Stitching, Sewing and Hobbycrafts Show

At the weekend I went to the Stitching, Sewing and Hobbycrafts Show at the NEC Birmingham.  I was given free tickets and invited to a Blogger's event. so I felt very excited and important (though clearly I'm not!).  We were given endless coffee, tea, croissants, muffins and food, and 2 craft activities to try.  I was lucky enough to end up sitting with the lovely Julie from Sum of their Stories, it was great to meet another UK general craft blogger.

The first activity was a tapestry brooch with Tina Francis.  This was the perfect stitching project as it was done in tent stitch and it's small scale meant that we could actually finish it at the event.

We were each given a kit with the pattern (erm no, I didn't follow it!), the brooch finding, a needle and some canvas.  There were piles of Anchor tapestry wool on the table for us to chose from.

Tina (who is fabulously friendly and helpful - take a class with her if you get the chance!) encouraged us not to think too much about colour choice, but to just grab something we were drawn too.  I started with a bluey-grey and added a reddy-purple.  This picture does NOT show the correct colours!

For my third colour, Tina pushed me towards an acid-green.  It was perfect.  I randomly chose orange for the final grid colour and I'm loving my choices! 

I managed to get the brooch finished, despite taking the time to drink about 6 cups of coffee, or perhaps because of the coffee!  Then I moved tables to have a quick go at the papercraft project of the day.

We were making paper houses with Cathie Shuttleworth (apologies, that's a Facebook link, her website seems to be doing something odd right now - but it's here if it comes back up).  We were given the templates and I got cutting out.

As the first group were still making theirs, I didn't hear the instructions and so just wung it.  Cathie would have, and did, help when I asked, but hey, I like to do my own thing!  This meant that I did the ribbon slot on the roof wrong and I also put the house together inside-out!

Ah well!  I didn't have too much time so the decoration is fairly minimal.  It would have been nice to have had a bit longer as there were some lovely papers and punches and papercraft bits and bobs to play with.

It's been a long time since I did papercraft and I really quite enjoyed it!

The top flap of the roof lifts off so it's a useable box, and ties with the ribbon.

To sum up the workshop - a paper house, 2 tapestry brooches (one was my friend Laura's, she'd accompanied me in her capacity as my "assistant" - i.e. pass me the coffee....) and a muffin!

AND... most excitingly, we got a goodie bag!  It's a proper canvas tote that I forgot to take a picture of, and it had all this inside!  Above is paper and card.

Beads, glitter, glue, dies, a papier mache monster (that I love!), liquid pearls and a block printing kit.  What a great goody bag!

I did a little, but not much, shopping.  My entire house is in disarray due to the renovations I'm doing and there is craft stuff everywhere which put me off buying more.  I did invest in a House of Zandra kit though.  I've wanted one forever and this was on offer for £15!  

Next we came across the Powertex stand.  I've seen this product advertised, but don't recall ever seeing it demonstrated at a show.  It was amazing!  Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take photos (other than this mannequin), so I'd have a bit of a google as the stuff is amazing!

We were invited to add to the mannequin, I added this heart on her knee and also a W on her bum!  Forgot to get a picture of that...  I bought a starter kit as I have an idea to Powertex the side of my outdoor toilet wall....  watch this space!

Speed Craft part 1

I've written about the SpeedCraft events at Debbie Bryan's before, me and mum would go twice a year.  This year the first even was in April.  Me and mum had booked to go before we lost her.  I was all set to go on my own when the lovely Jane from Loopy's Place said she'd come with me!  I was so chuffed to have a crafting partner on what would otherwise have been a very sad day.

We started in style with Buck's Fizz.  As I'm allergic to oranges, I just got a glass of Prosecco!  It went down very well... especially as a coffee and cake were quick to follow!

The first activity was a mini mosaic brooch.  We didn't do any cutting, we had a selection of pre-cut tiles, broken china, beads and buttons to use.  We only had 45 minutes per activity so had to design pretty quickly before dying our grout.

