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The stitching, sewing and hobbycrafts show!

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:September 29, 2016
Post category:Dressmaking Inspiration
Post comments:1 Comment

Last Saturday, I went to the stitching, sewing and hobbycrafts show at Westpoint, Exeter, UK!

My friend and I went as part of a day coach trip to avoid the prospect of driving. Unfortunately, the pick up point was not in our town, so we had to get a lift to Truro.

When we arrived, there was a queue which wandered around the building! Once in, we decided to dive into the middle aisle which seemed quieter as others opted to choose to tackle the show from one end to the other.

The first fabric shop we saw was Fabrcis Galore, which contained an array of wonderful fabrics. After deliberation, i went back later to buy some printed corduroy, which will be perfect for a project I have in mind to make after all the Christmas gifts are made (so probably January)!

Also I picked up a lovely polar bear print from another fabric shop, which will be used in a gift I need to make very soon (currently being prewashed so no photo)!

My very first purchase was this fleece. As the nights draw in, I think I will turn to practising spinning with my drop spindle once more, and I like to pick up small amounts of fleece for this purpose. I’m not a fast spinner, so this bag is a suitable size.

We managed to sign up to a wonderful glass workshop with The Glass Garden Studio where we learned the basics in stained glass construction. I took home this angel that I made.

Tactile Treasures was another stall I was particularly interested in. Now I have a niece, I am interested in making toys which will be perfect for her learning and development. this stall sold all sorts of attachments which are teething friendly and different stitchable surfaces, such as this mirror, which can be cut, stuck and appliqued onto items. I bought some rattle inserts too which will be great to use, and received excellent tips from the owners of the business on ensuring that the toys you make a safe and meet safety standards.

I came across an air erasable pen, which is something I have been looking out for having read about them. I’ve been having a bit of trouble with water erasable pens, which have at times caused the thread to run onto the background fabric. I’m not sure they this has happened as the thread should be colour fast, but I am intrigued to find out whether the use of an air erasable pen would be safer. I plan to review this in the coming month.

The block printing stall from The Arty Crafty place was lovely as well. When we finally managed to get up to the front and admire the blocks, we were very tempted with their £30 starter pack. However, I decided to select a couple of small blocks. They were packaged in a beautiful drawstring bag. We also found some simple leaf shapes for £1 on another stall, which we plan to try out for block printing too at some point.

There were lovely displays of artwork too, including an impressive stitched cardigan!

As it was a day coach trip, it meant we were there for the whole hog and were shattered by the time we crawled back onto the coach at 5pm! But it was an interesting experience. I found it a bit overwhelming as someone who tends to avoid large crowds, but the inspiration was immense and I feel as though I’ve been drawn to another handful of hobbies in a very short time!!

Crocheted Bunny

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:September 22, 2016
Post category:Crochet
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I haven’t done a lot of crocheting beyond the string bags I make for the Etsy shop. However, this bunny pattern has been a project I’ve been looking forward to making for a long time.

Published in Simply Crochet magazine, this bunny originates from a lovely looking book called Edward’s Menagerie by Kerry Lord.

I made this bunny with Sirdar Country Style yarn, which meant it had a bit of wool content but would still be easy to wash (which I felt the parents of the owner of this bunny would appreciate)! The bunny is advised to be made in alpaca wool, but I opted for a wool blend to comprimise on price/budget and yarn content. I am slightly gutted to have since discovered an alpaca wool blend wool in a shop near my mum’s which would have worked well for this knit and was a reasonable price!

This pattern was fun to make. I would have appreciated more pictures or directions on sewing it up, but the actual pattern in the book may have more guidance on this than the magazine version. Also, I guess it means that your finished toy will be unique according to how you decide to finish it off.

Dungarees!

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:September 15, 2016
Post category:Craft Skills Dressmaking Sewing
Post comments:1 Comment

When I took part in the #miymarch16 instagram challenge, I put down this dungarees pattern as my sewing ambition (new Burda 3779). I bought the pattern from a charity shop for £2 just over a year ago because I loved the idea of making some, and bought some denim shortly after. However, the amount of pieces in the pattern felt overwhelming, and I couldn’t get started.

