Kirstie's Homemade Hmmm....

"Hmmm" is mostly how I'm feeling about the new series of Kirstie's Homemade Home that's being shown this month on Channel 4.

I really enjoyed the first series - you can read my original blog post about it HERE if you like - I don't find Kirstie "posh and annoying" like I know a lot of people do, it was exciting to see craftsmen and women showing her how to make stuff (people making things! on the telly!) and it was super refreshing to see a program that presented DIY and vintage shopping as a consumer option with more personality and specialness to it rather than just as a way to save money.

But this series? Hmm.

The first episode (shown last week) felt very underwhelming. Partly I think this is because they've changed the format to Kirstie doing up her own house to the more standard "home makeover" format of helping a nice couple "transform" their house with some telly magic, complete with lots of scenes of Kirstie standing around at antiques markets banging on about how much of a "bargain" this that or the other item was compared to the high street. Yawn.

It was also in a large part because they repeated so many crafts / features from last year: they visited the same reclamation yard as last year, made stained glass with the same stained glass artist, and made book ends with the same blacksmith as last year.

There were some new crafts and crafters featured in thie second episode, and some were great (Angel from Tobias and the Angel teaching Kirstie how to make a patchwork cushion) and some not so great (visiting the same candlemaker as last year to make a rather hideous shell lantern)... but it's still left me feeling a bit "hmm" about it all.

I'm still going to be watching the show every week (because even a teeny bit of crafting on telly is better than none, plus I'm excited to see the lovely Manda teach Kirsty to make a beanbag later in the series!) but I think perhaps I need to admit that from my crafting-obsessed viewpoint I'm not the ideal target audience for a show like this!

If you've missed any episodes this series, the last one and the Christmas specials are all currently available to watch on 4OD and you can see lots of how tos and video clips from the show HERE.

Have you been watching this series? What do you think of it?

Fuzzy Goodness

Oh my goodness I've been busy this week!

I'll be back to my regular blogging schedule soon I promise, but in the meantime please join me in oohing over the cuteness of these mini pompoms:


They're 2cms wide each, so adorable and available from the always awesome Big Fish over on Etsy.

Any ideas for what I should make with them when the madness of this week has passed?

Teeny Snowflakes

Another treat bought on my London shopping trip - adorable mini stamp sets from Muji:


Muji always have the loveliest things for sale at Christmas, it's always so hard to choose what to buy. It took much umming and aaahing to settle on these but a) I thought they would be super useful for decorating gift tags etc b) I've wanted an alphabet stamp kit for ages and c) those teeny snowflakes may possibly be the best thing ever.

Which reminds me, I must make a start on my festive crafting... (how is it November already??)

Vintage Baubles for Sew Hip

The latest issue of Sew Hip came out on Friday (issue #23) and it includes a project designed by me - felt ornaments inspired by vintage glass baubles. They even made the front cover:


It's always exciting seeing something I've made in print (in a real magazine! right there in the newsagent! eek!), and I'm thrilled by the thought that people will be making their own vintage felt baubles and adding them to their trees this Christmas.


This was one of those secret projects I was sewing over the summer but couldn't tell you about. The baubles were lots of fun to design but it is always a bit weird working on Christmas things in the summer sunshine...


The magazine includes 13 other projects to sew and interviews with awesome crafty people like Ruth Singer, Jan of Daisy Janie, and my lovely friend Christine who is trying out an impressive 52 crafts in 52 weeks and blogging about all of them!