The photo doesn't show it well, but my grout is a lovely minty green.  Here's the piece all grouted and ready to be dried before sanding.  Writing this, I realise I was suppose to sand it 48 hours later... ooops!  Hopefully I'll still be able to do it. 

Next was weaving which I first tried at the last SpeedCraft event.  This time it was circular weaving on an embroidery hoop.  We had a selection of yarns and fabrics to cut into strips to use.

I didn't get very far with mine, it still needs finishing off.  I abandoned my usual blue colour scheme for a palette of purple and grey.

Next was lunch, followed by cake, followed by paper origami.  This flower was not easy to make!!  We all struggled to get the shape right.  

The leaves are just glued on to the wire in this picture, the flower stem has been finger crocheted (a new skill for me!) and I just need to finish off finger crocheting the leave stems before sewing the leaves on more securely using a few big cross stitches.

I'll be back in another post to tell you about the rest of the day.

Speed craft

Back in October, wonderful mum and I went to Speedcraft at Debbie Bryan.  You may remember me posting about these events before.  5 tables, 40 attendees (1 man this time which was great to see), 5 x 50 minutes to do a craft, cake, coffee, cake, coffee, lunch, cake, coffee etc.etc.  Mum loved speedcraft and had booked us on to the one in April.  I will go, but I will miss her.

I'm not going to write 5 posts, I'm going to tell you about it all in one post.  I thought I'd made some notes about the tutor's names and websites, but I can't find them.

One of the tables was papercraft and we made 3d hanging decorations using sugar paper, metallic paper and vintage papers including old lace patterns.  Debbie is a bit fan of stitching so there is always thread on all the tables, we used it to add some accents.

I really like some of the papers used here.

Next we did wirework.  We started by scribing the copper circles using various tools, then made a hanger from a piece of wire.  I added tiny paper "bunting" and tassels to mine. I really like this!

It's about necklace size, maybe a bit longer (width-wise), but it's too delicate to wear, so I've hung it up in my craft room.

I did a different pattern on each side of the circle, just to try something new.

One table was weaving which I've never tried before.  OK, maybe as a kid, but I don't remember.  This was great fun, using all kinds of different materials from ribbons and lace to lengths of fabric and yarn.  

I just need to sew the ends under to tidy it up.  I could really fancy doing this again... the only problem is, what do you do with it?

As usual, Katie Almond was there to do ceramics with us.  Me and mum really had the knack of this by then, and we made our pieces in about 10 minutes, leaving lots of time for the delicate painting!  We were both improving too.  Above is the pre-baked piece.

And this is it when I got it back.  I didn't have a Christmas tree this year, so I propped it on my mantelpiece!  it will be the star of the tree next year.  

There was a fifth craft.  It was printing using acrylic inks brayered onto tiles and impressing stamps and tools into the paint before placing paper on top and making an impression.  Unfortunately, we hung them up to dry and forgot to collect them!  You're not missing much, printing is not one of my greatest skills!

Christmas cards

Well check me out, I'm organised for Christmas already!  OK, so that's not strictly true as I've done nothing else to organise, just made my cards, but that's a good start.

I used my Sizzex Big Shot to cut out the Joy, tree and stocking motifs from funky foam.  I did a set of each in two different colours, then swapped parts of them over.  

Each motif is backed with a square of patterned paper and the tree has some tiny jewels added.

I used some of the cut out parts to make a square card using three complimentary colours of tree and a single joy.

Simple, quick, done!  Now I just have to remember to write in them and actually post them... 

Craft Book Review - Pretty Quilled Cards

The lovely folk at GMC sent me another book to review.

Pretty Quilled Cards by Cecilia Louie
Before we go any further, the disclaimers.  I was sent the book for free to review but I was not told what to say and all opinions are 100% my own.  I didn't receive any monetary compensation.  Links in this post, as with all my book posts, are affiliated.  If you click over and buy something, I get a few pence towards an Amazon voucher.  

