Phat Quarter "Living In the 80s" Partner Swap Piece

This was the piece Devin sent me for the 80's Phat Quarter swap - I love it! My Lost Boys obsession has never gone away, looking back it seems to have been a huge influence on everything from my fashion sense (mostly black) to my choice of boyfriends...

 Check out her Flickr stream here and her Etsy shop StitchCulture here - I love the vintage owls "Who's Yo' Daddy?" hoop.

Thursday Things

Things I Loved This Week:

• Gnommi's drypoint skull print
• Wild Olive's guide on making her patterns extra-kawaii
• Craftivist Collective's new website
• Jani Franck's post on whether artists should use an hourly rate for pricing
• Kimika Hara's amazing colourful embroidery

Wordless Wednesday

Alpacas!

On Saturday I went to Petlake Alpacas in the New Forest for their open day where I WALKED AN ALPACA!!!!!!! It was amazing, even if my alpaca didn't seem that interested in me. My boyfriend's alpaca was very excited about being walked and kept kissing him.

Have some fluffy alpaca photos. I especially liked the one with the creepy snake eyes (and obviously the baby ones).

Wordless Wednesday

Wild Olive Summer Stitching Club

Here is a really bad photo of my patchwork piece for the Summer Stitching Club. I have since taken the bits of cardboard out and re-ironed it. I've also found some batting and hung it up on the same hanger from the curtain rail....

I've also got some way into organising my craft room, I have even removed the cushion with cat sick on it. I am a little horrified about how much felt and jewellery bits I possess, especially as I've never really made any jewellery. I plan to remedy this, as I am seriously considering the Rediscover You Creativity Through Making Jewelry e-course (an excuse to buy even more tiny jewellery bits). I doubt my City & Guilds Embroidery course is going ahead, but the college isn't 100% sure - I won't have time to do anything else if it does actually happen (it's not even advertised on their site, so it would be a miracle if it does).

Wordless Wednesday

Crafty things that I am in the middle of

I've done about 1/8 of the border of my Frosted Pumpkin Halloween Spooky Sampler. It's driving me slightly insane as it is on 32 count linen, but it has revealed a skull, bat and spider so far which is for some reason very exciting.

I've finished the actual embroidery and sewing together of hexagons for the Wild Olive Summer Stitching Club. I still have to do the backing and quilting, it's currently strung up from a curtain rail so the cats don't get at it.

I've got as far as printing out the first pattern and the hexagon shapes for the Wild Olive Autumn Stitching Club. These clubs are really handy for crafting on-the-go as they involve embroidering cute tiny seasonal pictures on small bits of fabric, in a small range of colours. The Autumn one is supposed to be made up into a cushion, but I don't trust Noddy's digestive system near anything I've spent hours on so I suspect this will be another wall hanging.

I've signed up for the latest Phat Quarter Swap - the theme this time is "Five". Arrrghhh, I have no clue what to do for this one.

I also have hundreds of half finished cross stitches, toy cows and clothes, but I'm currently ignoring all these, my craft room is too messy to find any of them anyway....

Wordless Wednesday

Shops I Love Part One: Esperanza Em

I love Esperanza Em's folksy shop (she also sells on eBay). I have quite a few of her Day of The Dead brooches and necklaces and am very tempted by her tiki and sea creature ranges.

Her blurb (coz she describes it better than I can in my office-induced foggy brain state):
"I mainly specialise in Mexican inspired hand crafted jewellery, including brooches and necklaces made from upcycled bottlecaps. Featured themes include Day Of The Dead, Frida Kahlo, Lucha Libre wrestling, nautical and Hawaiian tiki. I have a punk/DIY ethic and try to keep my prices low. My creations are made with love and I am pleased to be able to share them with people who will enjoy them."

This is the latest item I have from the shop (it is very me as much as I try to hide my gothy side). I also have several necklaces with the magic combination of skulls and glitter...

 

 

Em has also started doing bracelets, I love this one:

 



 

And there are also necklaces and brooches for ukulele fans!