December in Pictures: Frosty Leaves, Festive Fun & a New Home

It was rather quiet on my blog this December because I was a) busy getting ready to move, then b) moving house, and then c) doing lots of DIY in my new flat... but I also got up to some fun stuff and shared pictures! Wanna see?

I started the month in true Instagrammer / blogger style, by almost missing my train because I'd stopped to take photos of some frosty leaves. Totally worth it.

I got some gorgeous post from one of my (then) blog sponsors, in thanks for hosting their ad. How sweet is that? The adorable bunny brooch is by illustrator Emma Evans. 

I spent most of the start of December packing ready to move house, and ticking lots of other things off my "stuff that needs to get done before I can move" checklist. That bunny brooch got packed within hours of me taking that photo!

Of course, I couldn't resist squeezing in a couple more local Nice Days Out before moving away from the South-East. I spent a busy day in London, doing some Christmas shopping and oohing over all the festive loveliness (the lights, the shop windows and all the sparkly things for sale).

This is the swoonworthy flower stall in one of Harrods' food halls. It was such fun picking out delicious gifts for friends and family, umming and ahhing over all the loveliness.

 
I can never resist popping into the haberdashery department when I'm in Liberty. Not least because they're still selling my book! So thrilling.

My second last-Nice-Day-Out-before-I-move-away was a trip to Windsor. They had a gorgeous Christmas tree this year - a gift from the German town where Queen Victoria's husband Albert was born. Victoria and Albert popularised the idea of Christmas trees in Britain, and apparently Albert had his first tree at Windsor shipped in from his home town!

Windsor Castle is always a wonderful place to visit, but especially so at Christmas. It's quieter in the off-season, and the Castle is decorated with wreaths and garlands and Christmas trees, including a huge tree in the main hall.

 

I had a marvelous bit of luck, as it turned out that the only day I could manage to get away to Windsor for the day was not only wonderfully sunny (yay!) but it was also part of a special festive weekend of events at the Castle (hurrah!). There were choirs singing carols, ornament-making workshops, and a very funny "pop-up Panto". So much fun!

I also really enjoyed Fashioning a Reign, an exhibition of some of the Queen's outfits. Some of the embroidery and beading was quite incredible.

Back at home, I wrapped all my Christmas gifts super early so I could leave them at my parents house (to save carting them back and forth as I moved house then headed "home" for a family Christmas). Isn't the gift wrap gorgeous? It's not technically Christmas wrap, but who cares!

I totally dropped the ball on Christmas cards this year (I didn't send a single one! and I love sending Christmas cards!) but at least I managed this.

Before my unplanned blogging break I finished blogging about my trip to Leeds (so much great architecture!) and my day in Oxford with Polly. This is one of my favourite photos from that Oxford trip: a quiet corner of All Souls College.

 
I also blogged about the felt Christmas baubles tutorial I'd designed for the Village Haberdashery's blog. It feels a teeny bit pointless linking to a Christmas tutorial in January, but maybe you could bookmark it (or Pin it!) and make some felt baubles for Christmas 2017?

Then in the middle of December I moved to the seaside! Into my very own flat!

I'm really happy to be living in the South-West again (I love it here and had missed it a lot), and it's very exciting having my own place.

I shared this photo a few days after moving in: I might not have had a cooker or a fridge yet (or much proper furniture!) but I did have all the important stuff, like piles of colourful handmade blankets.

Seriously though, it has been such a joy finally using these blankets in my new home.

There's my Happy Rainbow Blanket (which I still need to take "finished" photos of!), a Giant Granny Square blanket (the first and only thing I have ever crocheted), my Sky Blanket, and my Random Squares blanket (which includes squares I knitted as a teenager). Each of these blankets contain so much meaning and so many memories, and they're all so wonderfully colourful. I love them.

It's also been really nice rediscovering some of the things I've had in storage for the past few years. I missed these plates rather a lot - isn't the pattern lush?

After a couple of busy weeks of moving boxes and doing DIY it was time to head to my parents house for Christmas. These are a choir of singing trees from the Christmas at Kew light trail I visited with my mum back in November; the trees lit up as they "sang". Delightful!

We had a lovely quiet Christmas - just how we like it. We watched lots of films and some Christmas telly and ate far too much food.

These are the excellent gifts I got for Christmas: the Ghostbusters remake on DVD (which I made my family watch immediately; such a great film!) and a Chocolate Orange (yum!).  

Aaaand that's it for another month!

