello Kitty, so that's my theme for her card this year. I have a 21st birthday card to make too. I already know what I'm going to do for that and my theme colours are black and white and silver.

Once thay're  finished I can sit and sew this afternoon. A summer dress and some lightweight pj's.

I just might treat myself to a cuppa and a slice of cake first!

Knitting news!

I've added some new items to my Folksy shop this week......
First, some new cupcakes....

...with duo icing..
A trio of tartlets, calories free of course!

I've been asked to do some more ice creams and so we have.......

.
..a choc chip and a "99" with strawberry sauce of course......

.

and a raspberry ripple and double choc, with raspberry sauce.

...and finally, my version of teatime play for little ones.

...

I'm still knitting, trying out new designs. in between doing other crafty things. I'll show you what happened to the milk cartons in my next post.
Happy days!

Stencil Stories

I Love stencils, always have. When I was small we used to cut shapes from paper and card. I would colour and scribble and draw through the shapes onto other paper and card. My dad used to make us toys. Jigsaws were a firm favourite. I remember using the odd off cut shapes which were left. These I used as stamps, stencils, or anything I could think of to do with them.


I have a big collection of stencils, quite a few are kept in this box....


.... it's packed to the brim. I'll show you some of them.....


.....some of them have been used many times, some just once, some are waiting for that " certain" project....


.... some of them I was given, a huge pile of unwanted stencils...

....this is just a small selection of them.....


.....i have tiny ones for minute projects and huge ones for wall projects....

.....I have some that accompany books......


.... and I have some from my school days....

...and I love each and every one of them and wouldn't part with a single one.

Sometimes I use just part of a stencil, sometimes I use the whole thing. It just depends on what I'm doing.
I also make my own too, from card, paper, plastic or whatever is to hand or will be suitable.

I use this....
.


....clean plastic packaging. some of these packets were from dies. I cut out the best bits and the rest goes into the recycling ( if it can be recycled) .

I use card......

...any card, or paper.
But I also use these.....

...wash and dry them and then get to work. Cut out all the best bits. I know that sometimes these cartons vary from shop to shop, and some have a textured part. Fear not because that too can be used. ( I'll leave that for another post) It can be cut with scissors to any shape you want. Just draw around, or make the shape you want.. But the best bit is this.....



...if you've got a Sizzix machine,or other die cutting machine, then the possibilities are endless.
There seems to be a growing trend to use stencils once more, ( I hate that word, trend and the phrase "on trend") I don't follow whatever anyone else is doing and do my own thing, and always will. People even call them masks now, but they're all stencils to me. All my life I've been stencilling  on paper, card, walls, fabric, garden pots, sheds, glass, clothes, mirrors, curtains. it's endless what I've done, and I will carry on doing do, whether its "on trend" or not!
But back to the milk cartons, it doesn't stop these because there are other things which you can do with them too.
But that will be on my next post when I've played experimented some more.

Knit one...knit two...

On a previous post I said that I had a couple of projects to knit for myself. Well there were three actually. The first being a snood. I don't mean one of these modern, scarf/wrap thingamy's, I mean a real snood,the ones which were popular in the early 1980's. I made mine in dark green, to match my coat. It's very similar to this one....

..it was knitted over two evenings, very quick. it's very warm and cosy and I love it.
My next piece was a chunky jacket from this pattern....

...again, it's an old pattern, but I loved the style, and I knitted mine in a gorgeous coppery brown....

..that's it, waiting to be finished with a pressing. I used some vintage buttons from my collection. I did alter the collar, as I'm not too keen on very wide collars, so I just made it half size. It was very quick to knit as it's in a chunky yarn and an easy pattern.

My third project is this tunic....

...I began knitting this just over a week ago, just working in the evenings for a couple of hours or so. It's another easy pattern, knitted in aran weight yarn. I'm just finishing off the second sleeve. Thne all I have to do is the neckband and sew it up.....

I know that there are a lot of people who wouldn't even attempt to try to knit anything with a cable in it, but once the basics are learnt it's so easy. Okay I've been knitting since I was four, so it's easy for me to say.
I can remember back in the 1970's when aran jackets and jumpers were so fashionable ( I made so many then) I knew many people who bought all the yarn and pattern to
make themselves some aran wear, just for it to end up in a bag at the back of a cupboard somewhere, for maybe years!
My one piece of advice for anyone who wants to try making a garment with cables, is if you have your pattern and yarn, don't go straight into knitting it if you are not confident. Take some time, get a couple of balls of double knitting yarn and some size 4mm needles and practise the pattern first. You don't have to worry about tension as it's only a practise piece. Once you are confident with the pattern then go on to knitting the garment. it will be worth it in the end. It's how I learned to do it years ago. The added bonus was that I saved up all the squares of " practise" patterns and sewed them all together and made a throw for my bed and it lasted years!
I shall be working on some new designs for my knitted patisserie range once my tunic is complete. My notebook is full of ideas and little drawings. it's full of sewing projects too. So much to do......so little time!