A garland of tomatoes

14 Jun

I feel I should offer some apologies to anyone who isn’t that keen on gardening, if you’ve still stuck with this blog long enough to read this post, for I realise it’s been a bit plant heavy round here these past few weeks.

Stuffed tomato garland

Is that a delicious looking apple I see, hanging from the apple tree? Nope, it’s a tomato in fact. Of course.

Whenever I’ve put my head above ground from revising for my horticulture exams (I totally made that sound like I was doing loads and loads of work, when in reality, I’m pleased if I manage to do 30 mins a day when the baby is napping, but still…) I pop outside and water my actual garden.

So plants and all things plant-related have been taking up a lot of my brain space recently. And blog space too.

Not so much on the whole fabric or crafting front recently, I know.

So, I was all excited to sit down and write this post to share something I actually managed to create the other day and then I realised…. …it’s still got quite a horticultural bent to it.

Ah well.

Stuffed tomato garland

Just one of the delicious looking tomatoes

I made this tomato garland for a friend’s daughter’s first birthday. Unfortunately, true to type, I’ve finished it three months after the birthday but, hey, at least it’s finished.

She is a big fan of tomatoes (or was three months ago, anyway), so I thought it might be fun to make her a garland for her bedroom, to go with the T-shirts I printed at the time.

Now I look at it, I rather think this is quite the weirdest idea for a present I’ve ever had. A garland. Of tomatoes. Hmmmm.

Tomato garland

Oh it’s just so lovely to see sunshine in the garden, isn’t it?

Still, it will be wrapped up, stamped and posted to Ireland nonetheless. Hopefully before her second birthday.

This was my second attempt at making it. (I know! I actually sat down and thought it was a good idea to make a second one!)

For the first attempt, I ironed the tomatoes onto a big expanse of fabric first (I showed you a sneak peek of that some many months ago) and then cut them out and sewed them into the circles. The trouble with that, was the ironed-on tomato pictures got really creased and crumpled in the turning out process and you can’t iron over them again so there was no way to fix it.

They looked so tatty, I thought I had better start again, and the second time round I made the circles fully first, then ironed the tomato pictures onto the front of each circle, just before stuffing.

I also stitched them onto the ribbon too far apart, as you can see from the gigantic loop between these two tomatoes:

Tomato garland

They’d look better a bit closer together, wouldn’t they?

But by the time I’d sewn it all up for the second time, I just didn’t have the energy to take them off and do it again. I’ll just have to hope they don’t mind the tomatoes taking over the entire room…

Though I still think a tomato garland was a bit of a weird one, I could see this working quite well with some other images. Little gingerbread houses, perhaps, or circus animals, maybe some sharks for my partner, or horses for my horse-obsessed three-year-old friend. Many, many possibilities. Yet another project to add to the endless “To make” list!

Related articles:

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A letter to spammers

11 Jun

Dear spammer,

I know you’re a terribly busy person, what with all those blogs to comment on and useful links to share with everyone, so firstly, thanks ever so much for taking the time to read this letter.

Vintage spam advert

Image from vintage ads

Naturally, I’m delighted that your sister loves my blog. It’s very good of her to say so and of you to pass the message on. Please relay my thanks back to her for her kind words.

I’m also pleased to hear that your friend who has some awesome LOLZ has set up a website specifically for his aforementioned LOLZ. As someone who writes a blog, I know that it takes quite a lot of time and effort to keep a website going, so he should definitely be applauded for his work starting up a whole new site. My only concern for him is whether he’s done his market research well enough? It strikes me that there are already quite a few sites out there on the internet offering LOLZ of all kinds. Some of them even quite well-established. Of course, it might well be that your friend is far more internet-savvy than I am and has identified a hole in the LOLZ market, in which case I am sure his new site will be a huge success.

Whatever the specifics of his LOLZ, he is a very lucky man to have such a dedicated friend as you, sharing details of his awesomeness and new launches with the likes of me and my readers. With that sort of support, I’m sure he’ll do well.

It’s also great to hear your constructive criticism on my writing style. I was obviously delighted that you thought I had unique views and that the information in my blog is clearly written. Though, I did wonder if I detected a hint of criticism with your comment that you agree with “many of my primary points” — was there perhaps an underlying suggestion that you disagree with some of my secondary points? I’ll certainly bear that in mind for my next article anyway, ensuring that my secondary points are just as well-articulated as my primary points.

