Back to Stitching

This past weekend I took another one of Jessie Chorley's workshops (Jessie pictured above). Of course it was dreamy like the first time. Some photos of the creative juices flowing and head to Jessie's site to see more of her work.

I can't show you mine yet, because it's going to be for my mom, who reads my blog :) but here are other works in progress from the other attendees. 

Good Reads: Mollie Makes

I've found a new magazine that I love: Mollie Makes. I first read about the British craft magazine on Alicia Paulson's beautiful blog. Her studio is featured in one of the early issues. Unfortunately I missed that one, but I'm happy to have found the magazine. It's really wonderful. Finally, a great craft magazine! I feel that the majority of craft magazines on newsstands are stuck in a previous decade. But this magazine features current designers and crafters, both their work and studios, and it features fun, contemporary projects, and it has a great vintage-modern aesthetic. Making, thrifting, collecting, crafting... here's a peek at Mollie Makes. 

What a Doll!

I've been meaning to make Lois a doll, for about, oh, 3 years now so I'm always noticing cute dolls for ideas. Some dolls I especially love are Alicia Paulson's dolls, Jess Brown's dolls, and Emily Martin's dolls. I also like the fairly simple dolls in the Martha Stewart craft book (and online here). I was back to thinking about dolls recently, so I thought I'd take a peek at Emily Martin's dolls again. I remembered she made them on the Martha Stewart show, so I wanted to re-watch the video. But once I went to her blog, I saw these two ADORABLE dress up dolls, which I had not seen before. The kitting kitty and the Pretend Bear Doll. Seriously?!! For the kitty, that wee skein of yarn and needles, the little purse, coat... for the bear, the mask, little bandit eyes, the cape, and the cute shoes on their itsy bitsy feet! These two take the cake now for favorite dolls. Emily Martin is so talented and just adorable herself. I just love her vintage blog. 

Photos by Emily Martin, from her blog. 

For Little Feet

A while back I bought some cute little baby shoes on etsy. Ever since, I've thought about trying to make something similar. A friend of mine is having a baby soon so I thought it would be a good opportunity to give the wee shoes a whirl. I found a pattern in one of my sewing books, but those shoes had a strap with a snap fastener, and I wanted mine to be slip-ons. After searching around on the internet a bit, I found this video tutorial. I printed the pattern and got to stitching. These were sooo easy to make. I did do one thing differently, and that was to have a contrasting fabric for the sole, in the interior. You just pin it (with wrong sides together), to the outside of the shoe, so that the right side is facing out when you sew. Then when you turn it in, it is in the interior. The only tricky part was pinning the sole to the upper. I ended up making two pairs and a bib to go with one of them. Now I'd like a pair for myself.

Room to Sew

You might remember that when we were looking for a new apartment last winter, one major draw to our current place was an extra room. I say "extra" room because our place isn't technically a three bedroom, but there is a small third room next door. It's more of a utility room in that it has exposed pipes and wires, and doesn't have a bathroom, but it does have pretty nice wood floors and heat, so I decided to make it into a guest room / craft room. Initially I thought I would make it an office for Andrew and try to give it a masculine vibe, but he thought I might use the room more than him and suggested I let it be a room to sew. He does like to work in there as it is though. He thinks it's pretty cozy. The daybed that used to be in Lois's room is in there, and our old bar, turned potting table, is now my sewing table (and desk), and my bike lives in there too. It was a lot of work getting it to this point. Do you remember what it looked like before? Like this (scroll down), ugh. My sister helped me so much at first when she was visiting, but then for a while I was stuck. There were so many things in there that we wanted to keep like camping stuff, old baby things, Christmas decorations, etc. Every time I'd go in there I felt overwhelmed. And when I'd start to unpack and sort it out, for a while I ended up just making a bigger mess. But somehow I got it to this point. Behind the curtain all our storage stuff and my craft supplies, fabric and whatnot, is stored in bins and stacked almost to the ceiling. I still have some work to do in there--one wall (across from the daybed) has a ledge that is holding a bunch of random stuff right now. But it's a good start. Now I just need to get busy stitching! 

