Yarn Love

Regular readers will know that I love a nice bit of yarn at Christmas - wrapping gifts with yarn & pompoms and using it to make my Christmas star last year - and that I'm still a bit pompom obsessed.

So it will come as no surprise to learn that lots of yarn will be making an appearance in my Christmas decorating this year. There's just something about the warm, cosy, homemade feel of decorating with yarn that's quite irresistible, and I love how it helps to soften the potential brashness/gaudiness and full-on sparkle of a lot of Xmas baubles.

Feeling the yarn love, I want to share some of the awesome yarn wreaths I've discovered recently in my trails around the internet.

Agnes of Knock Knocking makes gorgeous yarn-wrapped wreaths, decorated with ornaments and felt embellishments (a girl after my own heart!). She has a great eye for colour. I love the retro sparkle of this "hostess" wreath...... and the pattern of this "argyle" wreath is so clever:You can find more of her wreaths in her shop, here.

Crafty superwoman MrsB (whose fab blog you can visit here) sells wreaths that are literally made from balls of yarn. Fantastic!
The combination of softness & sparkle here is just perfect:
And last but by no means least, do you fancy a bit of DIY yarn action this Christmas? Check out this great tutorial for a POMPOM wreath over on the Bleubird Vintage blog. Just amazing.

Gift Wrap Idea: Brooches & Badges

As I mentioned the other day, I've been working on lots of fun gift wrap projects to share with you in the run up to Christmas. First up: using brooches as gift-toppers.This is such a easy idea, but it adds a huge amount of personality and specialness to the simplest of parcels.

Wrap your gift as normal - I think plain paper works best for this to really make a feature of the brooch. I'm a big fan of brown paper (use double-sided tape for extra neatness) and using yarn in place of expensive ribbon (thrifty and quite chic, I think!) but any paper and ribbon will do.
Knot your yarn/ribbon tightly and trim the ends so they'll be hidden under your brooch.

Then pin your brooch through the yarn/ribbon, and you're done!
I used the lilac flower brooch from my shop for this parcel, but any flower brooch would give the same summery feel to your wrapping.

For something a bit less girly, try big badges - and match your yarn/ribbon to the badge to give the gift a cohesive look.Vintage brooches add a lovely bit of sparkle... ... perfect for Christmas! Most charity shops and thrift stores are overflowing with vintage brooches at bargain prices, plus the brooch can be kept and used as, well, a brooch, so you're spending money on a little extra gift instead of a fancy bow that will just get thrown away.

Thursday Things

Lots of things to mention today... first up: Royal Mail just announced that the postal strikes here in the UK have been postponed until after Christmas! Woohoo!

As someone whose income pretty much entirely relies upon having a reliable postal service, I'm sure you can imagine how relieved I am to hear this news. But please don't let this put you off shopping early for Christmas ;)

I've been working really hard over the last few months trying to get my shops looking their best "in time for Christmas" and listing all the finished bits and pieces I've got sitting about the place in boxes. There are always more things that need doing, and it can be quite a challenge taking photos on these dark autumnal days, but I'm getting there slowly.

Among the recent additions are new colourways of my butterfly flower brooches & hairbands - pretty lilac and bright yellow:
And in other news - my felt bunting tutorial has made a guest appearance over at Or so she says... a blog jam-packed with giveaways, home, style & parenting tips, and (of course) lots of crafty projects. I originally made the bunting as a summer project (way back when it was still warm and sunny!) but in Christmas colours it would be a lovely addition to your holiday decor. I may have to make some myself...

So Much Cuteness!

The postman brought lovely post this morning: the adorable doodle I won in Amy Blackwell's giveaway. I'm a big fan of Amy's work so I'm thrilled to have won one of her original drawings.

It was quite exciting to see which one I'd won... it turned out to be the cutie saying "hello" down on the left there:
I've got my eye on some of her Christmas cards to send to our cat loving friends this year... this one is probably my favourite:You can visit Amy's Etsy shop here and her Folksy shop here.

And, as if that wasn't enough cuteness for the day... I was recently asked to choose some "guest picks" over at the home of all things adorable, Super Cute Kawaii and my selection has now been published.

Want to see the things I picked? You can read the post here.

How To: Cafetiere Cosy

My sewing project on Sunday night was to make a birthday present for my boyfriend's mama: a cafetiere / French press cosy in blue to match her kitchen.She has long admired the red coffee cosy I made for my boyfriend's birthday last year, so (fingers crossed) it should go down well!If you'd like to make a cosy for your own cafetiere...

You will need:
- a thick wool jumper/sweater, turned into felt (instructions for this can be found HERE)
- co-ordinating fabric, washed and ironed before use
- sewing thread to match the felt (& white thread if you're using velcro)
- either narrow elastic & 2 large buttons OR sew-on velcro OR 2 large snap fasteners
- paper for pattern making, a tape measure, pins, scissors and sewing needle
- a cafetiere / French press

To make the red design (fastened with 2 elastic loops and buttons)

1) Draw a rectangle large enough to wrap around your cafetiere. 28cm x 14cm should fit a standard cafetiere, but I'd recommend measuring yours to get one that's just right. Use the tape measure to measure round the cafetiere and use these measurements to draw your pattern, cut it out then hold it against the cafetiere to see if you're happy with the size.

2) Pin your pattern to a piece of felted sweater, and cut around it. Then do the same with your fabric, this time leaving a 1.5 cm border all the way around it so you can fold the fabric over.

