New Craft Supplies in My Shop!

As I mentioned last week, I've re-opened my craft supplies shop and am busy stocking it with lots of colourful, crafty goodness.

I've been busy photographing, measuring, and listing a whole bunch of lovely new things. Wanna see?

There are felt rainbows (and pick-you-own-colour felt squares), rainbow ribbons, pretty rainbows of pins, and bargain rainbow embroidery thread bundles. So much lovely colour!

I've also got some fab ribbon that's printed to look like a measuring tape, some black elastic for mask-making, cover buttons and a super-useful button covering tool (perfect for making felt buttons), and some GORGEOUS shimmery two-tone buttons.

Then there's embroidery scissors (so useful for cutting out small felt pieces!), lovely wooden cotton reels, big card bobbins for organising your yarns and ribbons, and some white elastic.

I've also bought some cute and colourful stickers. These are great for crafty projects, gift wrapping, journalling and scrapbooking, and for sticking on your snail mail.

There are cute woodland animal stickers (I've been sticking these on my shop parcels lately, I love them!), rainbow star, dot, and heart sticker sheets, and lots of colourful dots. I think the dots would be wonderful for creating bullet-pointed lists in your journal or diary!

I've also got colourful retro vinyl stickers featuring rainbows and unicorns and other fun stuff, and I've got some bargain books of mini stickers: cute kitties and happy stars.

Pen-wise, I've listed some fun colour-changing pens and a pair of metallic markers (I love a good metallic marker!). Then I've got giant wooden pegs (because why not? Oversized stuff is so joyful!) and packs of gorgeous glitter card (sooooooo shiny).

If you'd rather have tiny pegs than giant ones, don't worry - I've got you covered. I'm also selling a fab pack of luggage tags (I just adore those bright colours), a useful pack of coloured card, and some flower press kits.

I'm particularly excited to be stocking the flower presses as I feel like they're just the kind of relaxing, nature-loving craft we all need right now! I've got three sizes in stock, ranging from a mini press to the biggest flower press I have ever seen in my LIFE (seriously, it is HUGE). The boards are blank for you to decorate with paint, decoupage, stickers, etc, so one of these kits is basically two crafty projects in one. 

Click here to visit my shop and see everything that's in stock!

Creating Patchwork Cross Stitch from Leftover Embroidery Threads

Look what I finished!!

I started this patchwork cross stitch project way back in 2014, as a way to make use of those scrappy bits of leftover embroidery thread (floss) which aren't quite big enough to be worth keeping and winding back on the bobbin but which still have a few stitches left in them.

I saved up the threads in a compartment in my embroidery thread storage box, then would sit and do a whole batch of stitching in one evening - slowly building up the patchwork design in blocks of colour. It was a super relaxing process!

 

As I wrote when I blogged about this project last year, "I guess I could add a block at a time, each time I have a piece of leftover thread, but I quite like spending a few relaxing hours working on this from time to time. Plus, adding a bunch of colours at once helps me make the randomness of this project more of a controlled randomness - I can spread out the colours more easily, and get a more pleasing mix of tones and shapes than I think I would end up with if I added a block each time I had a scrap of thread to use up.

I like the randomness of this project and how the colour palette (and the speed at which it's growing) is entirely dictated by what other projects I'm working on, and the luck of what size thread scraps I'm left with... but I also want it to be something I love the look of when it's finished!"

To read more about how this piece has developed, click here to read all about how the project has progressed over the years and see lots of in-progress photos.

I'm really pleased with how the finished piece has turned out - someone pointed out that it looks like a tiny quilt, and it totally does! It's about 6 inches (15 cm) square and absolutely jam-packed with colour. Loads of happy hours of stitching have gone into it, but it also represents even more hours of stitching as, of course, these are all just the leftovers from other projects!

And - to think! - all those threads would otherwise have just gone to waste. It's going to be really hard breaking the habit of keeping my scrappy bits of thread now... maybe I'm going to need to start another leftovers-themed project? Hmm...

Want to make your own patchwork design from leftover threads? Simple! Just start keeping your own leftover threads, stitch them in blocks and just keep on going until you've slooooowly filled up a whole square with colour.

A patchwork design like this is also a great way to use up a whole bunch of embroidery threads from your stash, you don't specifically need to be using leftover threads. Just have fun playing around with colour combinations and shapes!

Last year several people asked me for the pattern for this design, which isn't really something I can properly share as I've used to many random colours making this piece. BUT, I have drawn out a chart of how my design ended up, in case you like how the arrangement of blocks look and fancy replicating it. You can use my photos as guide when picking colours and/or use felt tips or coloured pencils to colour in your printed chart to help guide your stitching.

Click here to view the chart in a new window or tab, make sure you're viewing it full size then print.

P.S. For even more scrappy goodness, check out my Patchwork Mini Squares blanket, knitted from yarn left over from many years worth of knitting projects.

Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

August in Pictures: Colourful Craft Supplies and Summer Flowers

My August was full of colour!

I was busy working on lots of new things, choosing (then shopping for) the supplies to get crafting.

There were rainbows of thread on my worktable...

... and I stitched a couple of felt rainbows, too.

 

The rainbows and sun are pieces I've designed for the felt baby mobile class I'm teaching at the Village Haberdashery in West Hampsted, London in October.

I'll be running three classes at the Village Haberdashery this autumn - making an autumn wreath in September, a baby mobile in October and Christmas ornaments in November.

Here are the four designs you can learn to sew in the baby mobile class - clouds, rainclouds, rainbows and little smiling suns.

In early August I visited the bright and cheerful Village Haberdashery shop to chat about my classes and pick up a pile of yummy craft supplies for my projects.

The autumnal shades of that wool blend felt became an autumn wreath...

... decorated with felt leaves and toadstools. You can see more pics of the wreath (and find all the info about the wreath-making class on Saturday, September 17th) here. 

These festive colours were destined to become vintage-inspired felt ornaments for my November class (I'll be sharing pics of the ornaments soon!).

 

In August I blogged about the Brunel Museum and it's charming garden, the Green Way path between Maidenhead and Bray, lots of lovely London things, Leeds Corn Exchange, and a morning in Kensington. It might be weird of me, but I find it quite fun working out which photo from each of my "Nice Day Out" blog posts to share on Instagram.

 

I finally finished up my Take to the Sea embroidery (such a fun project - though a very time-consuming one!)...

... and I added some more colours to my scrappy patchwork cross stitch.The back of the work is somewhat messy, but who cares?

 

I had relaxing evenings in with beloved DVDs and comics and assorted crafty projects... (this mitten is from a kit by Alicia Paulson)...

... lazy days spent sewing on the sofa watching the Olympics and hanging out with this fluffy fella...

... and gorgeously sunny afternoons in the garden on some blazing hot days (I got this lovely bit of summer reading in Annie Spratt's awesome Indie Magazine Swap!).

There were plenty of busy days working at home with the tools of my trade: pinking shears, fabric scissors, paper scissors, embroidery scissors (great for cutting out small felt pieces) and my go-to selection of needles and pins.

 

But I also managed to squeeze in a couple of wonderful days in London, with long walks through parks and visits to museums.

I spotted these gorgeous wildflowers in Hyde Park at what felt like the height of summer...

... and just a few weeks later autumn is already creeping in!

Bright summer sunshine is all well and good, but I adore the soft light you get in autumn and all the colours of the leaves as they turn and fall. Mmm... autumn...

I took this photo of the gorgeous heather in our garden. I've spent lots of my recent tea breaks watching the bees buzz round this heather, they love it almost as much as I do. I love how the autumn colours are lurking behind the heather like "hello! it's me! I'm back!"

I'll share another Instagram round-up next month. Spoiler alert: there are probably going to be some autumn leaves!

I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me.

#Crafting365 Days 16-23: Yarn Experiments, Festive Embroidery & Making Envelopes

Time for another #Crafting365 round-up!

It's slightly scary how quickly these photos are mounting up - but, of course, that's the whole point of this challenge, isn't it? The days zip by so fast and it's all too easy to let days and weeks go by without making space for creativity. But if you do make a bit of time each day to get your craft on it's amazing how much you can get done as the weeks roll by.

Day 16 was all about yarn. I did some more blanket square knitting (my current go-to project at the end of a long day) and had fun experimenting with leftover yarn scraps from previous projects. I love these colourful stripes!

On day 17, I looked in my box of "in progress" projects (a.k.a. a big box of half-finished stuff that has lain undisturbed for weeks, months and in a few cases years) to choose some projects to re-start. It was great to get this embroidered snowman finally finished about a year after starting it! If you want to stitch your own snowman, you'll find the pattern here.

On days 18 and 19, I worked on my floral cushion. The pale green thread in this photo is the thread I'm using to tack the felt flowers in place. They get pinned, then tacked with a few large stitches, then I remove the tacking threads once I've whip stitched the shape in position.

Here's how the cushion looked by the end of day 19:

I've now stitched flowers in each colour, and used up all the shapes I cut out at the start of my 365 challenge... but, as you can see, there's lots of space still to fill! So, I'll be cutting out a whole bunch more flowers soon.

Day 20 involved more simple knitting. I'm continuing to re-knit the wrong-sized squares for my happy rainbow blanket. The squares I made from this pink yarn were so big that I've got enough yarn left over from each re-knitted square to make a mini moss stitch square to add to my patchwork blanket. Knitting the moss stitch squares made a nice change from the endless knit knit knit of garter stitch!

On day 21, I stitched some more of the festive embroidery patterns I drew last year: a penguin and a Christmas pudding. These stitched motifs are going to become Christmas ornaments - fingers crossed they won't take me another year to complete.