Makover

You may have noticed my blog has gotten a little bit of a makeover. Thanks to Rachel at Ironwood Design Studios for sprucing it up! I've tried in the past to give it a bit of a re-do, but I usually just make it look all wonky, so I decided to call in a professional. What do you think? I wanted it a bit wider, with the ability to post larger photos, and have the categories cleaned up a bit. I've been in a blog funk for a while now, but I'm ready to refocus and get to posting more often with more regular features. I'll still be writing about shops I like, places I visit, crafts I make, flea markets I visit, along with inspiring interiors and our home sweet home (which is always a work in progress), but I'm aiming for more structure in my posts. I'm still touching up a few things, so be patient with me, please. I'm re-labeling a ton of posts so the appropriate posts will turn up in the individual categories' lists, which will take a while. But do let me know if you like the new look!

Embroidered Storybooks with Jessie Chorley

I've been in an embroidery mood lately. I wanted to make some days of the week tea towels, but I didn't want the usual kitchen / household motifs on them, so I started to go with a Paris theme, but they looked boring and Paris is not boring, so I scratched that idea. Then I went to Anthropologie to look at their tea towels because I always love their embroidered tea towels. I got some good ideas there and made a few tea towels (maybe I'll post pictures of those soon), and I've been on an embroidery roll since. I've mostly been looking through embroidery books, like Alicia Paulson's Embroidery Companion, A Rainbow of Stitches, and Doodle Stitching, and seeing what I can find online. One of the most inspiring embroidery artists is Jessie Chorley. You might remember her work from my post on her shop. Her style to me is dreamy and whimsical and magical. So while I was stitching away at one of my tea towels, I thought of her work and thought I'd see if she had any upcoming workshops (I had read a while back that she hosted workshops) and lucky me, she was having a storybook workshop. It was wonderful. She showed us some of her storybooks, talked to us about gathering ideas for a theme, ideas for constructing the books, and showed us some of her stitching techniques. She set up the table in the middle of the shop and we were stitching away in no time, and sipping tea and nibbling cake of course. Here are some pictures from the dreamy afternoon. These first 4 images, including the top image, are examples of Jessie's work. (Also, it wasn't really this dark in the shop, that's just the way I processed these photos.)

Our beautifully messy table, tea and cake included. I love craft mess.

I decided on an Amsterdam theme for my storybook. I'll post more pictures when I have more done.

What the other women were working on...

And what Jessie worked on while we were there...

I hope I can take another one of her workshops with my mom one day. She will love it! If you're in London, here's her workshop information. Happy stitching.

Print Workshop at Urban Outfitters

My friend Chris from San Francisco will be in town soon promoting her book, Print Workshop, at the Spitalfields Urban Outiftters. Chris will be signing books and demonstrating some of the great at-home printing techniques featured in the book. I'll be there too, so if you're in London, mark your calendar for Thursday, May 19 at 1PM. Chris is awesome and so is her book, so don't miss it!

Sewing Nook

A while back I gave you a little peek at my sewing nook. I'm pretty much finished with it now. I was just waiting to amass enough buttons to make a button border on my inspiration board. And my mom helped me out with that. Over Thanksgiving she let me raid her button stash and take all I wanted. Oooh, buttons, so fun! This little space is a work in progress, but it's a start. This area started as the bar (see how it started looking as a bar here), but the shelves were too narrow and too far apart to make it look good with bar accessories, and since we rent here, and I know the landlord isn't too keen on changes, I thought it would work better as a something else, and I've been wanting a craft space. Now that my machine and supplies are out of the closet, I have no excuses! Here's to more sewing in 2011. Happy New Year!!

A Pillow For Lois

Last year I made a bunch of bedtime story pillows for the kids in my family, but I was pillowed-out by the time Christmas came and planned to make one for Lois sometime after Christmas. It took me a whole year to get to it, but I made one for her today. I like the way it turned out, and it looks really cute in her room. I embroidered the text like a bookplate--"this book belongs to"--because I love bookplates, and I thought it would be fun to have her name on her pillow. Now I have to wrap it and put it under the wee tree!