A couple of months ago, I asked my mum if I could bring along the pattern and fabric when I visited her to see if she could encourage me to get started. Over the weekend, I managed to trace the pattern, pin it onto the fabric, and then cut it out.

One of my main worries was altering the pattern to my size. However, we decided that as it was designed to be very loose fitting, I could cut it a size smaller than usual, which would ensure that the bottom half would not be too baggy!

I didn’t manage to pick it up again for about a month after this visit! Feeling that I still needed a boost, I went back to my mum’s for a crafty retreat to get the pattern finished.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. When I attached the bib section to the shorts, it didn’t provide a completely sealed finish, but I think I might have misread it. I would plan to take steps to create a better finish next time. Also, the inner sides of the bib are tacked in place and then secured by edge stitching and top stitching. However, I decided to slip stitch it in place by hand to secure it before the two rows of machine stitching.

The braces were simple to attach. The buttons have to be hammered on, but in my view, this is much easier than stitching button holes and working out where to place the buttons on the straps! There’s the added benefit that you can adjust it to size.

The pleats on the front were also a worry, but turned out to be really simple to complete. They were more like tucks. The denim material is so sturdy that it was easy to tack in place and press well at every step.

I think these may become my ‘uniform’ for craft days! I think I will have to make a trouser version for the winter though (I’m already imagining some navy polka dot material which could be used for the second pair…)Harry did become jealous of the sewing project during its production, and kept sitting or laying on the instructions. When I moved the instructions out of the way so he couldn’t make any further holes in it with his claws, he decided to settle on the garment instead!

Wabi Sabi – embracing the beauty of natural imperfections

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:September 1, 2016
Post category:Inspiration
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Wabi Sabi – the Japanese art of embracing the beauty of natural imperfections – is something I’ve stumbled across this month.

Wabi Sabi in craft terms appears to be finding the beauty in the handmade elements. I wish I’d discovered this art while I was learning ceramics earlier in the year as I could have defended my wobbly pots when compared to the much more symmetrical looking results from other students in the class! It’s nice to know there is a philosophy which prizes the uneven glazing, wall thickness and overall performance of the complex ceramic process.

I’ve also explored glass fusing this year, and in this class we embraced the imperfections of our pieces as we understood how these elements distinguished them from a production line. For example, bubbles within a piece can be seen as inaccuracy, but they make a piece individual.

I will reflect on this philosophy as I complete my next set of projects. For example, I have almost completed all of the pieces to create a crocheted bunny toy. Instead of avoiding the construction process, which I don’t enjoy very much in knitting/crochet, I will remind myself that it doesn’t need to be sewn in exactly the right place as you might expect from purchasing one from a shop. It just needs to be completed so that it can become a cherished, handmade toy.

Reflecting on the Whole Living article on wabi sabi in the home, I realise that I incorporate this into my home already. The furniture we have is predominantly hand-downs from family members who no longer want them or need them. The table I use for sewing is my grandparent’s old kitchen table. We have a table in the lounge which we bought from a café in Southampton when it was closing down and they were selling them for £10. They had covered it in pages from a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets and there’s a slight tear on the lower self where a customer must have brushed their shoe on it. In the kitchen hardly any of our cookery items and chinaware matches. They’re not handmade but they’ve turned into something individual and imperfect through time.

Wabi sabi seems to me to encourage you to stop and appreciate what you have rather than seek something newer or more pristine. However, it doesn’t

If you would like to look at techniques in which you can embrace Wabi Sabi to let go of some of your perfectionist tendencies, the Whole Living website has a useful article on how you can abandon perfect to enhance everyday life.

#pic2stitch #1 The Man Engine

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:August 25, 2016
Post category:Craft Skills Free Machine Embroidery Inspiration
Post comments:2 Comments

For my first #pic2stitch challenge, I decided to focus on The man Engine.

