A cactus is always a succulent, except for when it's not....

I've had this project in mind since I remembered I had this in the cupboard....

 

Gorgeous olive green chunky corduroy that I bought from a charity shop a few years ago with no real purpose in mind. It was a 'just in case'. The idea was one of those that wakes you up in the night, tempting you to go get the sewing machine out at midnight.

A plan was afoot. I made some rough templates and after learning the hard way to snip the inside of round seams and to refinforce them he was complete!

 

 So here is my newest design- a cactus of the non-prickly kind, in fact he's positively soft!
Next to him are some pincushions I've been working on, I was trying to get a new one made each night but some jewellery making has intervened. 

Just as an aside I've been trying to keep an eye out for some of the designs on packaging while out in the supermarket and how beautiful is this...

 .....makes me want to get baking!

Lincoln Christmas Market

Lincoln Christmas Market 2009 is an event I've been looking forward to since I started university because this year was our turn to hold our own stall selling our own handmade work to raise money for our end of year exhibition 'Direction' next May.

This year's stall featured the work of students on the Furniture and Contemporary Decorative Crafts courses.

This is our stall being manned by Kayleigh and Tasha.

Here you can see porcelain wall panels by Lauren Hirst, glass paper weights by Tanya Beasley and glass necklaces by Emma Whitton.

Paper bowls by Natasha Reidie and myself, snowflake jewellery by me and glass pendants by Kayleigh Rose.

Embossed cotton linter wall panels by Natasha Reidie.

Porcelain wall panels by Lauren Hirst.

And these are the sterling silver sets I made, tassels above and domes below.

If you're interested in any of the items shown please ask me for the contact details of the maker who will be more than happy to make a similar item for you if the one pictured is no longer available.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, organising the stall, making my jewellery to sell and sitting at the stall seeing all these wonderful people who liked our work enough to buy it! It has made me excited about the thought of having a stand at a show, though I know it's on a completely different scale.

2010 just got even more exciting at the prospect of our Final Year Show 'Direction'!

Thank you to Benchpeg!

I've been a bit caught up with uni lately but I just wanted to post to say a big thank you to Benchpeg, I won a pair of tickets to Origin in London last week in one of their competitions. As well as being a great resource for jobs, exhibitions and seminars the newsletter also features giveaways!

Origin was great this year but there were two makers who really stood out to me, Saloukee and Moon. Saloukee is a maker whose work you've probably seen before and it never fails to impress me but her stand was what stood out from the others. She had searched for something to make her stand more relevant to her work and I believe it was Bloxes she turned to.

Moon had a selection of pairs of cacti rings in storage pots and shadow puppet rings featuring hands which cast shadows of animals when a light is shone on them. At Origin the latter were displayed in a tray with a poisable spotlight, it was a great stand, it really allowed you to interact with the jewellery and if I'd had the money I would've taken a 'Duck' ring home.

As I didn't get any pictures while I was there here are a few from a recent trip to the Trentham Estate.

Featured Item Joy!

I logged onto Folksy last night to find my Tree brooch on the 'Featured items' list on the homepage. After a rather stressful week of moving house and being poorly this was a nice little lift and has given me a bit more impetus to continue with some of the crafts projects that've been put on the backburner lately.

So watch this space for more items being added to my Folksy store soon!

Jellyfish and Ice cream.

My latest project was a present for blogger Tasha's birthday and is my first attempt at making a creature from my own design. So here is the Jellyfish in question-

He's made from an Erin McMorris fabric and felt. I'm going to make another and blanket stitch the legs so they won't fray as much but as a first go I'm quite proud!

Little bag of happiness.

We visited Ikea at the weekend, the list of things to buy from there had been getting out of control so we had to nip it in the bud. Aside from all the other wonderful things I came away with there was a stack of fabric, Tasha and I hogged the cutting table for about half an hour. I had to buy a mini blue bag just to get them home safely, now I don't want to get them out except to unfold and refold them, they look so snug!

I've stocking up on sewing supplies lately and got a few gems from a charity shop- 3 vintage patterns (to go on the To Do list) and some bias binding, all for £2!

I've been attempting more fabric related projects lately and as I'm temporarily back at home while I work the summer in my local Post Office I needed to set up some crafting space. My Mum had salvaged a Singer treadle table from a skip outside a sewing shop many years ago and converted it to a table, but it'd been in the garage for a few years so I got it out, cleaned it up and installed it in my bedroom. The treadle still works so smoothly despite being out of action for about 30 years.

On my table here you can see a pin board I bought because it was square, pinned to that is some felt stitching inspired by the beautiful Polygon throw by Mia Cullin at Habitat. On the board is also one of my Scribble necklaces, soon to be added to my Folksy shop. In front are a selection of postacards from New Designers a few weeks ago and also two felt cacti- Astrophytum Myriostigma inspired as my real one gave up the ghost just recently and it was my favourite. Felt cacti are dangerous- they keep you up until 2am making them!

And lastly these are some of my Scribbles units before trimming and shinking, I really loved the negative shapes created with the black background, I'll try to encorperate this into some future pattern design and maybe screen print it.

The new home crafts.

I have a minor obsession with books as anyone who knows me will tell you; currently away from home at uni I have just brought the bare essentials, probably 200 or so books on crafts, jewellery and art. 24 of the skeleton library are a set of 'The Family Creative Workshop' books, a series from the 70s on crafts the whole family can all do, but they're surprisingly sophisticated at times.

Set out in all their technicolour glory.

Set out alphabetically the books range from Acrylics to batik to Wire sculpture to zoetrope toys. Somewhere inbetween they cover textiles, lampworking glass, furniture making, ceramics and jewellery. Nowhere else in my compulsive reading of home crafts books have I found such a range of activitives that would fit right in at a contemporary crafts show, instead of a village fete.

Even the cover of the index is incredibly cool!

My friend, fellow blogger Tasha, and I have decided to work through them during the summer. We'll keep you posted with the results. Crafts with a seventies theme, that has to be interesting.