Christmas slippers

December 12th

My latest pair of felted slippers

Two years ago I blogged about mamma's quick knit and machine felted slippers. The post is now one of my most popular. I decided it was time to revamp the slipper idea and create a Christmas version. 

Follow this link Felted Slippers for pattern and photo tutorial of these very quick knit slippers. If you have a couple of evenings free you can make a pair before Christmas. There's still time! 

So how to pimp the slippers for Christmas?  I am sure given more time and thought I could actually knit a Christmas pattern in the slipper design itself but you know what this time of year is like, busy busy busy. So as long as I do not forget this could be a great New Year challenge. If you beat me to it, be kind to me and share please...but onto the quick pimping of the slippers.  

Knitted and machine wash felted slippers

Once knitted and felted your slippers will look like this...

So the quickest way to pimp them I found was to embroider a Christmas design. 

I used embroidery thread but first outlined my design with a single strand so that it gave me a guideline to follow...


If you look at the photo closely you can see that I also stitched in a single strand a mid line on the leaf. This was my guide to keep my stitches short and so I embroidered either side of the line, look...

Holly leaf outline including mid line for guide

Here you can see that I have sewn up to the mid line guide only on one side and I shall do the same on the other.

And when both sides are completed they look like this...

Holly on my slipper

I decided that I probably could not replicate the identical holly on the second slipper so deliberately placed it in a different orientation on slipper two, hope it works that they do not match, what do you think?

Half way through pimping my slippers

And now they are ready for wearing...

Felted and embroidered slippers

I think I may even try and pimp other slippers for other times of the year too, it was so much fun.  and I confess to being a little bit in love with them.  John who seldom thinks my makes 

are of any worth, probably because they are not sailing related, 

even gave a begrudging nod as he walked past me today ;)  Can't be all bad then can it!  

♥  Cosy toes now ready for Winter, 

let me know if you make a pair   ♥

Scandinavian influenced Christmas embroidery

December 7th

It's easy to add the Scandinavian touch to your home at Christmas time, just add red!  But if you wanted something quick and homemade, red embroidery is very traditional.  Flowing lines and hearts and French knots, small leaves of a flowing line all create the Norwegian feel.

It's a good idea to sketch out your design first and there is a great sewing tool called the air erasable pen tip pen.  You can draw on the material your design and after a while it will evaporate, but leaving you enough time to sew the design, pure genius, have you used one?

 

Planning Christmas makes

Such fun planning and making

Completed felt hanging

Red embroidery felt hearts

When time is short a red button adds the necessary 'red'

A few months back I ordered mini embroidery hoops from Sonia of Dandelyne and they have sat in my cupboard until this month when I decided they would make great Christmas necklaces, adding that touch of Christmas to an outfit without being 'over the top'.  I am delighted with them and cannot wait to start wearing each one.  Should you wish to look into them the link is here

 

Small embroidery is quick and effective

Traditional Norwegian Christmas heart

Christmas embroidery necklaces

New Christmas necklace

♥   Happy Christmas making   ♥

Too many WIPs!

October 17th

I have suddenly become overwhelmed by the number of projects I have begun and not finished. Not least because I have two projects that I really want to begin but feel I must complete the outstanding ones first. Am I alone? Do you always complete what you begin  or are you little like me?

So without further ado the next week is all about finishing off. Wish me luck and hope I come out the other end triumphant. 

Wine bottle carrier in the making

1930's hat in the making

Cushion cover in the making

Small blanket in the making, terrible tension!!

Decorative pictures in the making

So I have some crocheting, knitting, embroidery and machine sewing to tackle this week. Hope to see you on the other side!!

♥ Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do! ♥

Cushions, cushions and more cushions

September 18th 

Putting the drawn pattern behind the
material made it easy to embroider
any shape or pattern

At present my days are filled with crafting and not earning and I love it!  My work load is often quiet at this time of year and I have learnt to embrace it with both arms and make the most of it.  Knowing that this does not tend to last very long, I begin so many new projects and this week seems to be bursting with new things to try and do.  The first of this weeks makes was an embroidery cushion which was quick  (my favourite kind) and very therapeutic.   

How did this project begin?  Well, my son seems to be in a growing spurt and has jumped two year sizes in school shirts, having asked a couple of friends if their sons wanted them and being politely refused, I decided that the charity shops probably would not want them either, so it got me thinking...

...maybe I could use the back of his shirt as a front cover for a cushion...  I set to straight away.

I knew immediately that I wanted to base it on Scandinavian red embroidery work and so began googling various patterns, the Internet is full of free patterns and you could spend forever on there and not actually do anything!  Not one pattern was suitable, but I amalgamated a few and cobbled something that I was happy with. I drew out the design and then placed it behind the cut up shirt which was placed in an embroidery hoop and began to trace the pattern onto the material.  I have one of those disappearing ink pens for fabric which should in theory disappear after some time.  Mine must be old as the ink began to disappear within five minutes, meaning I could only trace a small section of the pattern at a time.  It was a race against the disappearing ink!

Embroidery and traced pattern,
beginning to disappear already

Progress was quick and I was able to sew
and sit with the children whilst they watched some TV

Front and back view

Almost finished, after a second evening

I had intended to back the cushion with a red fabric,
but instead opted for another section of a school shirt!

The cushion was lovely but looked lonely
on my sofa, so I have begun a second



This will be the main section of the second cushion,
 hope to finish it tomorrow...