I do have to confess to being a little surprised that you thought the information I included was particularly suited for readers who enjoy challenging content. It hadn’t occurred to me that photos of my garden or a tutorial about making paperweights could be considered “challenging content” and I think I might try and dumb things down a bit in the future. I know, of course, that you and your sister and your friend with the LOLZ website are up for being challenged any time you read content online, but I fear that some of my regular readers might prefer things a little more easygoing with their morning cup of tea.

Now it may seem churlish, after all the information you’ve shared with me, to say that I’ve deleted your comments from my blog… But in the spirit of shared constructive criticism, I thought it only fair to tell you why.

Firstly, dear spammer, your grammar and punctuation are terrible. Your spelling’s not so great either. I hope you don’t mind my bringing your attention to this, but I really feel you could benefit by running your comments through spellcheck first. It’s ever so quick and will immediately show you any changes you need to make. Were you to read back over some of the comments you’ve left for me, I think you’d cringe with embarrassment at the typos. I won’t highlight them here, because I don’t want to jeapordise your good reputation.

Secondly (and you’ll see I’ve taken your advice and made my second point the most salient), your propositions just aren’t calling to me. It almost makes me yearn for the days of Hotmail spam when I was frequently contacted by Nigerian princes asking me to put all their money into my bank account. Now that’s an offer! LOLZ, no matter how audibly they might make me chuckle, just can’t compare to the offer of $50million in my bank, I’m afraid. And while it’s really lovely of you to tell me that my posting is “on point” I’m sorry to say that a brief sentence like that just doesn’t pique my interest enough to make me want to click on your links. Even when the URL contains such promises as “cheapairjordanshoes.” I know, I know, my loss entirely.

So, rethink and regroup, my old spammer chum, and if, by the time you come up with some more appealing offers, WordPress still has whatever glitch in their spam filter that has led to all your comments being posted over the past few days, then I can promise that I and my readers may well start clicking with abandon…

Til then, dear spammer, on with your lonely task. I wish you well.

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Happy World Oceans Day!

8 Jun

Someone really needs to make a calendar highlighting the good “World days” of the year, because I have only just this second, at 5.34pm, discovered that today is World Oceans Day.

So, happy World Oceans Day to you all!

I think this is the first time I’ve mentioned it, but I am a really keen diver. Before the arrival of the sproglet, I’d had a few excellent years spending large swathes of time out in Asia – a lot of it under the water. I even met my other half out in the Philippines while we were both taking part in a marine conservation programme. (AKA a good excuse to spend lots of time diving every day; looking at beautiful unspoilt coral, making friends with cuttlefish and checking out the progress of the cuttlefish eggs living in a bit of fire coral. Oh, and sunbathing on a beach surrounded by palm trees whenever you’re not diving. I know. It was tough…)

Sea anemones

Image from Clip Art etc

I’m not going to launch into a diatribe here about the importance of oceans or their degradation around the world, partly because this isn’t really the place for all that and partly because my brain is a little mushy and inarticulate after a day in the sun. (If you do want to read more about it, you can take a look at the main website: World Oceans Day.)

Had I actually found out about this in advance, and had a little preparation time, I would have definitely tried to make something in honour of the day. However, here we are, Saturday afternoon, it’s now 5.40pm, and I’ve got no Blue Peter here’s-one-I-prepared-earlier up my sleeve, so instead I’ll do what I always do when I want to celebrate something in a slightly half-arsed way: I’m going to share some nice vintage ocean pictures with you. Giving you a little view of some of my favourite under sea creatures along the way…

Firstly, the wonderful octopus. Is there anyone in the world ever who doesn’t like an octopus? I would always be seriously happy to spot one of these lovely creatures on a dive.

There are so many amazing octopus images it was hard to whittle them down. But whittle I did, to these two.

This octopus looks a little mean and scary. But I still love him.

One thing I love even more than an octopus is a squid. I did a dive once in Borneo when I looked up and an entire school of about 20 squid had materialised from nowhere right around my head. It was an odd, very eerie experience, almost like a sci-fi film (or Doctor Who episode), these squid suddenly shimmering into view.

