Little wooden chaps!

A couple of months ago I received an email from Cat Powel, who is the Art Felt manager for the Sheffield Children's hospital. She needed volunteers to help paint some little wooden figures that they use in the speech & hearing department. They were in need of a little bit of love after many years of use. I applied for a little gang of them to be sent out to me, and they arrived looking a little bit like this.

The one at the front with the red hat on is the bus driver. The figures are used during hearing tests. When the child can hear a tone, they place a figurine into a vehicle. I was asked to repaint the figures to reflect the diversity of the hospital visitors, but I had creative licence to do what I liked design wise... 

I wanted to keep some characters as people (as they are extremely well loved around Sheffield), but I also wanted to put my own twist on them, which meant animals!

These are the finished figures. 

I was really pleased with how they turned out, and hope they get many more years of love in the future. I'm now awaiting my next batch of items to be delivered for painting (vehicles this time I think). 

If you would like to get involved in the project, please contact Cat who I'm sure would love to hear from you! http://www.tchc.org.uk/artfelt-contact-us

What am I making?

I know we haven't known each other for very long, but one thing you need to know about me is that I LOVE a good project. Whether that be craft, DIY, research, anything! I love learning new skills, perfecting old ones and the sense of satisfaction you get from completing something.

Introducing my current project, a navy blue linen summer frock. I bought the pattern second hand from a local vintage shop, the fabric was purchased from Abakhans on the Wirral. I will be making the full skirted version on the left (green), but with the short sleeves & wide neck.

When sewing any dress of this sort, the construction is essentially the same. You start with a bodice. Usually a solid piece, and the back is in two sections to allow for the zip. Shaping is given to the bodice with a small number of darts. These are very simple to do. Essentially they are a pinch in the fabric with is sewn in order to fit the bust & waist better.

This bodice is a little bit different to others. The sleeves are inserted as a raglan sleeve, essentially making the top of the sleeve part of the neck line (like a baseball top). I think this is a really nice detail (if it works out ok) and I think if I use the pattern again, I will perhaps cut the sleeves in a nice contrast fabric to emphasise this feature.

Once you have completed the bodice, the skirt is constructed. A full skirt like this one will require gathers or pleats so it nips in at the waist, while remaining nice and full at the hem. I will more than likely pop some pictures up of this process when I get round to another sewing day!

Judging by the mixed weather we're getting at the moment, i'd best get a wiggle on and complete this dress soon or else the lovely sleeves will have to be covered by think woolly cardigans! Have you got any current projects on the go? I'd love to hear about them!

The great knitting machine experiment!

In my last post I shared some car boot sale purchases with you, and among them were a number of cones of wool. Normally I would avoid any wool thinner than 4-ply because it just takes so long to knit up (and even 4-ply is pushing it if it has a lot of pattern in it), but while I was looking at them, I suddenly remembered that I had a vintage knitting machine sat in my wardrobe at home.

I had bought it about 6 years ago for £3 from my favourite charity shop (they used to put absolutely EVERYTHING out, but unfortunately they flooded and never reopened), and after one disastrous attempt at knitting a scarf/tie for James, I never got it out it's box again. The downside of a knitting machine is that it's not terribly portable, and it takes up a lot of space as it's so wide. You have to clamp it to a table top and will struggle to put it away during the making of your project. However, the upside of a knitting machine is that you knit by the row, rather than the stitch. In laymen's terms, it's FAST! So fast in fact that I managed to complete knitting a summer top from 3-ply wool in approximately 4 hours, including the time taken teaching myself to use the machine again.

It really is so simple to do, and you don't need any previous knowledge of hand knitting to be able to do it. The results look like hand knitting, feel like hand knitting, but take you just a fraction of the time to complete. I estimate that I could knit myself a lovely mohair jumper for winter in about 10 hours knitting time. Something which would take me weeks to do by hand.

