Month: December 2013

Insomnia and Inspiration

Robin

It’s that time of year again. Too much food, not enough exercise, late nights, late mornings, never shifting from the sofa. I’ve officially done too much relaxing now, eaten too much chocolate, and I need to get moving again. Yesterday I started sewing, and now that the Christmas knitting is finished I’ve picked up a couple of long-abandoned projects that I’m enjoying working on again.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, and was nestled into the sofa again at half past three in the morning. I managed to find a spot of David Attenborough on the telly, and when he’d finished I found a programme with Maya Angelou. I also watched a five minute preview of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”, and that’s five minutes of my life I’m never getting back. Sometimes I despair of humanity, I really do, and I don’t know what kind of mess we’ll be in when people like David Attenborough and Maya Angelou are gone.  I was very glad to have the opportunity to watch them, and even though I’m very tired, I’m also inspired by their excellence and experience.

Frosty Garden

When the sun came up, I opened the blinds and curtains and was met with this. I’m sure I’ll show you many pictures of this view, and this picture doesn’t do any kind of justice to the beautiful light that fills this space. Now the ice is melting as the sun comes up, and every leaf in the garden is twinkling as the heavy frost melts and falls. The houses at the back are nearing completion, and I’m thinking about what kinds of trees we can plant to disguise the vast expanse of that big brown roof. We were lucky enough to suffer very little damage in the storms, just the loosening of a few already-wobbly fence panels, but we know we have a lot of work do do out there.

Crafty Corner

Inside the house, I had a little flash of inspiration right when I should have been going to bed. This led to the late night shifting of furniture, and the creation of a little crafty corner. It’s not the most elegant arrangement, but it fits in the space and fulfils its function, which makes it ideal! The table and chair are from the 1950s, and used to belong to my Great Uncle Frank. They’re the closest thing I have to a family heirloom in furniture terms, and I’m really happy that they’ve found a little space in the new house. (Plus they match the curtains, which is a bonus!) The bookshelf on top used to belong in Paul’s teenage bedroom, and we have several of them scattered around the house. I might paint it, if Paul doesn’t mind. It’s the perfect size to hold my knitting books and magazines, and the big box at the bottom is my “emergency craft box” that I have to confess I haven’t touched since the move.

As always, when the New Year approaches, I’m full of good intentions and thoughts of diaries and journals and plans. Every year I buy a new planner or start a creative project that always falls flat after a few weeks. This year I’ve downloaded Susannah Conway’s Unravelling 2014 workbook (free) and Leonie Dawson’s Life and Business Workbooks (not free). I’ve also joined a Facebook Group called The Documented Life Project, which is about keeping a planner and art journal combined – something I’ve tried before, but never quite succeeded at. I’m hoping that now I have a little place where I can sit down, with arty and crafty materials at hand, I’ll have no excuse not to follow the weekly prompts and see what happens. We’ll see…

Doll Dresses & Dad’s Shirt

Doll dresses and Dad's shirt

A bit of nice easy sewing today – or so I thought! Well, okay, the doll dresses weren’t exactly difficult, but good grief they’re fiddly! I know I say this every time I make one, you’d think I’d be used to it by now. The first couple of doll dresses I made for Milly were fastened with velcro. These two fasten with poppers, which I’m hoping she should be able to get the hang of herself. I’d like to make future dresses with buttons, but that depends on whether I can convince myself to work hand-sewn buttonholes on doll’s clothes. (I’m not fighting my sewing machine for it, it’s not worth the swearing.)

The shirt, on the other hand, really was easy. My Dad picked it up in a charity shop, and it wasn’t until he got it home and tried it on that he discovered the sleeves were far too long! There’s no easy way to shorten shirt sleeves (you can do it, but involves taking the cuff off and re-working the placket, which is a pain in the proverbials), so the really easy thing to do is simply to chop the sleeves off at the elbow, hem them neatly, and call it a short sleeved shirt. Much better.

Even though it was only a small refashioning job, the quality of the fabric was very noticeable. The labels are very faded so this shirt’s obviously been washed a lot, and the cotton is densely woven and incredibly soft. It’s an Yves Saint Laurent shirt, so I guess it must have been quite expensive originally. Another reason why I often haunt charity shops – if you can get past all the Primark items being sold for more than they cost new, you can quite often find a piece that might be old, but is of a much higher quality than you might ordinarily be able to afford. Thanks to a very simple alteration, my Dad should get plenty of wear out of this – once the weather warms up enough for summer shirts, that is!