On a sad note, though, since discovering how awesome squid are under the water, I’ve stopped eating them above the water and desperately miss the delights of calamari if I’m on holiday somewhere exotic. Mmmm, I’m thinking of it right now and salivating: that lovely crispy little ring, the lemon, the salt. Slurp.

Squid vintage image

The odd looking squid. Image from Vintage Printable

Moving on, the only thing I love more than a squid is a cuttlefish. Boy, do I love cuttlefish. They are one of the absolute oddest creatures you’ve ever seen. Pleasingly, not that tasty either, in my opinion, so I don’t have to miss not eating them…

It’s surprisingly hard to find a good vintage picture of one though. Everything called “cuttlefish” tends to be a squid or an octopus. But I didn’t want to miss the wonderful cuttlefish out, so here is one from a cigarette pack.

Away from cephalopods, I think perhaps my favourite under sea creature is a puffer fish. I just want to pick them up and cuddle them. (Don’t worry, I don’t…)

It’s number five in this incredible set of illustrations, though, it has to be said, this isn’t amazingly accurate.

Are you getting bored yet? Okay, then, just one more creature for you. The amazing sea horse. So tiny! So cute! So free from gender stereotyping!

This little illustration was without doubt the most adorable I found:

Ah, such wonderful things under the sea. And I haven’t even included dugongs or whale sharks or christmas tree worms…

But until the next time I can zip on a wetsuit – and it will likely be a good few years – I’ve been making good use of all the aquariums I can get to. The sproglet will recognise a weedy sea dragon from a hundred yards before he knows what a cow is, I suspect.

Related articles:

  • Like a vintage image as much as I do? I’ve collected together some of wolves and some of gardening.
  • And having said that you might not know I’m a diver, I’ve realised that quite a lot of my projects have some nautical theme, so you probably weren’t that surprised at the revelation. A lot of my second batch of fabrics were sea-related. My octopus love snuck into some of my printed T-shirts. My screen printed F is for fish had, erm, a fish in it. And, of course, I thought it was a good idea to make a lobster necklace, so that was probably a pretty big clue to my under sea obsession.

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Garden moodboard: June

2 Jun

June? June?! June! Where has the other half of this year disappeared to?

Still, any alarm about the rapidity of passing time is allayed by a gentle stroll around my garden, which is looking particularly flamboyant right now.

Here’s the edited version:

June garden moodboardWhy edited? Because, the back garden at the moment is a riot, a veritable riot of rhododendrons and azaleas. Which, I have to confess, aren’t my favourite plant. I counted nearly 20 plants out there. And, just to remind you, we’re talking 20 plants in a long thin London back garden, which means they’re taking up the majority of flower bed space.

Most of them are orange, red and pink, which again I have to confess, are not my favourite colours in the garden.

A shrub re-arrangement is a definite job for next year.

So, just two for this moodboard: a delicate white one which looks almost honeysuckle-like and this rather amazing white and pink-edged beauty. The bud, still all curled up, looks like a glorious sweet, I think.

Rhododendron

I wouldn’t be sorry to find such a delicious-looking humbug in my stocking at Christmas

Though I normally prefer whites and blues, I absolutely adore the bright yellow poppies, which have been popping up all over the garden for about six weeks now. I tried to cut a few and bring them inside, but they wilt and go hard within a matter of hours…

And, apart from the clematis, that is the last of these plants that I’m actually able to identify, so if anyone can enlighten me about the others, I’d be delighted.

Clematis

A clematis. This much I know

White flowers

What are these little lovelies?

These white flowers are just delightful and I’ve got lots and lots, dotted all over the place. They open up really wide and look like little stars popping up in the beds.

Purple flower

To weed or not to weed?

I wasn’t sure, at first, if this little purple flower was a weed (and perhaps it still is) but then it opened up all these lovely delicate little flowers and I’m enjoying it immensely. The poor thing is suffering badly from both of my two main armies of garden pests. Its leaves have been almost entirely destroyed by slugs and there are quite a few greenfly sitting on its stalk (still some in the photo, I notice, though I had tried to brush them all off…)

As I mentioned before, the slugs are having an absolute riot in my garden. I’ve tried removing them by hand and setting beer traps, but it’s just a drop in the ocean for their numbers. I did even cut one in half with a pair of secateurs, following the advice of someone in my horticulture class, but good god, was it a violent and terrifying end. I couldn’t bring myself to do that again.