I'm still only in the beginners stages of using a knitting machine, but the instruction book promises lots of potential for using different colours of yarns combined with some basic stitch techniques for great results.

I bought a retro machine knit pattern book separately from my machine, and reading through it, it seems that knitting machines progressed very quickly in terms of the complexity of designs you can create. You use pattern cards, which I assume you pop into the machine like a cartridge, or perhaps slot onto the needles, to create beautifully intricate fairisles, cables and more. My machine seems to be one of the early very basic models, but I think it will suit me just fine while I'm getting to grips with this great new hobby.

Whilst I love the speed with which I can create a simple garment, I still think there is something beautiful in a hand knitted jumper. Each stitch passed over the needles, perhaps while daydreaming about who you're going to give the jumper to. The finished item sort of oozes love, care and skill. I wonder if I'll be able to get the same effect with my machine? Hand knitting is extremely portable, and you can create very intricate patterns, I love learning new stitches and seeing how a combination of knit and purl can create such varied effects. When you first start following a pattern it's a bit like doing a dot-to-dot picture, where the whole image only starts to reveal itself after you've joined most of the dots together.

I will post about my finished summer top once I've finished sewing it up. It's taking forever!

Have you tried machine knitting before? Are you a complete knitting novice? Would you be tempted to give it a go if you saw a machine for sale? Would you like to see a more in depth post about the process os machine knitting?

Second-hand hunting!

I don't know about you, but I LOVE second hand items. All of the stories they can tell about the places they've been, the owners that kept them, and ultimately being given away or put up for sale. I adore the thrill of riffling through a box of junk to find some treasure.

Unfortunately, I've recently found that charity shops seem to be over-sorting their donations, I'm not sure why they aren't putting out the more junky bric-a-brac that I'm drawn to, or perhaps a dress that needs a minor repair, but I really think that the new place for second-hand hunting is the humble car boot sale.

Here you get all sorts of things being offered up for sale by all manner of people. It's so interesting just to people watch. I think the idea of collections is something that I've always found quite interesting. I think we all know someone who just adores a certain animal/ character/ TV show etc and gets inundated with gifts of this theme for years to come (my Nana Amber collects elephants). Quite often at car boots you will see someone selling their whole collection (or perhaps just a portion of it to make room for more!), and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Maybe it's a sad thing, that someone has suddenly got turned off the thing that has driven them to collect for so long. Or perhaps it's just a bit odd to try and sell your entire collection. Imagine if I purchased an entire collection of brass turtles (there was one there this weekend), I would feel a bit like I was cheating. Surely the point of a collection is to gather things up over time, each piece would tell it's own story and add something different to the other items. If you buy a job lot of someone's existing collection is that not a bit like buying a novel with all the pages missing? It's just a thought, I know most people won't sell their entire hoard to one like-minded person, they will more likely sell single bits over a period of time. What do you think about collections?

Anyway, I wanted to share some recent purchases with you. Some of them are for props for my business, some are for the new house, and some have yet to find a purpose besides me just loving them.

What are your thoughts on second hand? Can you still find the gems in your local charity shops?

Best wishes


Lianne x

4 little butter knives from a local charity shop. 20p each.

A close-up of one of the knives. Made in Sheffield like all great butter knives!

I adore the patterns and colours on this plate.

And these patterns. 20p each

Set of 4 very fine coloured glasses. £2.99

A collection of telephones? One of them is covered in fabric, I loved them all but purchased none.

A beautiful pin-art (is that the right word?) creation of a butterfly. For the new house £3. Car boot

Bold brass bangles. 75p each. Car boot

This wonderful wooden duck has a function...

He's a fully operational telephone! £4. Car boot

Wooden children's block. I love the bold colours and patterns. £5. Car boot

4 x cones of wool & mohair. This inspired me to get out my old knitting machine. There's a future post about that! £3 Car boot

Glass & cork canisters. Props from a charity shop. 40p each