I have done quilling before, it's something I used to do a lot of as a teenager and I'm used to the traditional coiled shapes.  This style of quilling is a bit different.  It still uses long thin paper strips on their edge, but there is less coiling and more shaping.

The book has 25 designs, each one showing a large colour photo of the finished item, the lengths of each colour strip to cut and a diagram showing how they are put together.

The next pages are a written explanation of how to form each design, including more diagrams.  The instructions really are top notch.

There are a whole range of different designs in the book, including card designs for birthday, Christmas and other special occasions.  You could, of course, use the motifs however you like and aren't restricted to making cards.

Each design is rated out of 5 for difficulty and I, stupidly, chose the level 3 cherry blossom design.  It was tricky.  It was fiddly and frustrating at times, but I did it.

I wasn't very happy with my shapes as I was forming them and I didn't think I'd get a good result, but you know what?  I'm really chuffed with my final piece.  I don't think I've done a bad job.  It took a long time, nearly 2 hours, to put this together so it wasn't quick!

Whilst making the design, I was sure I'd never make another design from this book as it was just too fiddly, but when I'd finished, I rethought this and I think I might just tackle another!

The designs are lovely, I do like the style and the instructions are really detailed.  I think this book would be ideal for someone who's got some experience in quilling, but anyone with a bit of patience who is able to do fiddly work could make the designs.  My one criticism of the book is that there aren't enough designs suitable for me, the only one being a necktie.  

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Disclaimer:

I was given a review copy of the book by GMC however this review and all opinions are 100% my own, I was not told what to say.  Amazon links are affiliate links.

Sewing-themed necklaces

Morning ladies.  I hope you all had a good weekend?  I had a lovely day on Saturday, we had a meet up of the EMMQG in a gorgeous little village in Derbyshire, home to Guild members Mandy and Lynne.  Despite being bullied by Ange most of the day, it was so nice to be with other sewingy-type ladies who all accept me into the Guild despite the fact that I'm almost a quilt-virgin.  I got to see some amazing quilts in person and eat some wonderful food.  And cake.  Chocolate cake.  The only downside of the day was the horrible migraine that came on as I was driving home.  I was in bed by 8pm on a Saturday night.

We have a little birthday-swap going and three ladies had had birthdays since I'd seen them, or had birthdays coming up, so a present was in order.  But what to give extremely-talented quiltresses who would surely laugh at my wonky sewing?  Handmade jewellery...

The cute little sewing-themed charms came from ebay and it took me ages to track down plenty of different ones!  I decided to make each necklace the same-but-different.  So we have a black version.

The round beads inside the silver donuts are glass millefiori, just beautiful.

Then we have a pink version.  Those almost-round beads are made of paper.  I didn't make them but making paper beads is on my list.  No surprise there then, there's not much that's not on my list.

I used purple crystals with this one.

And finally a yellow and green version.

This one also has glass millefiori beads and some lampwork ones on the sides.

A necklace as a gift requires a gift box. I am rubbish at buying things like that so I decided to make them, how hard could it be??  I should have realised at that point!  Some of the charms had come in a dinky little pizza box, so I opened it out to use as a template.

I used scrapbooking paper stuck to card for the first trial.  I thought the card would give it rigidity.  It didn't quite work.  I think the problem was that the template is made from thick card and my card wasn't as thick.  Version 2 was made from card alone, slightly thicker card.  It still wan't great.  It kind of worked, but I did have to tape it shut!

As this wasn't working, I decided to draft up a standard box with lid.  I made the base.  I made the lid a few millimetres smaller.

Except I didn't, the lid was the same size as the base!  I finally gave in and measured the base before making a lid and had a workable box.  Clearly I forgot to take a photo though!  Ladies, I do hope you forgive me crappy boxes!