Milly’s 2013 Christmas Dresses

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

Today I have been mostly making Christmas dresses. Yes, I only have the one niece… but I got a bit carried away in the fabric shop! The pattern is Butterick 3772, again. This time it’s in the largest size I have, so I want to get a few more made before they’re outgrown.

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

I didn’t deliberately buy birds and bees… in fact I didn’t even notice the combination until Paul pointed it out to me! But given that birds and bees are two of my favourite things, it’s probably no surprise that I was smitten with these fabrics.

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

I was waiting in line to pay for the fabric when I spotted this button across the store. How perfect is that? I kind of want to knit myself a cardigan now, and put great big BEE BUTTONS all down the front.

Milly's Christmas Dresses 2013

Not wanting the birdy dress to feel left out, and in the absence of a matching bird button, I thought these little pink flowers would do very nicely. In case the super-observant amongst you are wondering why you can’t see any buttonholes, it’s because the buttons have great big snap fasteners sewn underneath.

I haven’t added any pockets to these dresses, as I want to use the leftovers to do the same thing as last year and make a couple of matching outfits for her rag doll. I’ll make a start on those tomorrow, and if there are still any scraps big enough then these two dresses might end up with pockets after all.

(Note to self: Don’t wrap them up just yet!)

Christmas Fair & New Year Plans

Christmas Fair

This is Paul making himself comfortable behind the Eternal Magpie stall at the Berkshire Autistic Society Christmas Fair last Saturday. We were in a brand new school designed especially for kids of all ages who are on the autistic spectrum, which was a really lovely space. The floor was both squashy and heated, so he was actually much more comfortable than you might expect!

From a stall point of view the day was fairly quiet, but it was the first event of its kind in this venue, so I expect next year’s will be a lot busier. We were lucky enough to have some local friends pop in and do some Christmas shopping with us, and we chatted to some other lovely stallholders. We also met lots of families, some of whom I knew from working at the Museum, and some from my previous job with the Family Resource Centre. Two little boys had a great time sorting through all my button badges (they loved the maps), and another was extremely honest with us about the scented candles. Thankfully he was complimentary, his Mum was a bit worried he was going to say something rude! Everyone at BAS had clearly put a lot of effort into the event, and it definitely deserves to be a lot better attended in future.

However, as it turned out, we came home with just the right amount of money to tip my savings over into being enough to buy the set of hat blocks I’ve been coveting all year! So, an email has been sent to Guy Morse-Brown about a set of interchangeable crown and brim blocks for making felt cloche hats. There’s going to be a steep learning curve involved, but there will be (hopefully lovely) hats coming this way in the New Year!

tealight stack

There will be a number of other changes too. I’ve just discovered that four out of five of the Airship Fresheners fragrances have been discontinued, so I’ll be choosing some new candle oils in the New Year. Lure of the Kraken will continue to be available, and Hot Tea & Crumpets (currently sold out) I can hopefully buy another batch of before it disappears – but Sweet English Rose, The Arabian Nights and Cherry Bakewell will be gone completely once these last few candles have been snapped up. Still, it’s a good excuse to look for some interesting new fragrances, and there are a few I have my eye on already. Sloe Gin, anyone?

I’ve also decided to discontinue the large candles in the glass jars, and only make tea light candles in the future. The jars make the candles heavy and fragile, which makes them difficult to ship. I think sticking to tea lights and offering some kind of “pick-and-mix” option with the different fragrances is going to be a better way forward. I’ve also had requests for wax tarts rather than candles, so I’m going to be investigating the possibilities for those too.

I have kept back one large candle in each fragrance though, so that the winner of the Facebook Giveaway (almost there!) can have their pick.

Anyway, the next couple of weeks will be free from Emporium work as I take a break to spend time with Paul and our families, and also to do a little bit of sewing for myself and my niece. It’s Christmas Dress time again, and I’ve got some really sweet fabric waiting for me. I hope she likes it!

Facebook giveaway and temporary Etsy closure…

Raffle prize!

I’ve just realised that I completely forgot to mention my Facebook giveaway!

I’m hovering around the edges of 100 “Likes”, which is quite exciting, so I thought I’d do a giveaway when I reach that nice round number. All you have to do is share the giveaway photo from the Eternal Magpie Facebook page. It would be nice if you felt like “Liking” the page too, assuming you don’t already.

