Horrible Weather.

Well, the weather is horrible! It's raining again and it looks as if it's set in for the day so I guess it's time to get crafting. Do I sound a bit reluctant? Well, that's probably because I am. I have to make catnip fish today ..... 20 of the little buggers and I really, really, reeeeeeally hate making them. I don't know why exactly. They're innocuous enough, just little fishy shaped bodies stuffed with wadding and good tablespoonful of organic catnip but still, I really dislike making them. If I had my way, I wouldn't sell them on my market stall at all but unfortunately, people know that I have made them in the past and they keep coming back and asking for them. I know I should be happy that they like the product so much and that they're selling well but I resent each and every little catnip fish that I make :-) ..... and don't get me started on lavender chicks, the other bane of my life :-) I guess it all boils down to the fact that I could be making more interesting, exciting things like these cute little holly brooches. I finally managed to get the darning foot attached to my sewing machine and this was my first attempt at freehand machine embroidery. It's going to take a bit of practice before I'm any good at it but I did enjoy making them.

And I have even more exciting news. I have ordered some printable fabric!!!!! I am probably way behind the times and everyone else is probably already familiar with it but I only found out about it last week when a friend at the market told me about it. I have so many ideas buzzing round in my head for when it arrives that I can hardly concentrate. I can't wait to get printing and sewing. I would be very interested in hearing if any of you out there in blogland have used printable fabric and if it's easy to use and what the results were like. So exciting :-)

Getting Creative Making Cards

A couple of post ago I mentioned that I had my first ever table at my local produce market and this week I have been making some more things to sell. I noticed that the people who did extremely well at the market were the ones that had fruit and veg and eggs to sell. I'm guessing that this is because these items are needed on a daily basis so that come the weekend, people come back to the market to stock up. With this principle in mind, I decided that I would make some greetings cards. Cards are something people always need and many many years ago, I had a stall at Tavistock market selling my hand made 3D decoupage cards and I actually did quite well. 

This time, I wanted to do something a little different. I have long admired people who can do freehand machine embroidery and recently, using one of my book tokens that I got for Christmas, I bought myself a fabulous book by the very talented Poppy Treffry. Previous attempts at freehand machine embroidery were, shall we say, less than successful. Being used to the rigid feed of  normal machine sewing and the need to sew in a straight line when making cushions and things, I found it very hard to simply throw all that out of the window and move the embroidery hoop around willy nilly like a mad thing. The finished result of my first attempt looked like a drunken spider had skated all over it after having it's feet dipped in ink. Not a pretty sight and a world away from the fabulous designs Poppy seems to achieve so effortlessly. 

I am, though, nothing if not determined. Some might even say stubborn! I knew what I wanted the cards to look like but I also knew that I wasn't ready to take off the feed dogs on my sewing machine just yet ..... it's a bit like taking the stabilisers off your bike when you're a child...... very scary! So I compromised. I stitched the fabric to the cards using a basic bog standard machine sewing technique and ...... Ta da ..... cards :-)

I have to say I do like them quite a lot. 

Not bad for a first attempt.