For anyone who missed it, The Man Engine is a mechanical puppet of a miner which is 4.5 metres tall when crawling and 10 metres tall when standing.

We were lucky to be able to travel to St Austell during one of the puppet’s transformations. There was a big crowd, so we couldn’t see at first, but the organisers were really good in encouraging the crowd to keep moving to let people further back view it too. Phill managed to take some pictures and it was from one of these pictures that I decided to create my first picture to stitch transformation.

I wanted to create more of an outline of the Man Engine, so i used Photoshop Elements to edit the picture. I erased a lot of the background data to make it easier to work out which parts were Man Engine and which weren’t!

I quite liked the image on the left, where I’ve used the water paper effect after deleting most of the background. However, I stuck with my original plan, and used the photocopy effect to create a black and white version of the photo.

As this was a big project with much detail, I decided to use a water soluble pen to mark out the details on the edited photograph. With the pen and a window, I traced the design onto calico.

The photo selection, editing and then transfer to calico took around 3 hours. In the afternoon, I began to stitch the design, which took around 4 hours, including short breaks to relax my eyes and wrists! I took a couple of hours to decide how to frame it, looking at different frames online and trialing the design in ones I had at home already. In the end I went for the box frame below, which is a 3D frame, but is the perfect size for it.

Here is the end result. I was considering using some embroidery strands to highlight the puppet’s ropes, but in the end I decided to leave it how it was. I did add its name, the year and my initials – I can’t seem to resist a bit of freehand writing with stitch!

I really enjoyed this make. It was nice to spend the day on it and finish with a completed piece.

If you would like to view how I made this finished piece, I did record the machine embroidery section and have uploaded it onto youtube here. I will warn you that it’s quite a long video despite speeding it up to ten times the actual time it took me!

For more information about the Man Engine, there is a useful article on the BBC website. There was a website set up for the Men Engine’s tour but it now advises to check Facebook and Twitter for an update on what’s next for it. There’s also the Cornish Mining Heritage website, who funded the project.

Recording a card design – the stag card

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:August 11, 2016
Post category:Free Machine Embroidery Inspiration
Post comments:0 Comments

This week I’ve been quite industrious (well, more than I have been anyway!) and have managed to complete quite a few things for Clobber Creations ranging from fruit protectors to bath hats! However, I want to reflect on the process of recording my free machine embroidery.

I find recordings of free machine embroidery quite mesmerising, and I’d voiced an interest in having a go at some point. My dad pointed out that my camera could record video as well as take pictures, so the lack of video camera was not an issue. I just needed to think about what I wanted to record and when to do it.

I thought that this aspiration was something I would play around with in September. However, I began to put a Christmas card design into practice this week and thought, “why not record it?”

Fortunately, I have a tripod, which meant I could set up the camera behind me to one side. I began with a full recording of the design make, from tracing the design to stitch ‘n’ tear, to colouring in. However, I noticed the image was quite far away, so I had a go at recording zoomed in too.

A few things I learnt from this experience:

Manual focus. I thought that I would want my camera to do auto focus, but for the close up version, it kept focusing on my hands instead of the design. manual focus meant that the camera stayed focused on the area surrounding the machine’s needle.
Time Stretch. This is what it’s called in Adobe Premier Elements. I wanted the clips to fit into the length of a song and my free machining speed is not quite on par with this! Using time stretch helped. The close up video was sped up by 250%, which is a nice speed (and meant that people didn’t believe it was sped up), but the main video had to be sped up by 600%, which is a bit jarring…
Public domain music. I figured that most people wouldn’t want to hear the loud thuds coming from my sewing machine, so I searched for music which I could use for free, which I found at Free Music Archive. I was surprised and delighted to find songs which were appropriate.

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It is very early for Christmas but I couldn’t resist publishing the videos and card straight away. You can view the close up and start to finish stag videos on youtube. The card is available on etsy.

