After such a fantastic day at Heligan to celebrate our wedding anniversary I really wanted to have a physical souvenir from our day to sit along side all my wonderful memories. Between us we too plenty of photographs on the day, but an amble around the gift shop found a little something extra.Like many visitor attractions that attract female visitors of a certain age demographic, Heligan has a small selection of cross-stitch kits available. These ones all seemed to be produced by Sybilla Davis Designs, a local company specialising in Cornish designs. I wasn't so keen on some of ... read more
Tintagel
As I walked home from the train station tonight I found it hard to believe that just a week ago Mr C and I were down in Cornwall with amazingly warm weather - we were even able to wander round in a t-shirt and jeans at one point! Tonight that it felt bitterly cold - as if spring has gone totally.On our first full day in Cornwall we decided to explore the nearby village of Tintagel and the surrounding cliffs. We started off at the Old Post Office that is now owned by the National Trust (another good excuse to get our membership cards out). It is a delightful old ... read more
Spotty pink tote bag
I feel like I've really achieved something this evening since coming home from work. Back at the Knitting and Stitching show in November I bought this fantastic pink spotty fabric and straight away wanted to use it to make a tote bag to carry my things to and from work every day. I don't need to carry a huge amount of stuff, just a book, my knitting, a bottle of water, umbrella and possibly my hat and scarf. I did want something a bit more attractive than the conference freebie that I've been carrying around for a while. Tonight I finally made this happen.I didn't use any ... read more
Xmas X-stitch
I didn't really manage to be very organised this last Christmas and as a result it was Sunday evening (i.e. 18 January!) when I finished what was supposed to be a Christmas decoration. I say "finished" in the loosest possible way - the stitching is finished, but it is yet to be mounted. I just hope I get round to doing so before Christmas 2009!The design came from Jo Verso's Cross Stitch Year which is a fantastic book full of cute little charts all arranged by times of year. If you ever want to design any cross stitch yourself then I would highly recommend either ... read more
Pretty storage
Looking round the shops before Christmas there seemed to be quite a few nice storage containers out there - all of which I could instantly think of a use for. This is the one that I was lucky enough to receive as a gift though, from my wonderful sister H.From the fantastic Cath Kidston, this contained a wide selection of cotton sewing threads, but the sizing is perfect for skeins of embroidery thread. I have many in my collection and I'm already picturing a lovely evening sorting them and storing them away neatly. At the moment though it's just sat on my desk so that I can look ... read more
Festive sewing goodies
My mum's quite a star!I was explaining to her on the phone the other evening some of my (ambitious) plans for making Christmas decorations. In particular trying to reproduce one that I'd seen in John Lewis, but couldn't face spending £5 on. I was describing to her the types of fabrics that I was going to go looking for at the weekend, only for her to say "oh, I think I have something like that in my stash". A couple of days later an e-mail arrived in my inbox telling me that she'd found some bits and pieces and was posting a little package down to me. I was ... read more
Sewing secrets
I had such a fun evening on Monday, but I'm afraid I can't tell you about it! I'm currently taking place in Sew Liberated's holiday tradition exchange and I sent Monday evening starting to create a Christmas decoration for my exchange partner.I have to admit that this was the first time that I've designed something from scratch and I had so much fun trying out materials, colours and stitches. I even found myself sketching things out and making notes about what worked, what didn't, what I liked and what I didn't. I went exploring in my craft box and ... read more
British Cream Tea
I discovered this wonderful Etsy shop earlier today: British Cream Tea. It's a fantastic place full of beautifully created delights made from recycled felt. Go and take a look and it certainly takes you back to a world full of British Cream Teas! ... read more
Simple Knot Newborn Cap
On Saturday evening I got my sewing machine out - something that doesn't happen as often as I want, mainly due to us only having one table in our flat that is often in use for other projects, or just for us to eat off! The thing driving me to make the extra effort this time was wanting to take part in Mama to Mama's first project to sew these caps for newborn babies in Haiti. They're incredibly simple to make and two caps can easily be made from one adult sized cotton t-shirt. In fact, the hardest bit of the whole project was turning the top of the cap inside out!If you ... read more
SouleMama’s Mama to Mama
I've been a reader of SouleMama's blog for several years now and love the way in which she mixes her love of crafts with her growing family. I've read her book The Creative Family from cover to cover and can't wait until I have my own family so that I can try out some of the things that she does with her family.I do want to tell you though about her latest initiative: Mama to Mama. I've always wanted to use my sewing and knitting "skills" (if you can call them that!) to help others and this is exactly the sort of thing that Amanda is ... read more