I’m less bothered by the greenfly and have this (hugely optimistic) hope that if I leave them there, it will just encourage swarms of ladybirds to make themselves at home as well. We’ll see…

Pink flower

Slugs? What slugs?

This little beauty seems to be about the only plant unbothered by all the slugs. I want to say its a geranium, but I’ve no idea why. The very serrated leaves in the background of the photo belong to it and it’s created a nice little mound with these lovely flowers only just appearing on top recently.

Alpine flowers?

Alpine flowers?

These have a similar habitat at the back of the garden and I think they might be some type of alpine flower. There are great mounds of them spilling out over the brick-edges flower beds. Lovely.

Finally, a little trip to the front garden again. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to cut this down and take it inside, but this little stunner is a Sicilian honey garlic (or Nectaroscordum siculum if you want to get all Latin…) I planted the bulbs last Autumn, when I removed the giant cactus.

Honey garlic

Stunning, no?

I’ve got six tall spikes sticking up with these absolutely incredible flowers drooping down from the top. I adore them.

Honey garlic flowers

The first one to open

Finally, I haven’t been posting quite as frequently recently as my mock exams for my horticulture course are on Wednesday. So, instead of writing blog posts, I’ve been desperately learning four Latin names of plants that can be propagated by soft tip cuttings, trying to remember what happens in the mitochondria of a plant cell and reading about the constituent parts of soil. Normal service to be resumed shortly…

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Artist’s houses

28 May

This time last year, we were busy house hunting in a (then) completely unknown area of London.

I was about eight months pregnant, the weather was glorious for weeks on end, I’d huff and puff round houses, stopping outside every one to have a little sit down and a sip of water. We did stupid things like decide to look round 13 houses in one day. And then wonder why we couldn’t remember which was which.

At the time, it was pretty exhausting. Looking back, it was really quite exciting: discovering a new part of town, buying our first house together, knowing the baby was coming soon but not knowing anything more about him.

But for a good few weeks, one thing was confusing the hell out of me. Why were there so many houses for sale? It seemed as if every single street we walked down had at least ten houses with a for sale sign outside.

Eventually, we paid a little more attention to the signs and realised that, actually, this is what they were saying:

Artist's open house sign

Not for sale, at all, but an artist’s house…

The area we were busy hunting in was, in fact, stuffed full of artists, all opening their houses for the annual Dulwich Festival.

This year, now ensconced in our new pad, I thought it would be fun to go along and check out some of the open houses. I’d been planning it for weeks, marking all the places I wanted to go and see on my map. The festival took place on the middle two weekends of May and I had a tight schedule sorted out, with the optimum route plannedbetween houses. (Yup. I’m a fun person to live with…)

Only thing was, when we set off, the baby immediately fell asleep in his pram, so we didn’t want to risk waking him by pushing him inside the houses. My partner said he’d just wander round outside and I could go in, but every time we got to the door of an artist’s residence, I felt a little bit awkward about wandering round their house on my own, sans money and without any intention of actually buying any art.

So, in the end, I only went in to about two of the planned route. One was the garden studio of Moth London, a duo who were making some gorgeous knitted cushions and lavender bags. This hugely appealing sign led the way through the side gate down to their studio:

Follow pink yarn sign

You couldn’t resist these instructions, could you?

Unfortunately, I was so over-excited at the sight of their knitting machine that I completely forgot to take any photos once I got inside. But you can see the lovely semi-felted knitted goods on their website: www.mothlondon.co.uk.

Luckily, for my suddenly self-conscious sensibilities, there was also lots of street art as part of the festival.

This giant mural was part of the amusingly titled Baroque the Streets installations:

Baroque the streets mural

I’ll ave ya. No, I’ll ave ya…

And further down Lordship Lane, an entire house had been “loaned” with different artworks painted in each rooms. This rather lurid painting on the wall outside slightly reminded me of some more psychedelic clubs I visited in Bristol back in my student days…

Wall art

No, you’re not drunk, he does have a third eye…

A bit more to my taste, was this amusing montage, hidden away round the corner:

Road sign turned art

Road sign turned art

The little cherubs at the bottom were completely oblivious to the fact they were having paint poured all over them:

Cherubs road signSo, once again, I’ll say “maybe next year” for actually getting inside some more of the houses. Because toddlers love quietly and calmly walking round houses to look at art, don’t they?

