New in My Shop: Felt Poppies Tutorial (& Poppy Embroidery Pattern)

One of my goals this year is to get lots of patterns added to my Etsy shop, and I'm kicking off the year with one of my old faves: poppies!

I've stitched a lot of felt poppy brooches over the years, they used to be one of the most popular items in my shops and I still wear one on my jacket every autumn. I'm delighted to be giving this design new life as a tutorial.

The printable PDF pattern includes templates and step-by-step instructions for sewing three sizes of beaded felt poppy, and how to turn them into brooches, hair clips and headbands.

The PDF also includes a poppy embroidery pattern, which you can stitch on anything you fancy or frame in a five inch embroidery hoop.

Click here to find the poppy pattern in my shop!

Remembrance Poppies

I hope you guys enjoyed all those angels! I had hoped to finish the week by sharing some angel-themed paper crafting projects at the weekend but unfortunately life got in the way and they're still in my "work in progress" pile. I'll share them as soon as I have the time, I promise :)

In other news...

For every felt poppy that I sell from my shops during the next couple of months I'll be donating £1 to the Poppy Appeal, supporting the work of the Royal British Legion.

The poppies are part of my range year-round but customers buying them from me at this time of year often mention that they're buying their poppy to wear for Remembrance Day, so I think it's important that I make a donation! (Last year I was able to donate £42 to the Poppy Appeal, from poppies sold during November).

I'll be donating £1 for each poppy sold during October and November this year (2012), including those in my clearance sale. The poppies are available from my main shop, my Etsy shop, my Folksy shop and my DaWanda shop.

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

Sketches, Poppies and a Blanket Update

This week I've been doing a lot of sketching of new ideas, and planning of new projects. Unfortunately this means I've mostly been working on things I can't show you...  so here's a photo of some newly sharpened pencils instead :)

In the evenings I've been sewing lots of poppies, but that's temporarily been put on hold as I've run out of black thread! Oops. 

One of my "big" tasks for this year is to take new photos for all my current designs, and get all my shops looking their best with snazzy new pics. I'm still not brilliant at taking photos, but I've definitely improved over the years and some of the older listings definitely need a bit of a revamp. Plus there were all those days when I took a "temporary" photo to get something listed quickly and never got around to going back and taking a fancier one (tsk tsk). 

I'm hoping to have a few big photo-taking sessions later in the year, but in the meantime I'll be snapping a few pics here and there on sunny days and updating my shop listings when I can. I just got the first listing updated today - the large red poppy brooch.

Oh, and I started sewing my sky blanket together! Yay! 

I'm sewing the squares in date order from left to right along each row (like a calender). The long strip is a little tricky to photograph, but this photo should give you an idea of what the blanket is going to look like:

It's very exciting to see how the patchwork squares look sewn together, and to start to get an idea of how the finished blanket will look.... and, of course, it will be so much easier sewing the squares together / sewing in all the ends bit by bit instead of having to do it all in one go at the end of the year. 

Plus, though I've always loved the idea of knitting this blanket I have to admit that I was a little bit worried about ending up with a very strange looking object at the end of it, but I think all those mottled blues and greys look rather lovely together. 

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

Poppies

I'm a bit late blogging about this (the weeks are zipping by at the moment!) but I'm sure you'll all forgive me...


For every poppy (in red, white or pink) that I sell from my shops throughout this month (November 2011) I'll be donating £1 to the Poppy Appeal, supporting the excellent work of the Royal British Legion.

This includes all the poppies in my range - brooches, headbands, bracelets, plus the poppies reduced to £5 in my clearance sale. The poppies are available from my Etsy shop, my DaWanda shop, my Folksy shop and my website.

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

Two Dozen Poppies

I took some time off work over the long Easter weekend, but though I can manage to switch the laptop off and avoid checking my emails etc too often I find it much harder to stop sewing... especially when watching TV in the evenings.

After so many years of crafting in front of the TV it just feels weird watching telly without stitching something at the same time! So I picked a nice relaxing sewing project for the weekend and gradually created a whole field of poppies:

These poppies will become brooches and hairbands but for the moment they're just sitting in my wip box looking pretty :)

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