These cushions would not win any awards, the stitching is uneven and they are not symmetrical, but they have cost me nothing except time as I had in house everything already. 

I think they make better cushions then they did school shirts!

♥It is almost the weekend,

cannot wait for the family to be together.♥

Rain rain go away! Embroidery for the soul

7th January



Taken today, a very different Thames to the one we usually see!
View taken looking towards home.

I cannot help it, but I am back to talking about the weather!! Bonkers or what?!?! It truly is one minute beautiful blue skies, albeit windy and then BAM! heavy torrential down pour. The ground is so sodden it is untrue and we have sprung a leak...well, several actually. That is the problem with living in a house over 400 years old, things break and often! So we have the classic saucepan scenario going on in one of the bedrooms over here at the eclectic house and a bed moved away from the wall in another bedroom. Best get round to sorting that out soon then!




View of the Thames away from home

In the mean time I have been thinking about embroidery.  Those of you who have been reading the blog may well remember that I attended a ladies Christmas lunch not so long ago, see post here:  http://eclectichomelife.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ladies-christmas-lunch.html
Where my S-I-L had made a lovely embroidered bag.  A nagging feeling began and an itchiness in the fingers started to tingle.  I had to get back to embroidery.  Having not touched a needle and thread in a decorative way for several years, I did not fancy anything too difficult and as I cannot stop thinking about and talking about the weather what better than to embroider something to do with it.  So here it is my little embroidery...TA DAAA!



Hoping this will be a magical rain embroidery to stop the rain soon



In Norway many years ago in the time of Bestemor (Grandmother) and her mother before her, they used to always embroider 'pyntehånkle', decorative hand towels.  These would be embroidered usually in one colour only, a little like my rain girl above.  I can recall only blue embroidered towels but mamma tells me red was also very popular.  After all red is a very Scandi colour.  These towels would be hung on a rail above a shelf.  The purpose being they were to be decorative and hid the contents of the shelf behind!  A neat idea, although in modern society, we tend to hide everything behind cupboard doors, or haphazardly displayed on Welsh dressers as a decoration in itself.  I do like the idea of a decorative towel though.  Maybe another wish list make?

Hope your umbrellas are bearing up in this weather, it feels like snuggling indoors and hooky time to me.  Think I better put all my crocheted stars and crochet a few more, then put them to some use, watch this space...

Stars pattern are from Attic 24 if anyone wishes to have a go.  They are SUPER QUICK, each one only 3-5 minutes to make and very addictive too!  Link below:
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2013/12/little-lacy-stars.html

♥








Crocheting baskets and the London boat show!

6th December

On our way to ExCel, the London boat show,
view from DLR, the Gherkin and 'Cheesegrater'

...and so it begins, the children have returned back to school and we are again ruled by a clock.  My daughter has exams and my son informed me late last night that he would need cookery ingredients for school today!  The peaceful Christmas seems an age away and we tumble and stagger into the new working academic year...

But before this Monday began we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, it was Mr H's favourite day of the year above any other and the children and I will always try and be with him on this day, whatever we are doing and where ever we are, what am I talking about?  The London boat show of course.

Almost as if about to climb a mountain to ski,
London's cable car across the Thames

As always we mooched around, made our way to the Guinness tent and met with old friends, spent more money in our dreams than we have in reality and noted items that need to be replaced and others to put on the wish list.  Leaving the boat show, we decided to try a different means of transport and instead of using the Docklands Light Railway, as we did to arrive, we left using the Emirates cable car that takes you high over the Thames.  It was dark and raining and I was not sure if it would be worth it, but WOW, London looks great at night.  From there we jumped on a fast clipper boat that drove us at high speed past the O2, Greenwich Maritime museum, the Golden Hind, Tower Bridge and many other iconic buildings.  Our capital is an amazing place.

 

View of the O2 from the cable car

Of course my weekend did not involve just the boat show and sight seeing, I had time for a little hooky and embroidery too!  I completeed the Christmas red make up basket and am secretely very pleased with it, although I have decided it is too Christmassy, so am going to embellish it with a mass of floweres and such like to crochet 'bling' it and trasnform it into something very different.  I quickly hooked up a partner for eyeliners and the such, in a vivid 'hot pink', very girly and included the Christmas red as the fold down top.  Might not need to embellish this one, but am still thinking about that.  As I was in London and had no access to my crochet books I sat in bed (Mr H had popped to the gym) and began to make up a pattern for a daisy to begin embellishing the basket.  It really is true that you need to block your work as whilst working on it, the daisy was so crumpled and tiny, I almost abandoned it.  Wish now I had taken a photograph to show you, but after blocking, it was as if it had been transformed from an ugly duckling into an unsure swan.

 



So I shall continue to hook up some flowers and see how the baskeys turn out, but am very tempted to buy some chunky yarn and make bread baskets in spring like colourrs.  They are very easy to make, for the large basket I followed a patern to begin with, but the smaller one, I made up as I went along.  They a super quick and would make excellent presents, I think...  the pattern for the larger red basket, can be found here:  Thank you Chickpea!

http://chickpeastudio.typepad.com/chickpea_sewing_studio/files/crochet_basket_pattern4.pdf

 

 

 

 

Finally I leave you with a sneak peak at the next blog posting.  I have returned to some embroidery after many many years away!  It is all very seasonal and I cannot wait to share it with you!