Graffiti Knitting!

LOVE this! As covered on http://www.fastcompany.com/urban-graffiti-knitters-yardbombing

I love using textiles in unexpected ways, and am slowly building up a collection of fabric items to decorate our shop. My favourite of all so far is our fabric moose head we displayed in the window at Christmas! It took quite a while to perfect the pattern, but we think he looks quite handsome! (Apart from the slightly droopy right antler!)

Makery Monsters

We had a weekend full of childrens Birthday parties at The Makery this weekend, the most fun of which was a brilliant monster party! It's one of my favourites; the children get to be so creative and I LOVE the different monsters they come up with! Here's what they do:
1) Crayons and paper at the ready. The children design a monster each. We talk about where the monsters live, what they eat, what their names are, and so on.
2) We cut out the monsters, and trace round them onto an old T-shirt.
3) Some nifty sewing machine intervention, and we sew around the monsters, leaving a little gap for the stuffing.
4) Cue stuffing..."The best bit" for many of the children! The monsters come to life!
5) Then all that's left is to give the monsters eyes, horns, teeth with an endless array of buttons, beads, ribbon, pens, whatever is to hand. How cute?!

Nanny cuddles

Some giggles with nanny prompted me to introduce Lyra, my sweetie pie little girl. We went to visit my mum for the weekend, and Lyra really remembered who she was for the first time. Magical! Cue camera and lots of baby giggles. Priceless! I can hear her now, just looking at those snaps!

A gummy grin!

Lumpy, bootees and a beanie

Feeling particularly creative today and ready for a challenge! I'm often inspired to make things for my little girl; it's so much quicker to make small things - the satisfaction comes more readily! And it's so much fun to dress her up! So, found a couple of old T-shirts and started cutting...not really sure what I was going to make. I LOVE using old T-shirts for projects; so soft, such great colours, doesn't fray and washes well! 

First up: Lumpy. I found a 70's toy pattern for an elephant, and thought he would look lovely in cerise, grey and turquoise. And he does! He's called Lumpy, because he's a little...well...lumpy. But terribly cuddly too. 







 Next: Bootees. I freestyled a pattern by roughly drawing around Lyra's teeny feet. Her socks never stay on, and tights are too warm in this weather. Jersey bootees - the perfect solution!

Finally: Beanie. Of course! A hat to match her bootees! Not that it will stay on for more than 2 minutes. Hey ho, I had fun making it.

The leftover bits!

Dear Diary

Ta da! Here we go. I've never been very good at keeping a diary, but like many people (I'm sure), I'm always thrilled to read any short-lived diary attempts from throughout my life. The detail that you note down but forget, that pop you right back in the moment with just a few well-placed words and pictures. Well, I'm really hoping my blog will act as a lovely new-fangled diary. I seem to have such a lot going on at the moment, I sometimes forget what I was doing last week; and it would be such a shame to forget about it all, altogether. I'm hoping it might also serve as interesting reading for others. What I'd really love, is for it to inspire creativity. I hope it doesn't end up on my pile of unfinished teenage diaries. If I do manage to keep it up, I wonder why that's so? Is it just because it's a little bit exciting to see things you've written 'published' on the interweb? Or perhaps it's just the ease and immediacy of it all. I'm tempted to think I might be more excited reading back over my failed leather-bound diary attempts, than my (successful or failed) blog attempt. Or maybe not! Anyway, welcome. Lets see how we get on!