Related articles:

A petri dish of dead bugs

23 May

I’m a bit of a fan of insects. In art form, anyway, perhaps a little less in real life. There’s something really aesthetically appealing to me about the complicated little bodies of bugs, with their iridescent colours and gauze-like wings…

I’ve made a paperweight illustrated with “the life cycle of the asparagus beetle.” I put some squash bugs onto one of the fabrics I designed with Spoonflower. And having a little browse through my Pinterest board Free graphics, I can see that I’ve pinned more than my fair share of various little creepy crawlies, with some wonderful pictures providing inspiration for future makes:

insect image

This amazing vintage poster is free to use from the Graphics Fairy

So perhaps it was inevitable to discover one of my projects Pinned the other day with a description “this looks like a petri dish of dead bugs suspended in something gelatinous…”

Except, it wasn’t about one of my insect projects, it was a description of my homemade lavender soap. Ouch.

Lavender soap

A sprinkling of lavender or a petri dish of dead bugs? You decide…

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not such a delicate flower that I’m sobbing into my pillow at night or anything. As critical reviews go, this is pretty humorous and – looking at the photo again – I can sort of see what the Pinner was talking about.

And of course, I knew that if I started up a blog and put stuff that I’ve made out on the internet for all to see (I’d even uploaded this project to Craftgawker), then it’s inevitable that some people would think I had made a load of old crap. Each to their own and all that.

But, as the first time that it’s ever happened (to my knowledge anyway) I did have a sharp little intake of breath when first reading the comment.

So, fellow bloggers, social mediaers, anyone who has ever shared something online, tell me I’m not alone! Have you ever seen any rude comments about things you’ve made, either out there on Pinterest or somewhere else? Let me know in the comments…

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Bounty from the weekend

20 May

Not much chat this morning (I’ve got a Monday morning head on, I’m afraid) but just a few pics of things I harvested / grew / stole over the weekend, along with plans for their transformation…

First up, this verdant little bunch of wild garlic leaves.

wild garlic leaves

I’ve felt a little jealous of the country lifestyle of my friend Laura (of Circle of Pine Trees) ever since I saw her amazing pesto recipe, made from hand picked wild garlic foraged from their local woods. So imagine my surprise to realise that there was a bounty of wild(ish) garlic growing along the side of a path just down the road from me. Admittedly, I do suspect it’s been carefully planted there by the council, but I nipped a leaf or two from each plant in the hope nobody would mind.

This healthy bunch of rhubarb, on the other hand, is from my own garden.

Homegrown rhubarb

We were lucky enough to inherit all sorts of amazing well-established fruit and veg when we moved in to our new house and the six rhubarb plants seem never-endingly abundant.

I will definitely be making a rhubarb and orange cake following the recipe from Waitrose. I’ve made this a couple of times before and it’s an absolute beauty.

I think I shall also try some chutney. This rhubarb and apple chutney, from BBC good food looks rather delicious.

Finally, a bit of booze. I’m getting married later this year and we were originally planning on making sloe gin for everyone as wedding favours. Except, when it was sloe season we had just moved house and had a really small baby, so we never managed to pick any. But, with the abundance of rhubarb in the garden, I think it could be worth having a crack at some rhubarb gin instead. I’ll trial a small bottle first before going for industrial quantities. Billy’s Booze Blog has two different rhubarb gin recipes.

I’m hoping this little pumpkin seedling will one day become just as prolific as the rhubarb:

pumpkin seedling

I planted eight seeds a few weeks ago and all have germinated. I shall have to give some away because I certainly don’t have space for that many pumpkins. I harvested the seeds myself and can no longer remember whether they are standard pumpkins or butternut squash. But, if the latter, I will certainly be making a butternut squash risotto or ten, come Autumn time. I usually just wing it when I make one, but I might be tempted to try this really unusual recipe by Nigel Slater, which uses leftover butternut squash soup along with stock.

How was your weekend? Was it sunny where you were too?

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Pin it forward UK: I’d like to introduce…

17 May

I’m pretty sure I’m preaching to the converted with this article, so let me just summarise everything that’s going to follow in four words:

I flipping love Pinterest.

Somehow, Pinterest must have found out how much I love them and decided to let me know that they love me back, because they asked me to take part in the UK Pin It Forward campaign, to help spread the news of their recent launch here in the UK.

Would I like to be involved? Erm, yes please.

Of course, I don’t need to explain what Pinterest is, because I’m sure you all know about it already. And yes, us Britishers over here have been using it for years already without a UK-specific version, but now we’ve got the option of seeing proper English spellings and everything…

The Pin It Forward campaign is a group of 300 bloggers who are linking up and talking about why they use Pinterest and speaking a little bit about one of their boards. The baton was passed to me today by two lovely blogs, Sew Scrumptious and the Start Up Wife.

And without further ado, readers, meet my board, I Could Make That. Pinterest board, meet my lovely readers…

I could make that

I should warn you, before you shake hands, that my I Could Make That board (ICMT from now on, to save any repetitive strain injury on my typing fingers) is a bit of an unruly beast.

He wants to be all things to all people. All crafty people at least.

He’s the very first board I started when I joined Pinterest, 18 months or so ago when I was living in Hong Kong. I was supposed to be writing a novel (you can find out how that went by reading point 4 of my Five things about me) so was spending quite a lot of time sitting in front of my computer.

But, unlike during my Uni years – the last time I spent quite a lot of time sitting at my computer with only my willpower, rather than any financial incentive, to get something done – this computer was connected to the internet. So, my minesweeper addiction didn’t return. But I got a new addiction. Pinterest.

I was soon hooked on all the inspiration I found for all sorts of crafty things I could be doing. I created my first board, my ICMT board, to store some of the ideas.

At the beginning, like all the other Pinterest fools, I thought that I would just pin something and then make it. Maybe pin one or two things during the week, then make them at the weekend. Ha! Little did I know that my pinning would get woefully out of hand and I’d pin 10, 20, maybe 100 ideas for every single one I would actually get round to making.

My ICMT board became stuffed full with all sorts of craft ideas and I looked on with envy at others’ carefully curated boards dedicated to a specific pursuit (sewing, knitting, paper crafts, stuff you can make with toilet rolls – okay, I just made that last one up, but I have seriously considered creating that board myself on a number of occasions)…

Quilted burp cloth

The quilted burp cloth I showed you yesterday was one of my first Pinterest-discovered makes

But, wild and unruly as ICMT is, and hard as I find it to easily locate specific pins in amongst the other 428  I have stored, I’m really fond of this board.

The pins I have on here introduced me not only to amazing things I could make, but also to amazing new craft blogs. My Pinterest addiction soon expanded and became something of a craft blog addiction. And if I hadn’t spent so much time reading other peoples’ crafts blog, I probably wouldn’t have started this one of my own.

Really, I’ve got Pinterest to thank for the fact I’m here at all…

So, yes, I flipping love Pinterest. If you’re not on it already, you can use this custom link to register. As a bonus, you’ll automatically follow my ICMT board…

And just in case there’s anyone out there who doesn’t yet know what Pinterest is, I’ll just say that if you’ve ever bookmarked a page online, or torn a picture out of a magazine for inspiration, you’ll want to go and sign up.

That’s my Pinterest story. Tomorrow, Nesha from Flower Child blog will be talking about her Pinterest love, so head over there to have a read of her thoughts. Nesha’s a web designer and her blog is just as beautiful as that would lead you to expect. And if you’re keen on beautiful design, check out her Pinterest board Design: Branding, which is stuffed full of loveliness.

So tell me, are you on Pinterest? What do you most love about it?

Related articles:

All my related articles today are from the three other blogs that are linked with me in the campaign:

  • I’m a bit in awe of the beauty of Flower Child Nesha’s blog, photography and sartorial choices! Take a look at this adorable little envelope liner she made to see what I mean. (I’ve just Pinned it, of course…)
  • Sew Scrumptious is a really inspiring sewing blog. I’d seen Louise’s amazing pillowcase dress project before, which collects beautiful handmade dresses to send to girls around the world…
  • …But I’d somehow missed the Pin addicts Pinterest challenge: make something you see on Pinterest and link up the project. I will definitely be joining in next month.
  • The Start Up Wife is another blog that makes me feel a little jealous of its beauty. Emily is a photographer so it’s not a surprise all her photos are so stunning. (How she finds time to photograph, blog and work on other projects with four children is a slight mystery to me, though. I have a hard enough time with one baby…) Take a look at her Little things blog post to see what I mean.