Comic Strip Stitched

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:August 4, 2016
Post category:Craft Skills Free Machine Embroidery
Post comments:4 Comments

Recently I decided to revisit my doodles through free motion stitching.

Doodling can happen in all sorts of circumstances. You could be on hold chasing up an order over the phone (or in the case of my first job, being the advisor on the other side of the line), waiting for a meeting to commence, sitting in the audience of a presentation or passing the time on the train. Sometimes the doodling is abstract, and sometimes it turns into a miniature piece of artwork.

Many of the doodles I made when I worked as a customer advisor in a call centre focused on the more abstract sketches of wiggly lines and rough shading, punctuated by the odd cartoon cat. We had green paper to use to make notes while we were on the phone, which we had to throw away as confidential waste at the end of our shift, so I don’t have any of those scribbles anymore, and I doubt there were many of interest from that job either!

However, I have kept some of the sketches I’ve made over the years. I decided to use these to practise my free machine embroidery.

I used a water soluble fabric pen to trace the whole design onto my scrap piece of calico. However, I found that once I got a gauge of the letter sizing, I began to ignore the template. I was concerned about writing with stitch so small, but it worked out well in the end. I probably wouldn’t attempt it when I’m tired though!

Overall, it was an interesting stitch. I find that I prefer joining up letters when I stitch, whereas I found it difficult to allow the writing to be joined up, possibly due to the style and format you normally see comics portrayed in!

I have some more comic strip ideas drafted, including a short series based on being a graduate and job interviews, which I will use to practise my machine embroidery skills with as well!

Stitching Cats

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:July 28, 2016
Post category:Free Machine Embroidery Inspiration
Post comments:4 Comments

I haven’t made a lot recently, as I have been finishing up a couple of craft courses I took this year. However, I have got around to practising free machine embroidery again.

I’m very fond of pets, and regularly doodle my cats, Harry and Fizz. I decided to have a go at designing some more cat images to frame or turn into cards.

I like the use of appliqué to add another dimension to the stitched cat, as shown on the far right. However, I like the simple line drawing on the left, and am reluctant to add any shading or colour to it. The middle images are coloured in with fabric dye sticks and paints.

They are all very different in style! The middle ones are much more cartoon-like. However, the tabby and black and white cat are much more personal, as they look like Harry and Fizz!

Personalised Cards!

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:July 21, 2016
Post category:Craft Skills Free Machine Embroidery Inspiration
Post comments:0 Comments

Last month, I made a couple of individualised cards – one for father’s day and one for someone to give as a leaving card.

The leaving card was personalised by adding the name of the perosn leaving the workplace. I used those fabric felt tip pens to colour it in.

The father’s day card was personalised because it’s always been an ongoing joke that my dad is good at Tetris. We would bring tons of stuff on holiday as kids and he would meticulously work out how to use the space in the car effectively to fit it all in! The design is based off an image I saw online.

Recent inspiration – Jane Hunter’s ‘Haud Oan’

Post author:clobbercreations
Post published:July 14, 2016
Post category:Free Machine Embroidery Inspiration
Post comments:0 Comments

Since learning some free machine embroidery this year and combining it with appliqué, I have found it to be a great outlet of creativity. However, when I heard the news on 24 June regarding the EU referendum, I found it very difficult to produce anything.

Jane Hunter’s new piece ‘Haud Oan’ is a great inspiration as a result. She created it as a form of therapy to deal with the news that day.

I like how all of the yellow “remain” threads are held taut as they hold on in the direction of the centre of the EU. The blue “leave” threads have no tension and fall loosely to the bottom of the frame. It seems to symbolise how parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland have voted to cut their ties from the EU.

It’s a great piece because it’s so simple yet effective in its message. It’s matter of fact about the situation, and communicates the vote clearly away from words. The fact that it doesn’t include any words helps me relate to it because I found it difficult to find any words to discuss the EU referendum on the day for a while. Moreover it simply shows how this vote has created such divides in the UK.

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