3) Pin the felt to your fabric, placing your pins in the middle of the rectangle and taking care that the "wrong" side of the felt faces the "wrong" side of the fabric. Then gradually work around the edge of your cosy, tucking the excess fabric under and pinning the edges in place.4) Using neat running stitches, sew along both the long edges of the cosy twice - once a few mms from the edge and once 1cm from the edge, removing the pins gradually as you sew. Leave the short edges open. You may also want to sew a short diagonal line from each corner to sew the turned-under fabric neatly in place.5) Securely sew 2 buttons in place on one end of your cosy (the positioning of these will depend on what kind of handle your cafetiere has), and sew two small loops of elastic in the same positions on the other end (sewing the ends between the felt and fabric to keep them hidden). I sewed the buttons on first, then held the cosy round the cafetiere to help me measure and position the elastic loops. Secure the elastic with a couple of loose stitches first, then test they're the right size before you sew them on tightly. Alternatively, instead of elastic buttons you could sew four lengths of ribbon to use as ties.

6) Finish your cosy by sewing along the short edges to match the other sides - one line of stitches near the edge, and a second 1cm from it.
To make the blue design (fastened with velcro or snap fasteners)

A) Follow step 1 above, but add another rectangle to your pattern so you have a section that will wrap right round the cafetiere (through the handle) with enough overlap for you to attach your fasteners. Mine was 8cm x 4 cm.B) Follow steps 2 & 3.
C) Sew your two lines of running stitch around your cosy, stopping a cm or two from the ends and leaving the short edges open so you can sew on your fasteners:D) Position your velcro or snap fasteners and sew them in place (use white thread for the velcro so your stitches are hidden). Sew one side first, then wrap your cosy around the cafetiere to help you perfectly position the other side so your cosy will fit tightly.
E) Finish your cosy by sewing the open ends to match the other edges (with two lines of running stitch).

Please note that this tutorial is for non-commercial use only. If you use the images and/or text on your own blogs etc, please credit me and link back to this post. Thanks!

Back to Work

I'm feeling much better today... It sucks to have lost the files we've lost, but many of them are stored somewhere else like Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, etc or as print outs and emails ... or can just be re-typed.

We're happy(ish) to shrug it off and look forward to a shiny new computer on which we can start a brand new super-organised future (with regular scheduled back-ups, haha!). A clean cyber slate, as it were. Thanks so much to everyone who sent me sympathetic words, they're all much appreciated :)

I was also hugely cheered up yesterday to hear I'd won an original drawing by Amy Blackwell - very much looking forward to that arriving.

Anyway... it's back to business as usual now, and I'm busy catching up with all the orders placed during my time off. I had a mammoth packing session yesterday and may well be setting up camp in the Post Office this week:
This time of year can be a bit of a frenzy, so it was great to have a little break to catch up on some sleep and get things organised ready for the oncoming madness. I've even managed to get my inbox down to a mere 2 emails... though I'm sure that won't last!

Doom and Gloom

Yesterday was no fun at all.

Halfway through trying to print off some orders our computer died. Blue screen of death, very bad. We've got a computer-savvy friend coming round to take a look at it this afternoon but he isn't hopeful.

At the start of my little holiday-from-posting-things I spent a couple of days tidying up my computer files, filing photos etc. But did I remember to do a back up? Did I heck.

I last fully backed up several months ago, so I've lost several months of work files, typed-up accounts, product shots, and any other assorted photos I've not posted to Flickr or my blog... plus all my bookmarks and all sorts of other miscellaneous bits and pieces that I'll be kicking myself over for months to come.

I feel like the stupidest person alive! But I'm very glad we bought a backup drive this year. If the computer had died this time last year I would have lost everything. *Shudders at the thought*

Unravelling

I've almost finished a scarf I've been slowly knitting over the past few weeks and though I'm very pleased with it, it's made me decide to unravel and re-do one I made earlier!I finished the grey one earlier in the year (made with the same yarn, in a different colourway) and it's just a bit too wide and chunky - the thinner purple one has turned out much more wearable.

So: it's time to start unravelling...

PS can anyone recommend any simple knitting projects/patterns for me to try once I run out of people to make scarves for?

Christmas Crafting

As well as plotting some new gift-wrap tutorials for this festive season, I've also got some Christmas ornament tutorials planned.

But, as with the gift wrap, they're not quite ready to show off just yet so ... yes, you guessed it, here's a round-up of last year's tutorials. I liked some of these so much, I added them to my own Christmas range!

Sweet & simple hearts and stars: Christmas puddings:And baubles you can decorate any way you fancy:(And yes, I know this is slightly lazy blogging but please bear with me - I'm busy making new things behind the scenes, I promise!)

Ideas for Gift Wrapping

There's something about this time of year, with Christmas beginning to loom on the horizon, that gets me all excited about pretty parcels and making that perfect gift even more perfect with a bit of imaginative wrapping and fancy ribbon.

I'm working on lots of fun new gift-wrapping projects for my own Christmas gifts this year and I'm hoping to share them with you all soon... but in the meantime, here's a quick round-up of my gift wrap projects from last year. Click on the links to find full instructions & more pics.

Pretty paper doilies:
Fake parcels featuring vintage stamps, and cute postage stamp tags:

Brown paper given a touch of luxury with foil cake ribbon:
Faux bois parcels topped with paper oak leaves:

Fun with fonts:

Fancy textured wallpaper:

Sweet and simple paper snowflakes - this would be a great way to get your kids involved in wrapping presents for your family:

Plus - perhaps my favourite project - fun and funky pompoms: