365 / 163 - From Sketches to Patterns to Prototypes

We had a super-slow day at work yesterday and I spent rather a lot of time sneakily sketching British butterflies:
Of course, I was then so excited at how well some of the sketches had turned out that I had to try some out the moment I got home...
... the yellow one is a Brimstone butterfly, the blue one is Adonis Blue and the in-progress white and orange one is a species called Orange-Tip. I also tried out petal shapes for daisies, and (seriously thrilling) made a prototype Bluetit which is on the wrong colour background and lacking an eye! The idea for the bluetit (and, in fact, for a whole range of British garden birds) came when I was idly sketching possible shapes for a robin back in December, and it is wonderful to have fully realised the idea. Here's a shot of all the sketches I made - initial robin sketches, a sketch working out how to represent bluebird markings, and then a neater drawing to base a pattern - along with the pattern pieces and prepared felt shapes:
Then here's the final drawing and the finished applique for comparison:
He's turned out to be rather a cutie I think, and I'm very glad as the bluetit is one of my very favourite birds. The pages of my bird books will be well thumbed over the next few weeks I think as I'll be adapting the pattern for all sorts of different species....

There won't be any more 365 photos from me for a little while though, as I'm going away for a few days (leaving the boyfriend to fend for himself, haha). I shall still be blogging though, continuing my "featured crafter" series showing off some of the amazing talent in the Crafting 365 group.

PS Yay! My pansy pin got a mention in an Etsy article posted today about Colour Theory - apparently I "used the split complementary color scheme of green, purple and yellow to create a balanced color contrast". This is news to me but lovely to get the mention - particularly amongst so many lovely featured items! I have a sneaking suspicion that my pansy was on the Etsy front page with those items the other day but it sold and I missed it... ah well. Nice to see it turning up on the FP this afternoon anyway:

365 / 154 - Tea, Glorious Tea

I do like a nice cup of tea. I drank a lot of tea yesterday, and finished the batches of teacup brooches. Here they are, all finished, in a very satisfying heap:
The red teacups will be in the shop this evening, as long as I remember to list one! I was supposed to yesterday but got distracted listening to the radio instead. Oh well.

Today being Sunday, there's not much going on and I am planning an afternoon working on new patterns and getting a few odds and ends sorted out, so hopefully some new things to show off tomorrow if all goes to plan! Enjoy the rest of your weekend...

365 / 136 - preparing to take photos

Yesterday I decided to get all the designs I've been working on finished and photo-ready for this morning, adding lots of brooch backs and stitching fronts and backs together and putting all my unlisted items together, thus:
... but then I got up this morning and it was so dark! We had the lights on for the whole day, and after taking that one photo my camera refused to focus and take any more pics (and using a flash in listing photos is worse than taking no pictures at all, frankly). More annoying than there are words for. Hopefully in the next couple of days we will have a little more light, as I plan on adding all my new designs to the shop over the next week or so.

To make room for all these exciting new things, I have set up a new section in my shop: Last Chance to Buy. This imaginatively named section is stocked with soon-expiring things which for one reason or another will not be relisted when they expire, so it's your last chance to buy them before they disappear from my shop.