I’m hoping the details should be conveniently pinned to the top of the page when you get there – if not, you’re looking for a photo like the one above, but with the giveaway information listed next to it.

I don’t know how long it might take to reach the magic hundred. The numbers keep going up and down, and are currently on 93 – so close! But once we’re there, I’ll put all the people who shared the photo into a hat (not literally, I don’t have a really big hat), and draw out a winner at random. The prize is a set of tealights, and a voucher for one large candle in the fragrance of your choice – stock permitting.

Speaking of stock, I’ll be closing the Etsy shop tomorrow, just for the day, while I take my wares to a local Christmas fair. We’re rapidly nearing the deadlines for Christmas postage, so please feel free to snap things up sooner rather than later! The Etsy shop will go back online as soon as I’ve adjusted the stock to reflect anything I sell out of on Saturday. Hopefully it’ll be a good day!

For anybody local, it’s the Berkshire Autistic Society Christmas Fair. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there!

First look at the zipped pouches

Zipped pouches - finished!

These are the first few zipped pouches hot off the machine. I’m snatching little bits of time here and there to make them, in the hope of finishing as many as possible before the stall on Saturday. I have a terrible habit of thinking I “haven’t got time” to do something, and pootling about on Facebook or Pinterest instead. These pouches come together so quickly now that all the cutting out has been done, that I have high hopes of having a nice little basketful by the weekend, all made in my spare moments after work.

Zipped pouches - finished!

This gives you an idea of the size. They measure about 7½ by 5 inches  – plenty of room for a smallish camera or biggish smartphone. Each pouch is fully lined, and hand-finished so that there’s no visible stitching anywhere.

And below, you can see my one concession to the festive season – five little starry pouches, made from the leftovers of the Christmas dress I made for my niece last year!

Zipped pouches - finished!

I’ll be selling these at the fair for £4 each, or three for £10. Any that I bring back will be going on Etsy at a flat £4, as I can’t do the combined offer there. If anyone wants to grab any of these before they go, just send me a message with your chosen fabrics (which you can see in the previous post), and I’ll send them out first thing next week. Postage will depend on how many you buy!

Speaking of Etsy, I’ll be closing the shop next Saturday, just for one day, to make sure that I don’t accidentally sell two of something I’ve only made one of. So, if you’ve had your eye on something and don’t want to risk it selling out at the weekend, it might be wise to head on over to the Emporium and grab it now!

A stash-busting exercise gone awry

Zipped pouches - in progress

It started off as an exercise in using up my stash of 7″ skirt zips. These are the ingredients for 20 lined pouches, cut from remnants left from clothes I’ve made over the years.

While I was cutting up my pile of larger scraps, I thought I might as well carry on. So I kept on snipping until I’d been though every piece of quilting cotton I could find.

Zipped pouches - in progress

This then, is another forty-four sets of fabric and lining. Which means that whilst I have indeed used up my entire stash of 7″ skirt zips… I now need to go and buy quite a lot more. Oops…

I don’t know how many of these I’ll manage to complete in time for the Berkshire Autistic Society Christmas Fair next Saturday, as my only day off work next week is earmarked for Christmas shopping. But I’ve got a couple of afternoons and a week’s worth of evenings, so hopefully there should be quite a few for sale!

Felted layers

Felted brooch bases

Progress on the fleecy hats is slow. Hand-sewing the bands and brims is taking about half an hour per hat, and there’s a limit to how much I can do in one go before my hands start to complain.

I’d been thinking about making some felt brooches, so not being one to do things by halves, here are twenty-two little circles. I had planned to work blanket stitch around the cut edges, but I actually really like the way you can see all the layers of colour showing through.

They’re made from half a dozen rectangles of wonky, uneven felt that I made as practice pieces. They’d been sitting in a cupboard for about a year, gathering dust and moths, so I decided to chuck them in the washing machine and see what happened. After a quick whiz through a hot wash and a tumble dryer, they’d shrunk down from about A4 size to about A5, become nice and thick, and developed a lovely crinkly texture.

I have some little pieces of Harris Tweed that I’m hoping will needle felt nicely onto the top of the circles, perhaps with a little button each to finish them off. (And a pin on the back, of course.)

Much as I love the bright colours in these, I can also imagine them in nice muted, natural, sheepy shades. Maybe with some Wensleydale curls and semi-precious stones stitched on top. Something to think about after Christmas, definitely.