Whimsy

I am loving embroidery.

I don't have time to be doing anything crafty... Lots of assessments and boring stuff coming up. But that makes the corners of my mouth point downwards... And that's just not fun! So this is what I did this evening! The patterns are from a book called A Rainbow Of Stitches and its marvelous! Please note! This book is nearly exactly the same as a book called Made In France which is equally as lovely just has a few less designs in. I didn't see this info anywhere on the Amazon page, so ended up buying both! Which was annoying but also now belongs to mother. The book is lovely though! It has a bit of everything in, and is soooo worth the money! 

That's Christmas embroidery hoop art number two done! And it didn't take up a lot of time I should have been spending on work so its all okay!

Dala Horses

I love em. You may have seen I'm one of my recent posts about lino printing a dala horse design... Since then I got my copy of Cross Stitcher... And guess what?! A dala horse... And I wasted no time! (Actually I regularly waste time... Not the point!)

I really want to paint the frame white soon... But for now I think my little horsey looks pretty spiffing, sitting up high, keeping guard of the room.

Stitching Away

So I have started something else.

I have never really tried hand embroidery before... By looking through some really pretty books has given me the push! It seemed like quite a natural progression from the cross stitch anyway...

I love it.

It's like doodling - which I am awful at. I can only doodle hearts, stars, cups of tea and those weird interlocking Celtic type knit things which look like an S that everyone used to draw in middle school. And stick people.

But doodling with thread! Yaaay!

So I made a toadstool house. Of course. It was meant to be a Christmas decoration, but it's going to live in the Singer all year round. Until I move out of course.



And then I remembered that I acquired some sparkly aida that I didn't think I would ever actually use.... But Christmas is coming you know!

So this happened...

And now... Well now I really need to be getting in with uni work. The amount of work I need to be doing seems to directly correlate with how much I don't want to do it. So this is currently happening.... Happy Thursday everyone!!

A Printy Weekend

The other day I got very excited because I cut and printed my very first lino cutting! Yay!

If you know me well, you'll know that things like this make me very happy. You'll also know that when I do something new I become OBSESSED. 

So it's only fitting that I spent most of my weekend cutting bits of lino, stabbing my thumb with a blade and printing stuff! Here's some sneaky peeks... (the thing I really want to show you, I can't. It's my design for my Christmas cards...) 

 Oh, and just a quick note on where the whole lino cutting idea came from... The Mollie Makes Christmas book. Buy it. Seriously. RRP is £10 and it is so worth that!  

So this Dala horse was originally an embroidery design from the Christmas issue of Mollie Makes (starting to sound like an advert for them!) from a whole year ago... and whilst I LOVE this design... I wanted something of my own... which I am not sharing with you all just yet...

But I seriously couldn't be happier with how it turned out! 

 

This was entirely the boyfriends idea. (in fact it was my idea, he was just the one to cut it out)

Then these little fishes happened... I rather like them. 

So there we have it! Some, but not all of my lino cuttings from the weekend. If you are inspired, I really would suggest buying the Mollie Makes book, it's lovely. And all the rest of the projects in there are inspiring too! And if I can do something which takes this much care, and only stab myself in the hand once, then you can to! Hurrah! 

Gathered

Now... We all know and love Mollie Makes, and have done for a while... 

So imagine my excitement when I heard that they were bringing out a new, weekly, iPad magazine!

Have you seen it yet? If not, then why not!? 

Since hearing about it, I looked regularly to see if the app was in the app store... then last Thursday it was there. 

The only thing I was worrying about was how much it was going to be! (I already have many magazine subscriptions) 

But at £2.99 a month - that's at least four issues, is a bit of a steal! 

AND it looks beautiful! 

 

It's nice to meet you too! 

And thanks for adding ANOTHER craft I need to do onto my list. I really want to make those needle felted acorns... 

I'm a printer!

No, not an electrical one!

The other day I got some lino and a lino cutting tool. (As if I needed another craft to get obsessed over!)

I have been putting off making my first cut since Saturday because I wanted to take my time and do it properly.... But then another argument with student finance later... I found myself cutting out a little birdy design! And I'm rather pleased! It's by no means perfect... But practise makes perfect right?! ;)

Cross Stitching... not the angry kind...

Is there even an angry kind? Maybe it's like angry sex with the absence of sex... 

ANYWAY... I have long admired the graphic designs of modern cross stitching. And LONG love the designs of Emily Peacock... but that's pretty much where my knowledge of it ended... 

I recently went into a shop in Cambride called Ark... They had a wonderful retro style Cross Stitch sampler. And being of the crafty minded sort, I thought 'I like it, but I want to make it myself!' 

I couldn't even count the amount of times I have said that in my life.

Not many things scare me in the world of making things... but Cross Stitch always has...

Then some people told me how easy it was... I just happened to pick up the most recent copy of Cross Stitcher Magazine... 

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED!!!

  Yup! I single handedly, Cross Stitched a whole butterfly all by myself and I'm very proud! I have now worked out how to do waste knots properly, and it wasn't nearly as hard or scary as I thought it would be! 

And even though it took a whole, hand over day to make... I love it! 

I spent the next few days with nothing on my mind but Cross Stitch (Yeah, I'm cool!) so I was already planning my next one... and here it is (WHY oh why did I learn to do this just as I am going back to university!?) 

 I have a long list of things I want to Cross Stitch. 

Better get on with some research now! (boo!)