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!

Kew Gardens.

I haven't posted here in a while, I recently made some changes in my personal life and I haven't really felt like writing on the blog. However now the dust has settled a bit I have been able to concentrate more on my work and think more about what I'm going to be doing when I'm back at uni.

We recently went to Kew Gardens in London, to look round in general but we were really pleased to see the Princess Diana glasshouse and it's massive display of cacti and succulents. I want to use the shape of my favourite cacti as a basis for a jewellery collection, I've been considering both metal and cotton linter casting but we'll see what happens.

Here are a few pictures of the Lithorps and some other succulents and cacti, I love the clusters of shapes together and the subtle colours, especially with the stones.

I'll have a few more updates soon from more trips we've been on recently, possibly more cacti related posts too.

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.

Stool saga part 2.

Yesterday Tasha and I went bargain hunting, she got a very cheap table and I bought the foam I wanted to recover my very sorry looking blanket box, I also had to steel myself against buying a sewing box in a charity shop, good job I didn't have enough cash!

Anyway here's the pathetic blanket box-

The 'reupholstering' it had was not particularly nice, the staples were sticking out in places! So off it came and the frame needed a bit of tlc, I had to hammer some nails back in and one of the corners needed glueing as the joint had come apart. Here it is drying with a clamp on, my beloved car is unwittingly being used to lean it against!

Next to that in the garage is the frame from my first stool purchase which I'm just finishing sanding, then it will be oiled and reunited with the seat pad which I have covered, I'll save that until it's finished.

I've been having quite a textiles obsession lately since going to IKEA and buying some of the beautiful bird print Cecilia fabric for £1.99 p/m. I also splashed out on some Lena fabric too while I was there and recently snapped some more up on eBay, on the right in the pic, as I don't often get chance to go to IKEA and if I do it's always an expensive trip! Also in the pic is a pillow case Tasha gave me to amend to fit a small pillow, top left, and below that are two pieces of fabric I bought from Isabelle and Kate's Fabrics on Folksy. I've been planning to try covering some Moleskine Cahiers with fabric and I think the yellow and grey piece may end up involved.

Finally, for this post anyway, I have somewhat of a cactus obsession. I've been collecting a few cacti and succulents but a clear favourite has emerged, purely because it seems to have grown at least an inch every time I look at it. This is my prize prickly pear, which needs repotting as it had an accident in the car on the way home from the garden centre and fell out, as did most of it's soil, but despite that it has sprouted. I don't know a lot about them but I'm hoping it grows to be pretty big.

Spurred on by my cactus obsession and a search online I'd been wanting to make a cactus pincushion for some time and finally got round to it this week, infecting my friend Tasha with the bug too, you can see hers on her blog here. My next plan is to make a prickly pear one, but I need to get some purple felt first, then I'm thinking maybe a little bunch of cacti on a wrist band for mobile sewing and then ......

More on this and more shrinkle-ing later.