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Work In Progress: Sewing, Knitting, Mending & Sorting

As always, I've got lots of projects in progress...

This weekend I spent several relaxing hours sewing felt flowers onto this cushion cover, which I last worked on in November (!!).

Back in November I'd got so close to finishing this but it's been sitting in crafty limbo ever since.  All the flowers I'd pinned and tacked in place back then have now been properly stitched in position and I just need to add a few more small flowers at the edges to fill in the remaining gaps.

I've also re-started a much-neglected knitting project (visiting a knitting festival does tend to put one in the mood to knit!).

Let's not talk about how I was determined to get this finally finished in time for Christmas 2015 and it's now February 2016, okay??? Shhh, it can be our secret.

This weekend I've also been mending my much-beloved vintage coat. After sewing on a missing button, I'm now mending some tears in the lining and holes in the pockets. Not at all exciting - and sewing black on black is such a pain - but important!

Does a project count as "in progress" if you've just bought the materials for it? Because I think this one might technically be a new project as I've yet to start it (or even make a real plan for how I'm going to make it) but I have bought the fabrics and washed/ironed them.

Semantics aside, these lovelies are going to be a small quilt for summer picnics and (of course) trips to the beach.

I'm also continuing my ongoing "sort out everything in my studio" project. Everything is looking so neat and organised, it's quietly thrilling.

One of this weekend's tasks was to sort through my stash of sewing thread - you probably can't tell from this photo that this is the "after" photo but it is!

My most-used colours (which match the felt shades in my stash) are in the drawer on the left, and the rest are in the drawer on the right. Not the most complicated system, I'll grant you, but a system nonetheless :)

Meanwhile, the urge to sort and declutter is contagious and my mum has been bitten by the bug. I've been helping her clear out assorted cupboards and take things to charity shops... and I've ended up with some new/old things that she's decluttered!

I've inherited a few bits of vintage crockery that belonged to my grandparents, including these pretty dishes (one Poole, one Carlton Ware). Aren't they lovely?

 

I'm also now the proud owner of some craft supplies which were left over from our childhood crafting sessions, then forgotten about in the back of a cupboard. These tubes of glitter will be an especially useful addition to my crafty stash!
 

Right, that's enough waffling about WIPs... I'm off to make the most of my "extra day" by doing something crafty :)

Random Crafty Photos

I'm continuing to sort through my old photos, and I've found a few random snaps that (for one reason or another) I don't think I ever included in a blog post... so I thought I'd share them now!

First up: a photo I took when I was working on my first book, Super-Cute Felt. Slightly messy/chaotic but lots of fun.

Another work in progress pic - sitting on the sofa crocheting my giant granny square blanket.

Me & a big pile of felt!

Sewing in the ends of one of the loop scarves I knitted for my sisters.

Sorting out some photos to hang in my studio...

... and making a list of frames to buy for yet more pictures (buying art = definitely one of my big weaknesses!)

Crates in my studio, full of fabric...

... and felt:

Plus (not crafty, but still colourful) a couple of snap from when I was sorting through all the stuff from my old kitchen, having a bit of a declutter and packing the rest up neatly to be stored until I have a place of my own again.

 I basically never need to buy another mug, bowl or storage jar ever again in my entire life :)

Nice Things

I've got a couple of very nice things to mention today...

First up: there's going to be a whole series of fun giveaways on my blog over the next couple of weeks!

Lots of lovely creative folk have donated prizes, and I hope you'll all enjoy checking out their shops and entering the giveaways for a chance to win some gorgeous goodies just in time for Christmas gift giving (though of course, you may be tempted to keep them for yourselves, hehe).

I'm really excited about this and I hope you will be too :)

Secondly, I wanted to give a shout out for a very good cause.

Kristy of Vintage Pleasure recently organised a tea party called "Let Them Eat Cake" to raise funds for the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. The event was a huge success, but Kristy is hoping to raise even more money for the excellent work of the hospital by selling some of these fantastic prints designed by Megan Thomas.

The print comes in two colourways and two sizes.

(Please note the tag line is the one shown in the blue print)

A4 size (297 x 210 mm, 11.7 x 8.3 inches) are £4.

A3 size (420 x 297 mm, 16.5 x 11.7 inches) are £8

P&P in UK is £2, P&P overseas is £3. There is no additional postage charge for extra prints.

As a fan of tea, cake, biscuits and vintage crockery there is no way I could resist these charming prints! (I've ordered one of the blue ones).