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Quilt happy

16 May

I write this fresh from waging war on the slugs and snails in my garden. I’d love to say that I was the victor but, despite having deposited a full ice cream tub of the slippery critters into the skip at the end of my road, I fear their guerilla warfare tactics will give them the upper hand again by the end of the day…

(I know, I know, the skip owner doesn’t want slugs and snails in there, but I can never bring myself to actually kill them…)

In completely unrelated news, (note to self, really should try harder to link blog posts together into a cohesive article) I wanted to show you a few pictures of some quilting I got up to at the weekend.

Quilted baby burp cloth | Wolves in London

I love this cute retro fabric

After the success of my quilted teapot, I wanted to have a go at some slightly more freestyle quilting.

Before my sproglet was born, I made a burp cloth, following this really simple tutorial at Made by Rae. It’s a pretty handy item; backed with terry towelling it’s very absorbent, but it’s always bugged me a little that the two layers don’t stay together very well.

Quilted burp cloth | Wolves in London

Absorbent back, appealing front. Useful and attractive!

So, I thought I might have a crack at quilting them, vaguely following the outlines of the little rocket people all over the top fabric.

I’ve got to say, I was pretty pleased with the results.

Space boy quilting

In some places, I followed the outlines closely.

Quilted retro burp cloth

In others, I just nipped along wherever I fancied.

Quilted burp cloth

quilted rocket boy

I definitely think I’ll be doing more of this.

Now, sewing chat out of the way, if anyone wants to come on a snail hunt at 7am tomorrow morning, I know the perfect spot…

Related articles:

  • Looking for other baby sewing projects? Look no further! Here are my baby bibs and carrot baby set.
  • Or if sewing’s not your thing, but you’re a dab hand with an iron, you could make your own Russian doll babygrow (or any other sort of babygrow you fancy, for that matter…)

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Back to business: card holders

13 May

Something feels wrong this Monday. Oh, wait, I know what it is… …it’s not a Bank holiday. Sob, sob.

Somehow the three-day weekend last week felt like a miniature holiday, whereas the weekend we’ve just had was more like a rushed work lunch break. Two whole days passed so quickly that I don’t really know what happened to them.

Still, enough moaning, I’m going to show you what I managed to produce with the few productive couple of hours I spent sewing on Friday night.

For today, these cute business card holders.

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Haven’t you always wanted an octopus business card holder?

You remember I got my first ever Wolves in London business cards a few weeks ago? Okay, I’ve still only managed to hand out one. The rest are sitting in a rather beautiful pile on my mantelpiece, where I admire them at least 20 times a day.

They’re so gorgeous, I couldn’t bear to put any in my wallet in case they got dirty or – worse – crumpled! So, I really needed some means of transporting them around, otherwise I would never give any out to anyone ever.

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Quite neat stitching down the side (for me anyway…)

I found a great tutorial for sewing a business card holder from the Crafty Cupboard, which I basically followed to the letter. I didn’t sew on the button and elastic because I forgot thought it wasn’t necessary…

The blue one is made from some beautiful Japanese fabric that I bought when I was living in Hong Kong. I wish I knew where to get some more because it’s running out now.

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Cunningly cropped photo so you can’t see the stitching mess in the bottom right corner. Oh, I mean, so you can better admire the flower on the front

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Orange flower carefully lined up on the inside.

Business card holder | Wolves in London

The sweet butterfly fabric is also from Japan, bought in the same HK shop.

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Just one last look at the fabric

The octopus one is from my own octopus fabric, lined with lobster fabric I made from a Graphics Fairy image…

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Just as subtle and restrained! Erm, not.

Business card holder | Wolves in London

Lobster lobster lobster lobster… Just what you want on the inside, no?

Business card holder

I’ve got to say, there are far too many animals in this picture. I think I might need to make myself another version with a slightly tamer inside…

Incidentally, I didn’t originally set out to make two – I spent a while making the first dark blue one, carefully lining up all the flowers to the right places and so on, only to discover that it was too small for my business cards once I’d finished it. Ah well…

Related articles:

  • If you like the vintage animal fabrics I’ve used here, you might also like my teapot fabric

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