I finished a letter to a friend on day 22 but realised I didn't have any envelopes, so I got out my scissors and made one:

I love making envelopes from magazine pages, it's an easy way to jazz up your letters and a great way to get another use for a magazine once you've read it. Plus it would be sad to just recycle these beautiful pages! Glossy magazine pages make excellent envelopes, especially now the Royal Mail have those postage stamps that are like stickers - they're much easier to stick to glossy paper than the kind you have to lick! (Those gorgeous autumnal photos = from the October issue of Harper's Bazaar)

Then yesterday (day 23) I did yet more simple-blanket-square-knitting, and got my paints out to test out some ideas for a new project. So much yummy colour...

#Crafting365 Days 13-15: Flowers, Squares & One of my Favourite Stitches

Work-wise, the past few days have not been very exciting. I had a couple of days off thanks to a bug that's been doing the rounds, then spent yesterday mostly doing boring computer things which, frankly, are much too boring to blog about!

Thank goodness for #Crafting365!

While I was curled up on the sofa under a blanket, taking it easy, I had lots of time to (slowly, sleepily) work on my floral cushion. It's a big cushion, and there are lots of felt flowers to sew on... and lots and lots of stitching to do to make that happen!

For #Crafting365 day 13, I took a photo of the colourful threads I've been using to stitch the flowers:

 

Sewing loads of flowers was the perfect project for my half-asleep weekend: nice and simple stitching, no real decisions to make (just picking the next flower to sew), and lots of happy colour to cheer me up while I was feeling a bit ugh (v technical medical term that, "a bit ugh").

It was slightly surreal at times though as I was binge-watching Hannibal as I stitched, which is excellent telly but pretty darn gruesome! Sitting sewing a pretty project covered with flowers while watching something so dark and filled with blood and gore = very strange. It may have been a bit of an odd combination but it kept me very well entertained!

By the end of day 14, this is how the cushion was looking:

Lots of colour, but still lots of space to fill.

Someone asked in the comments of my last post what stitch I was using to stitch the felt shapes. I'm hand stitching them, using whip stitch. Whip stitch is my favourite stitch for sewing felt shapes to a background, it's so easy (though it's a bit more fiddly when you have to reach inside a cushion like I am for this project, instead of just sewing a shape to a flat piece of felt or fabric).

Wendi from Shiny Happy World has a fantastic video tutorial for using whip stitch to applique felt shapes - click here to watch it.

In her video Wendi uses two strands of embroidery thread (floss) but I'm sewing my shapes using sewing thread. She also sews from the outside of the shape in, while I sew from the inside out, but the basic technique is the same.

At the weekend, I also finished this teeny bit of lime-on-neon-pink embroidery (started on day 12).

I was a bit nervous tearing away the tissue paper to see how the stitching had turned out. Stitching through tissue paper is a great way to stitch from a pattern onto felt but the paper can obscure exactly where you're stitching, so removing the paper can be a bit nerve-wracking! Luckily this time my stitching turned out okay (hurrah!).

The neon pink felt continues to be a total pain to photograph, but you can see a photo of how the stitching turned out here. Please note: the quote I stitched includes the F word. It's a bit ironic that I'm worried about offending people by sharing a photo of a quote about not caring what people think, but I know that cursing is not everyone's cup of tea and it's not something I normally include in my blog so I thought it was best to give you guys a heads up :)

(Impossible to photograph neon felt and a curse word you're worried about putting on your blog? What an excellent choice of project to share online, Laura, you really thought that one through! Haha.)

Anyway... the embroidered quote is going to become a little felt bracelet, once I've worked out exactly how I want to put that together. I enjoyed stitching this so much I'm now thinking of some other (less swear-y! non-neon!) things I could embroider. Hmm...

In the meantime, yesterday (day 15) I did some knitting while working on lots of boring-but-necessary computer stuff. There was lots of hanging around as things installed and loaded and saved and transferred and so on, so being able to pick up my knitting and knit a row or two here and there throughout the day saved me from some intense computer-related boredom.

I'm continuing to (slowly) re-knit a whole bunch of squares which I (foolishly) knitted at the wrong size earlier. Seven squares re-knitted, sixteen still to go! Woohoo!

P.S. Like making cute stuff? Mollie at Wild Olive is running a fab series where lots of different makers/designers are sharing their tips adding cuteness to your designs. I was delighted when Mollie asked me to contribute a tip to the series! You can read my tip here and you'll find the whole series here.  

My Grandmother's Sewing Box

I was a guest blogger over at &Stitches yesterday - writing about the treasure that is my grandmother's sewing box.

Click here to read the post!

Black & White & Pastels

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas (if that's something you celebrate!).

After a couple of "proper" days off I'm slowly getting back into doing some work. I have a looming deadline, so over the next few days I'll be doing the sewing for that while watching some festive telly and working my way through the black & white section of my DVD collection...

I can't show you what I'm working on, but here are some of the threads I'm using: lots of pretty pastels!