Unfinished ribbon embroidery

I wish I could claim this unfinished embroidery as my own work. Alas, my only input so far has been to rescue it from the miscellaneous junk pile in a charity shop.

Upon first sight I knew it had to be mine, and although I have no idea what to do with it just yet, I think it's always best to follow your instincts in such matters and part with some cash, pronto.


Not very much cash as it happens, which is the first of my regrets about this purchase. With hindsight, I should have given the charity shop more than the measly £1 they were asking. It came with all the materials to complete it, plus an embroidery hoop, and I am feeling distinctly Scrooge-like.

My other regret is that I didn't ask if they knew anything of its history. I would love to know who started this project and why it was abandoned part way through. I wonder if the torn front cover picture has a story to tell?

It will have to remain a mystery, and in a way I guess this adds to its appeal. I now have to decide what to do with it. Apart from add it to my mountainous pile of works in progress that is. Eeep!

Wedding Shoe Clips

From perfectly nice, but rather plain satin shoes...

... to something a little more glamorous, and certainly more suited to the lovely mother of the bride.

As the lone crafter in the family, my mother in law commissioned me to turn the plain jane shoes into something more befitting her fabulous wedding outfit. Pressure!!

Made from matching silk I finished these shoe clips with a vintage Japanese pearl cabochon.

When I emailed a picture of my first attempt to my mother in law to see if she liked them and wanted me to continue, this was her reply:

"The shoe design is marvellous. I love, love, love them! If you can make those I would be delighted. Can you try? You are a wonder!"

What a lovely response! She has been in somewhat of a panic about finding the perfect shoes to go with her outfit, so I think she is delighted to finally solve the problem, with only days left to spare.

The usual recipients of my crafting efforts are the girls, who are most likely to run straight into the garden and cover their lovingly created designs in mud, so I'm basking in the warm and fuzzy glow of appreciation right now...I am a wonder...oh yeah...

Bridesmaid rose hair clips

The most anticipated British wedding of the century is almost upon us**. Yes, my sister in law and her fiance are tying the knot in two weeks time - hurrah!

My two little angels (...please, please let them behave like angels...just for one day) are the flower girls.

They have utterly adorable 50s style dresses by Jasper Conran complete with skirts just crying out to be twirled, satin beaded ballet pumps, ivory butterfly party tights and now finally handmade rose hair clips. I don't know why I put it off for so long as they only took a few minutes really.

The only thing left to do now is to make some sort of cover up to prevent those dresses getting covered in an array of samples from the wedding breakfast. Turns out two and four year olds are pretty messy eaters - who knew?


** Other British (and possibly more Royal) weddings may also be available.

Repurposed shirt dress

Today I'd like to share a repurposed/upcycled/recycled/(*insert preferred term of the moment here*) project.

Roughly following the tutorial from Made I used an old shirt with holes in the elbows to make a dress for Eva.


It felt like I was winging it a bit to cut the basic shape of the dress, but I think it turned out pretty well. Ahem. Who am I kidding? I am completely in love with this dress!

I changed the belt style around, added a ruffle at the hem, and set off the dark colours with a hot pink bias binding around the ruffle, to tie in with the hot pink buttons at the centre of the yoyos at the neckline.

This kind of recycling is infinitely more satisfying than collecting stinky old piles of plastic milk bottles!

Tutorial: Pom Pom Wool Scarf

Genetically speaking, I really ought to be a great knitter. My mother and my grandmothers were all knitters, and whilst they did teach me the basics of how to knit, I think I got too caught up with other crafting activities to pursue my knitting destiny. I'm pretty sure that the only knitting projects I have undertaken have been either blanket squares or scarves, and I can't even claim to have finished many of these.

Despite my obvious shortcomings in matters of woolcraft, when the cold autumn nights draw in I still have some unfathomable urge to knit. One trip to the wool shop and a few evenings of new-project-fuelled fervour later...and my mum has another scarf to finish off.

Not this year though.

Observe: two (TWO!!) complete, and rather lovely scarves, knitted entirely by me, every last stitch.

There has been no change in my (lack of) knitting skills, nor my (in)attention span. I owe my knitting success story to the marvel of pompom wool. Hurrah!

It knits up quickly, looks fancy, is lovely and snuggly to wear, and is surprisingly easy to do, once you get the hang of it. What more could you ask for?

The basic instructions are that you hold the pom pom to the back of the work while you wrap the wool around your needle, and you knit two stitches between each pom pom.

To make it really clear I made a video demonstration to show exactly how to knit with pompom wool, including casting on. You see, I'm such an experienced knitter now I even do tutorials haha!!

Hope you find it useful!

Halloween spider hair clips

Today's 5 minute craft. Think they will catch on for non-Halloween wear? No, I hope not either.

Mum's birthday cupcakes

Pink vanilla cupcakes. Yum. Someone has borrowed my big star piping nozzle, and there are bubbles in the buttercream icing for reasons unknown, but they still look pretty cute, and they taste gorgeous, if I do say so myself!

Happy birthday Mum xx