If you'd like to buy one for yourself or for a tea-loving friend you can get in touch with Kristy via her blog, on Twitter, or by leaving a comment over on Kristy's original post about the prints which can be found HERE. She'll then get in touch to arrange the payment via Paypal.

Biscuits and Buttons...

... what a great combination!


I had lots of fun sorting through buttons this afternoon while having my tea break - I'm working on a small button-themed project this weekend.

All that colour is such wonderful food for the soul, especially on a dark rainy day like today.

Vintage Corner

I've temporarily hung these gorgeous floral curtains in our kitchen to help keep out the cold weather while I hunt for some nice warm curtains that better match the decor (and the tastes of the boyfriend!) ...


... I don't know where the floral curtains will end up eventually, but in the meantime I'm rather enjoying this little vintage corner that's been created.

Paper Circles

A quick snap of something I've been making... to be revealed closer to Christmas :)It's always nice to make use of my vintage crockery collection, even if it's just as templates for cutting out circles!

More Inspiration in the Post

I'm still feeling a bit poorly but luckily still getting lovely, inspiring supplies in the post to cheer me up... today the Postie brought me some of the goodies from BigFish I was drooling over last week, including these amazing felt beads:

Busy Behind the Scenes

I have been busy doing very dull admin-y things, sending emails, filing, tidying up, rearranging stock, planning things, etc and neglecting to blog! I have been sewing things too, and tinkering about with my plants a little. Here's one of my current faves - a tiny home grown jade plant growing in a teacup I inherited from my grandmother:

365 / 221 - Always Time for Tea

I'm a bit busy, a bit tired, a bit distracted by other things at the moment ... but there is always time for a bit of tea-themed craftiness:
A nice soothing bit of freehand embroidery (accompanied, of course, by a real cuppa), due to be turned into brooches sometime soon. Regular readers will recognise that I'm re-working an old design from last year... and by reworking I mean making it bigger: I did love the old tea addict pins but they were a little bit tiddly!

I've also found time for some tea-themed retail therapy, buying teatowels from Skinnylaminx over on Etsy:
The design is called "Mugs", available in 3 yummy colours (raspberry, blueberry and gooseberry) and features her collection of awesome vintage mugs. As a mug-hoarder and crockery-obssesso this is basically the perfect design for me, and being a teatowel it's so practical. I do like things to be beautiful and useful, and a practical purchase is a largely guilt-free one :)

365 / 200 - Distracted by Teacups

Oh, it feels so good to have reached day 200!

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling too well yesterday. Luckily I had plenty of cherry blossom brooches to finish (nice simple task for the sleepy-brained), and plenty of Poirot dvds to watch (great stuff). I tried to make a start on clearing out some random crafty supplies from the spare room (you know, to make room for all this felt I keep buying) but instead got totally distracted...

I found an old tea-towel which I'd thrifted aaages ago for crafty purposes and just shoved in a drawer. I thought "I really ought to actually use this instead of just putting it back in a drawer again", took it downstairs and began to turn it into embroidered brooches:
I've stitched round all the cup and saucer outlines, "quilting" the images I guess, although they're sewn onto layers of felt not fabric and wadding. Each brooch is rather large (the saucers are all about 12 cms across), making them seriously striking, and each teacup is different. I love teacups so much that it will be very hard not to keep them all for myself, but I will try to be strong and start listing them in the shop very soon.

365 / 181 - Envelopes, Biscuits and Crockery

Hello! My house continues to be a huge mess - it feels like we've just moved in, or are just about to move out or something, boxes and piles of things everywhere! I think it may be making my brain slightly addled but I shall attempt coherant thoughts...

Last night's craftiness? Working on a batch of biscuit brooches, and finishing some recycled envelopes I found half-finished in a box in the spare room yesterday afternoon:
They are rather a good (though embarrasing) example of how I start things and leave them unfinished... I cut out those envelopes on day 94, made the cards to go with the brown ones on day 89, and cut out the map sections way back on day 18! Oh dear. The patterned envelopes will be used for sending out my zines (I like to send interesting post when I can).

In exciting (to me at least) tidying news, I have conquered the mess in the odd little room off our kitchen. Mostly it's full of dull-but-practical things like recycling, my gardening kit and odd vases and dishes we don't have room for in the kitchen... but these are luckily hidden from view and in pride of place under the window is this china cabinet:
You can see better photos of my crockery collection here and here, and the awesomeness that is the dish at the top left here. Some of my china is thrifted and some inherited, and the cabinet itself cost about £3 (US$6) - I'm thinking about painting it white, what do you reckon?