Christmas day Croquet

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and don't get me wrong it was fun. But playing croquet on the frozen ground is much more difficult than we thought it would be. There was no stopping the ball from rolling once it got started. I think we'll wait for the spring to play again.

Christmas Crafting and Games

finally time to play Agricola!

working on gift exchange presents

presents under the tree ready
to give away

Australia Bound

I made this little polar bear by needle felting. He is made with nice merino wool, and his scarf is crocheted cotton. Although he liked living up north, he is on his way to live in Australia with my amazing aunt and uncle. That's why his scarf is cotton not wool, so he won't overheat.

thanks dear Husband for the beautiful

backdrop drawing

I made him into an ornament for the tree!

Genius Idea

Some ideas are just brilliant. Here is one of them: a toy sac that folds up! Here is the link. This version is done by pinksuedeshoe, and is for thicker canvas fabric. Its perfect timing because I just got this fabric from a thrift store today. Pounds and pounds of it, it's so heavy! I probably won't make this until after Christmas presents are finished being made, but a project to look forward too!

Guys on horses playing polo maybe?

I wish

So I had the option in fashion school to take a machine knitting class. Most of the things I saw people working on in that class didn't look too exciting. Of course the instructor had to cover lots of basics and techniques and those looked quite boring to me. I never heard of anyone wearing the things they had constructed in machine knitting, so I thought it would be a waste of time for me.

Yesterday I was at the One of a Kind Show in Vancouver with some friends and I found an artist who makes incredible socks, im Strang is her company. Wool socks, silk cashmere socks, cotton socks, striped socks and not to mention many dresses and sweaters also done by machine knit. If I knew of all the things a knitting machine could do I would have given the class a second thought. I probably won't take it up now, (maybe another day or year) but I remain very impressed and a proud supporter. (There is a pair under the tree for me thanks to a special someone!)

Baby Cardigan

Here is a cute little cardigan I revamped for a friends baby shower. She's going to be a winter baby, so I thought a baby red bird would be nice. I was going to put trees on it, but sometimes things turn out different and maybe better than planned. A hand sewn felt bird, and vintage red buttons to replace the white ones.

These Days

I have been needle felting this week. Its been fun just to jump right back into it again. I'm working on a garland for my Christmas tree. As well as some small ornaments.

Paint it all Purple

I have the tendency to paint things purple. I was given the task some years ago to pick out paint for my Mum's outdoor furniture. I came back from the paint store with a beautiful purple for the chairs and green for the table. It did take me a while to paint the furniture but I got inspired to paint something else purple too.

When my Mum came home she was interested to see the front door painted purple too. Maybe she wasn't too surprised though, dealing with her crazy kids throughout the years. It stayed purple for a long time, until one day the door had to be replaced. Now its back to white.

And lately I painted something else purple too. It wasn't what I was planning from the beginning but one thing led to another I guess...

where it was originally found

sanding it down in the summer

the second coat is finally on

and a cushion is attached!

of course it doesn't match anything

in my house but its still amazing

New Items in my Shop

I have recently designed a few new hats, they are up and ready to be purchased in my shop. I have more things coming for Christmas just wait and see!

Christmas Hats

I have been busy making new hats! These ones are very festive and I am excited to put them in my etsy shop soon. They are made of wool and wool blend fabrics and vintage faux mink fur.

Cupcakes!

Halloween cupcakes with special bug sprinkles! I got a new icing tip and I love it!

No craft time this summer!

Here is a recap of all the things I have made this summer, a birthday clutch, and this birthday banner. The banner was made for my two nieces in August and only now I have had time to write about it. It turned out beautifully! I love the fabric colours and designs. Fabricland does have a good thing or two from time to time.....

Birthday Clutch

I whipped up a cozy grey wool clutch for a friend's birthday. I thought wool would be the most appropriate fabric for this cold summer we are having. The clutch is about 12"x 7" and would fit all essentials perfectly.

If you are interested in purchasing any of the items (or another one similar) that you see on my blog just ask me! I'm not doing any markets these days, but I still love selling my things to people who are interested.

Art in Nature

Over the weekend I did some visiting in the Okanagan. I made some succulent gardens for my Mum back in the spring, and haven't seen them since. They have matured beautifully. I love creating with nature, its very satisfying and a lot of the time nature fills in the blanks and makes what we create even more beautiful.

Make-A-Monster

I got some crafty books from the library recently and "Make a Monster" is one of them. My sister Kelly and I decided to try making one of our own monsters out of nice fleece. I made Dilly, and my sister made a cute blue monster called Rufus. It has great picture instructions and full size patterns! I can't stand when craft books don't have full size patterns. Although the designs in the book are super creative and cute, we had to make our own modifications of course!

Dilly has a skirt made with her, but we didn't

get that far in an hour.

We customized his horns to be pointy

and made out of felt, not round and out

of stuffed fabric.

Fun West Coast Days!

I went hunting in Hope B.C. for treasures. They had a throw away day where residents put their unwanted items on the curb for other people to take. The find of the day was an arm chair with a wrecked seat. It needs a lot of work, but it will be a fun project. Easy compared to the other chair I did!

The Fraser River is VERY full

The family of chairs, I only have room for one

in my house, so I took the sturdiest

Cleaning the chair with a snow brush.

A colony of red ants were living in it, so we

left them in Hope and took their home.

Bag of Scraps

It feels like the summer is finally here, and with that means I have full time work. Its nice working and making money and things like that, but it also means I have less time to sew. I made a skirt this afternoon out of a bag of cotton and linen scraps I got from a store in Vancouver. Of the fabric I got, some is hand dyed some hand block printed and some hand woven, all made in India. They are such beautiful colours and designs, I instantly knew what I wanted to make out of it when I was digging through the bins of scraps.

New Paint!

Getting new craft supplies is always fun, and normally the possibilities are so wide there's not enough time to do them all. I have dabbled in paint a bit in the past mostly painting on furniture and other objects (like the table in the picture). But I got some canvases along with this paint. I already painted a picture of a castle with some princesses and a prince for some little friends of mine. Its the first time a painting took me more than a few hours, and I was really happy with it. The more time I take, the more I am pleased with it I have just discovered. I am getting better with patience I guess.

Flower Garden

I've been back creating after a couple months of getting used to doing my real job again. I'm not pumping out ideas and products like I was in the winter, but a few things here and there; like this green scarf with 3 shades of purple silk flowers.

the scarf looks great on my new $8 dress

from a recent thrift store shopping trip!

Chair Complete!

I'm happy to say that my chair project is complete! Finally after a week of endless hours working on it, the chair I started last tuesday is done! It's far from perfect but I know how to do it better next time I tackle something like this.

Before

After!

Side Angle

Side After

Naked Chair

Happy Chair!

Chair Recovering

I'm working on recovering a wingback wood frame chair for my Mum this week. What I thought would take an afternoon is taking the whole week! I also recovered some kitchen chairs last week. It was a good place to start, but what a learning curve this is.

before of wingback chair

(after picture soon to come!)

kitchen chairs before

kitchen chairs after