It's A Tartan Day

I have a wonderful Aunt who very kindly sent me a batch of Harris Tweed tartan from her home in Scotland, alongside some other lovely woollen fabrics, a fantastic gift to receive for a fabric addict like myself.



Today I decided to try how they would look if I crafted them into a brooch, and chose one of the warm brown tartans, which was the perfect background for a lovely little orange vintage button, one of my favourites.



I've padded the brooch too to give it some depth, and edged it with a contrasting orange. It will be in my Etsy shop as from today, hot off the sewing machine.



Lots more tartan, lots more ideas........

Buttons And Gadgets

One of my favourite things when crafting and creating is spending an excessive amount of time sifting through one of my many vintage button boxes to find the exact button that will marry perfectly with whatever fabric I happen to be using at the time. And when I was making a few gadget/mobile phone/iPod cases I found myself whiling many a minute away selecting the perfectly perfect button.

Here are the combinations I came up with:


Love this big brown button!



A starry affair livened up with a splash of pink wool


Butterscotch button and tweed.

Must start to put these in my folksy and etsy shops too - that's after I've spent another inordinate amount of time thinking up names for them!

Creating Corsages

I love crocheting flower brooches and corsages, and up until recently I'd been making them mainly in one colour, sometimes felting them, sometimes adding a contrasting colour button. Recently I've been inspired by the ever growing collection of coloured balls of wool that lie at my feet each evening to create some multi-coloured ones.

This one is quite chic I think - classic white and slate grey - both fine wools which create a delicate looking flower.



When the light is a bit brighter here I shall take some photos of the more vivid colour combinations I'm coming up with (imagine purples and vivid greens and bight reds and that'll give you some idea!)

Buckle Up

I have been shopping again. Not your usual jaunt down to the supermarket to stock up on teabags and muesli, but a foray into the world of vintage buckles.



Over the past week little parcels full of buckles have been arriving, and I'm really pleased with some of the colours, shapes, patterns and general cute buckleness of them.



This latest obsession of mine started off with a fondness for buttons, which somehow has expanded into buckles...where next I wonder?



I've used some of the buckles for some wool belts which I've put in my Etsy shop, I'm also working on a way of adding them to my clutch bags - I'll post pics here when I come up with a good design.
Meanwhile I have vintage shops to scour....

Herringbone Happiness

My lovely Aunt recently sent me some fabrics, left over from her previous cape making business. Amongst them were some adorable pieces of herringbone, in shades of grey, as well as some fantastic tartans. Some of the off-cuts are too small to make a bag out of, so I wondered how they would look made into an iPod/phone sleeve, and this is the result:



I added a pink crocheted band of wool and a vintage button to close it - I'm really fond of this grey/pink colour combo, I think it manages to be chic and cheerful at the same time.
This one I've popped in my folksy shop - I'll be working on the tartan ones next!

Hold The Front Page

Yeah one of my favourite brooches made it to the front page of etsy - and I missed it! Luckily there is a flickr group which saves screenshots of the etsy front pages so if you miss your moment of glory you can catch it later.



This was a treasury picked by dandyapple, I love the selection and the colour theme. The brooch has now been sold, time for me to get crafting I think and make more!