A Crafty Year

One of the many pleasures of blogging is looking back at old posts and realising just how much stuff I've been making! 2009 has been a busy year...

In January I did some knitting, launched my website and made a "credit crunch" sampler inspired by the relationship between the recession & crafting for a Folksy competition:
In February it snowed (quite a novelty here!), I made lots of colourful felt buttons, what felt like a million bird brooches and (for one of my favourite tutorials of the year) a felt butterfly mobile:
In March I repotted lots of plants, got inspired by the 80s, and baked some yummy cakes:
I also officially "quit my day job" and became a full-time crafter, which was quite exciting if a little daunting!

April was quite quiet as I spent two whole weeks without the internet (madness!) and generally taking it easy, but I did manage to rearrange my craft storage thanks to some lovely new shelves:(it has never been that tidy since, haha).

In May it was rather hot (in a very un-British fashion) but I was working on things for Christmas! I also experimented with adding butterflies to some of my brooches and did a little happy dance when my little teacup brooches were featured in Sew Hip:

In June I bought lots of vintage buttons, made a custom mobile in bright modern colours and got inspired by summer flowers - making lots of eco flower brooches and combs from recycled felt:
July ended badly as I came down with the flu and was stuck in bed for two weeks! But before that I made some pretty poppy bracelets for a wedding, and did some alfresco sewing at a picnic:
I re-opened my shops in August thanks to help from my new postal assistant, made lots of giant felt rainbows, became slightly obsessed with pompoms and reminisced about one of my very first sewing projects - proudly displayed by my mum:
In September I made lots of masks (including new tiger masks), did some vintage shopping, and got inspired to write a whole flurry of tutorials starting with a bold button necklace:
In October I got to show off some of the fab things made by my customers (I hope to do lots more of these posts, so if you've bought felt etc from me and want to share pictures of what you've been making please do get in touch!), some of my hairbands appeared in Elle Japan which was rather exciting and I knitted lots of little hats:
November started very badly with our computer crashing (ugh) but definitely improved as the month went on - one of my giftwrap tutorials got a mention in Woman's Day, my Mother-in-Law loved the cafetiere cosy I made for her birthday, I did some Christmas crafting, finished some Christmas gifts, added a new camera design to my shop ... and at the end of the month Fa La La La Felt was published....... featuring four of my projects! In a book! Eeek!! (I may not have entirely got over the excitement of this yet).

And finally... December has (of course) been all about Christmas. I decorated the tree, made paper decorations, finished some gifts at the last minute, did some baking, wrapped some presents, enjoyed the winter issue of UK Handmade, and survived the general madness that is the Christmas shopping season thanks to much help from my boyfriend (what a star).

I also ended the year as I began it, entering a Folksy competition (a strange pair of bookends for 2009!), making a fancy fascinator / cocktail hat from an old wool sweater:
Many, many thanks to everyone who has read my blog, followed me on Twitter/Facebook/Flickr/etc, left me a comment or bought something from my shops this year. Your support is very much appreciated!

UPDATE: My large felt flower design is now available as a sewing pattern! (The flowers I used to make that cocktail hat will be available as a pattern soon, too!) Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns: