May in Pictures: Secret Sewing, a Vintage Funfair, Mini Blanket Squares, and Royal Ice Cream

Time for another round-up of pics from my Instagram feed. What did I get up to in May?

At the start of the month it was straight back to work after my trip to Northumberland, as I had a couple of looming deadlines. These are some of the leftovers from a few hours hard stitching. One pair of scissors is for cutting paper, another for fabric and another for threads and small pieces of felt.

It can be frustrating not being able to share what I'm making, but at least I can show you some of the yummy supplies I've been using! Working on a couple of embroidered pieces means choosing just the right shades of thread (floss) - luckily I have lots to choose from:

 

One project involved this cheerful rainbow of felt, floss and thread.

 

After meeting one deadline, I got to stretch my legs and blow out the cobwebs with a happy morning spent exploring Bristol (one of my very favourite places). There's always interesting street art to see in Bristol!

I also went to see an exhibition at the city museum, and visited a really gorgeous little church: St John the Baptist, which is known locally as St John on the Wall because it's built into the old city walls. I lived in Bristol for years but had never been inside this church before - it's no longer used for services but it's opened by volunteers so visitors can look round. I loved this fading rose on one of the outer walls:
 

 
That weekend Carters Steam Fair was in town, which proved a perfect post-deadline treat. Carters is a vintage travelling funfair - all the equipment they use (the rides, caravans, lorries, etc) has been lovingly restored and beautifully hand-painted. It's a really magical experience! Click here to see where the fair will be visiting this summer.

 

 

With those deadlines met, I had a bit more spare time for crafting in the evenings and devoted some time to working on my happy rainbow blanket. 

Having nearly finished the blanket I was itching to start something new. I have approximately a gazillion projects already in progress, you understand, but I cannot resist the siren song of a new project! This vintage pattern (from a 1950s craft magazine) was originally designed for use with tapestry wool, but I'm thinking about using a mix of felt and embroidery to make something really colourful. I just need to pick a colour palette... decisions, decisions...

Now that I'd finished knitting the rainbow blanket squares, I also needed a new go-to easy project to pick up at the end of a long day when I want something simple and relaxing to work on. So, I've started knitting the many, many white squares I'll need to complete my mini patchwork blanket. Someone on Instagram commented that this looks like a T-Rex and you know, I totally see it!



My resolution to send more Proper Post is going well. I couldn't resist this sheet of cute postage stamps to cheer up my letters. These animal shapes are designed to fold over the edge of an envelope so they look like they're clinging on. Super cute, huh? These will be so much fun to send (and, I hope, to receive!).

 

In the middle of the month I had a super busy Nice Day Out in London with a friend. We went to so many places! And saw so much cool stuff! I'll be blogging about all the awesomeness we saw another time (sooooo much awesomeness) but I couldn't resist sharing a few snaps. London is filled with so much amazing stuff.

 

I also took an impromptu trip to nearby Windsor to visit Windsor Castle with my dad. As local(ish) residents we get into the Castle for free, but my dad hadn't been for years and years. Windsor is always a gorgeous place to visit, and we arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard ceremony (complete with bagpipes!). Before heading home, we treated ourselves to some ice cream and I was delighted by how fancy the tub was (just look at that gold! plus: ice cream from royal cows!).

My dad laughed at me a lot for taking this photo :)

 
In the evenings I continued to work on finishing my happy rainbow blanket, and I finally finished sewing in all the yarn ends! Hurrah! I am beyond thrilled with the finished blanket and really need to try and get it photographed asap so I can share some pics with you all. Blankets are such a pain to photograph - I am used to making and photographing much smaller things! - but I will get it sorted soon, I swear.

Now that my rainbow blanket is finished my go-to relaxing project is my mini squares blanket (the one with the colourful chart, above). I have a LOT of white squares to knit before this baby is finished but - luckily - the joy of this project is the process. Simple, repetitive knitting (and then sewing, when the squares get joined together and all those ends get woven in) is just the ticket at the end of a long, busy day. I switch my brain off and let my hands get making!

 

Instagram - and blogging, and all the other places we share our crafty photos online - is so often about the carefully curated photograph. Take the mess out of shot, artfully arrange things, crop and edit carefully. So it was lovely to see the #DSCandid hashtag pop up in my feed - a challenge from Grace Bonney of Design Sponge to share an unedited, honest photo from your creative life.

So, I took a photo of the view from my desk of my slightly overcrowded studio/office. Lately my space has been serving as a bedroom, laundry room, TV room and storage space for DIY supplies, packing materials and lots of kids toys rescued from our attic. It's also where my niece sleeps when we're babysitting. I still have space to work and make stuff, just a lot less than usual! :)

Right at the end of the month my making was focused on flowers, specifically poppies:

If you're a long-term reader of my blog you'll recognise this design as one I used to sell in my shops. I've been meaning to get the pattern written up for simply ages, and have finally made a start on doing so...

 

... with a furry fellow keeping me company while I work!

Then BAM it was June!* 2016 is going by so fast it is slightly scary.

Wanna follow me on Instagram? I'm lauralupinhoward over there!

*I also took part in a "Day in the Life" challenge at the end of May... but I'll blog about that another time because, frankly, this post is long enough already :)

UPDATE: My poppy design is now available as a sewing pattern! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

Messy Making

This week I've been busy behind the scenes - working on some secret projects with a looming deadline.

Since I can't show you what I'm working on, I thought I'd share some snaps of the creative chaos happening in my studio right now...carefully cropped to hide the projects themselves, of course!

Top of this morning's To Do list = tidying up a bit so I've got space to do some more making :)

More Creative Chaos

First thing on today's To Do list? Tidy my desk!

Creative brainstorming and testing out ideas can be messy stuff. No time to tidy! Must! Make! More! Things! Immediately!

I am actually sitting on the floor to type this, as it's the only place in my studio which isn't completely covered in craft supplies, haha :)

Creative Chaos

Crikey, the past few days have been hectic.My working day finished at 2am last night!

Okay, so I was sitting up watching DVDs and doing lots of sewing which isn't quite as bad as sitting at the laptop until the wee small hours but still, ugh. I will definitely be getting to bed earlier tonight.

I'm also going to be tidying up my workspace as it currently looks a little... chaotic.

My desk:

My studio:

The sofa:

The living room floor:

Making Stuff & Making a Mess

It's amazing just how quickly my studio space can go from "super neat and tidy with everything put away" to "looking like a crafty bomb went off with piles of stuff everywhere".

This usually happens when I'm brainstorming some new ideas, as I go rummaging through lots of boxes of supplies looking for the perfect material and try to get half a dozen different ideas out of my brain and onto paper / into prototype form all at once. I love making sessions like this: so much creativity and crafty fun!

Tidying up afterwards = less fun, but never mind :)

Luckily I have a dedicated studio space at the moment so I can leave the desk, coffee tables, sofa and floor covered in heaps of crafty stuff, shut the door on it and come back and tidy up later! After years of working from the kitchen table or in the living room in my old flat it is a delicious luxury to be able to really throw myself into making things / working on new designs and not have to worry about tidying up straight away.

Time for a Making Day

I couldn't focus on my emails and the rest of my to do list yesterday, so I switched off the computer and spent the day making things instead:

I took a whole bunch of photos too, because what I'm working on at the moment is some new tutorials :)

I haven't had a "making day" in months. I'm sure I say this every time, but I really need to try to have them more often! In fact, I'm tempted to have another one today...

Snapshots of Crafty Chaos

I am quite worn out from a massive crafting session today (so much crafting!) and am about to go and put my feet up... Just time for a glimpse of the big felty mess created by all my craftiness:Our kitchen table is under there somewhere! :)

Leaning Towers of Felt (C365, day 327)

Last night I pottered about doing a few bits and pieces and then curled up on the sofa to cut up some felt squares:
It's always a bad sign when my craft work ends up covering the sofa simply because there's no room for it on the coffee table - lots of tidying up to do this weekend I think :)

In other news: I can't believe it's August already! Where have all those months gone? I'm thinking a lot at the moment about what I've made and acheived in the past year, as August last year was when I decided to start my 365 project (15th August to be exact) and started to really get stuck into this crafting lark. 18 months ago I was ill and unemployed and a bit depressed about it all and now I make stuff every day and I'm starting to feel really genuinely proud of my craftwork and I'm getting all misty eyed and nostalgic about my first year of "serious" crafting. So much felty goodness! So many photos! So much wittering on about the likes of Etsy and Flickr! And so many cups of tea! Never underestimate the power of a nice cup of tea...

Thrown off the wagon by a messy house

It is sad but true. Yesterday I did not a single crafty thing because I was cleaning my house. I hate days like that, hate them hate them. They make me feel like a domestic drudge instead of a person and after all that work my house still isn't bloody clean! In fact in some places it looks worse as boxes of things have been emptied but not yet re-packed and cupboard-contents are strewn across the floor. I have been throwing lots of things away, washing lots of things, rearranging lots of things... but making NOTHING. Bah. I did have an excellent day for my other project though - clearing out cupboards gave me a lovely big pile of things to give away.

In other news... I was buying Etsy gifts for other people in the evening when I found just the most beautiful Etsy shop, called paperiaarre. It's based in Finland and sells gorgeous handbound books and also some of the most awesome brooches I've seen in ages. Made from old book pages they are beautiful in a soft, quiet and elegant-but-still-slightly-nerdish way - classy but still casual. A lot of the time I am a total scruff-pot, unbrushed hair and old jumpers and 100% jewellery-free... but when I scrub up neat I love to wear brooches and I just could not resist this one:
I bought another which is supposedly a gift for someone but I can picture it finding its way into my jewellery box and onto my cardigans, hehe.

Some Actual Sewing! Hurrah!

As may be gathered from the title of this blog post, I have managed to get some sewing done. All this mucking about with lovely papery things is all very well and good but I have so many sewing projects rattling around my tiny brain, it is so frustrating not to be getting on with any of them! ... and consequently so delicious to be wielding a needle & thread again. I have been cutting out felt like a mad thing, getting lots of stuff ready for relaxing evenings sewing pretty things.

Sneak peek at what I am working on at the moment (featuring lots of peacock-like blues and greens, but no actual peacocks)...
Note the experiments with patterned felt at the bottom there (above)... and the yummy reel of vintage sewing thread I am planning to sew all this together with (below) ...

Oh, and this is my workspace at the moment, complete with felt-based mess, the magical box that houses my felt stash, and a trusty (and excellently co-ordinated) mug of tea :)

Spring Cleaning

We have been spring cleaning a little, spending my time moving books about the place (new shelves! hurrah!), cleaning stuff (man, our bathtub was getting sooo mucky) and trying to have a bit of a clear-out (cos we have too much stuff). So I've not managed to devote much time to quietly sitting down & making stuff.

I have started a new project of sorts. I emptied my wardrobe the other day, in order to put everything back with the summery things more accessible, and was totally horrified by the vast heap of clothes on my floor. I am forever clearing out bits & pieces to take to charity / give to my sisters & friends, and still! this vast heap!

So - bar a few things I know I wear almost every week - I've not hung anything back in my wardrobe but have instead stacked everything in a big pile on the wardrobe's floor and am only going to take things out & give them hanging space when I actually wear them. I'm doing the same with all my baubles. I am also toying with the idea of joining the wardrobe refashion challenge, or at least sticking to its principles... but for the moment it will be interesting to just do this, to see how much of my stuff I actually need & use and how much of it is just unneccesary.

Big heap of clothes (and this is not even including the ones stuck in my leaning-tower-of-Pisa ironing pile...) in the bottom of my wardrobe:
Deliciously empty hangers:
The few cherry-picked basics & over-worn faves that are my current "capsule" wardrobe:

A Busy Day...

... but not much crafting done, unfortunately! Instead I have spent most of the day getting rather grubby (and making a huge mess in the kitchen) repotting a whole load of plants.

Last month I went nutso for seeds and cuttings and repotted basically every plant in the house and actually had to move furniture around so there was enough space to put all the pots. Since then of course lots of the seeds have grown into seedlings (this is more exciting than anything ever and makes me want a greenhouse so bad just so I could fill it with seed trays and grow thousands of exciting seedlings) and some of the cuttings have grown madly into new plants and others have died a quiet death... and they all need some serious attention!

I am about half-way through, I reckon, and I have already had to give some plants away to make room for all the newly potted seedlings. I need another bag of compost before I can continue though, and also to come up with a grand plan for where I am going to put everything and how I can manage all of this without the boyfriend going completely insane because of the mess and the resultant jungle.

I did take some pictures of the pots on my balcony today, and took the opportunity to take a few useful snaps of some works in progress. I am absolutely dying to post pics of the mobile I am working on as it's really coming together now and it's turned out just how I wanted it (and is also making me very inspired to a-make more mobiles in future and b-make loads of brooches I've thought up whilst designing the mobile pieces)... but it's a big secret too so no pics until it's delivered. Instead, here are some half-finished Battenburg brooches:
(Some are going to be 3D slices of cake and some 2D interpretations of it because they look quite cool flat like that, I reckon). Tomorrow hopefully I will get the mobile finished (or at least a good chunk of it) and a big pile of map notecards/envelopes started as someone has specially requested a batch. I am desperate to finish the Battenburg slices and also a whole load of slogan badges... and just so many more things, but without a Saturday of infinite length this is unlikely to occur :)

Some Works in Progress

I would love to be able to post some pics of the mobile I am working on this weekend, because it is looking awesome, but it is going to be a surprise for my friend & I can't remember whether or not he has my blog address! Instead, here are a couple of the other projects I am in the middle of at the moment...

I am making lots of leafy brooches to restock my supplies because all the others have sold - if nothing else I wanted one of each to wear myself! I love leaves so darn much, and sewing these is a very restful soothing process.
This afternoon I did no sewing whatsoever but instead made a huge mess in the kitchen doing potato printing. I had some very nasty-looking potatoes that were a highly suspicious shade of green that totally has not come out in this photo (just trust me when I say they were uber-dodgy in appearance)
... not wanting to just chuck them in the bin (and lacking a compost pile in the garden as I live in a top floor flat) I wondered what I could possibly do with them & then remembered I had some fabric paint (bought about 10 years ago but still good) so a massive printing session took place.

I ran out of fabric pretty quick, and now have to go out on Monday and buy a "new" (ie from a charity shop) white pillowcase to replace the one I have destroyed! I'm not sure how great I am going to think the results of all this when I look at them in the cold light of tomorrow, but still reeling with the creative excitement of it all I am currently rather pleased. I'm going to use a lot of it as fabric for purses, bags or cushions I reckon, with some embroidered details picked out among the plain patterns.

Here you can see how the blue paint got used...
An arrow print for a bag or something, some letter Es and As to make into purses (for Emilys and Annas and so forth), and some words that I'm hoping to make use of in my tea party range, perhaps combined with some great blue&white striped pillowcases I bought the other day & this great teatowel that I have blogged about before:
There was also some black paint that became a pattern of repeating black hearts and some more letters, eg Ks for Katherines, Katies and perhaps even Kevins:
... and then red and yellow paint became a red heart pattern and bold star prints (these are really not the best photos but you get the idea)
The process of doing all this was so enjoyable, I would not be too surprised if I suddenly started doing this sort of thing more often. I have some of the fabric paint left and also some poster paint & am already thinking about what I might use to make stencils, and about looking out for second-hand cotton fabrics to print onto... As if I didn't have enough to do already! Argh! :)

My whole house is covered in felt!

The little offcuts fall on the floor, stick to your socks and then turn up everywhere! The same goes for small bits of sewing thread... and then of course there's all my tins of finished goodies, my work-in-progress boxes, and my ever-expanding stash.

No matter how much stuff I make, I am always thinking of new things I want to get started on & am forever finding secondhand stuff that inspires me and gets added to my collection to do "something" with "sometime". I have:
- a box of beads and ribbons and things like that,
- a whole load of wool that's gradually being knitted into blankets (in a suitcase under the bed!)
- a fabric box that's bursting at the seams with vintage finds & other useful scraps,
- a big pile of vintage maps and books that I have projects in mind for,
- a bag of fabric squares that are in-progress quilt cushions
- a stack of old sweaters waiting to be turned into felt
- a box under the bed that is full of old embroidered linens and tablecloths that I'm planning on revamping into bags and cushions and pincushions and all sorts of pretty things
- and, of course, large quantities of felt!

Ah, how my boyfriend suffers.

In other news: I am rather pleased this week to be up to 49 Etsy sales, and 105 "hearts"... It's nice to be making some progress with it, and to have done rather well this week just when I'd been feeling a bit downcast. I have finished my items for the Ninja challenge & am already getting excited at the thought of what we might do next fortnight... Can't wait until Sunday when all the Ninjas will be revealed! I have been sewing lots of leafy brooches - autumn and spring leaf trios cos they are so pretty - and working on the mobile I am making for a friend. I am also thinking long and hard and developing my designs for tea-party-themed items and am determined to get some French Fancy pincushions finished this weekend instead of just sitting around eating lots of them instead :)

Busy busy busy

I continue to do lots of sewing. Unfortunately I have also had lots of housework etc to be doing, and there are really never enough hours in the day (or enough felt in my stash) to do everything I'd like to... but I have been making some progress, at least.

My whole sewing box is full of "in progress" items, lots of lovely coloured bits all cut out and ready to get sewn together... Of course I continue to start new things all the time, too. Today I have finished some more spring flowers, made a start on my Ninja-inspired items for this fortnight's UK Etsy Sellers challenge (I don't think it would be giving much away to complain that there is black felt fluff all over the place now, darn it!)... and I've also made some more little pants badges because they were just so much fun:
Oh, and I was featured on the Etsy Greetings blog the other day - they are featuring a random card-seller every day and my Autumn Leaf cards got showcased on the 24th.