Time for a spot of reflection

At about this time last year I did a recap of everything I'd made in 2010. It involved listing out everything I'd made with some nice thumbnails from my Flickr stream. I do think it's quite important to reflect on what has gone before in order to decide where to head in the year to come.

But I don't think I could list everything I made in 2011; I've not kept count as I have done a mental amount of making. So instead I'm thinking about what I've learnt.

I'm proud that I took a massive leap into the unknown by deciding to try and sell some of my makes; I was so terrified at my first stall I had to pretend to myself I was selling for someone else in order to get over my very British embarrassment. I made a tiny weeny bit of money, yes, but more importantly I've had positive feedback about my work and met some excellent people - fellow crafters, interesting customers. Worth its weight in gold that is.

Cally Fest:


Burnham Market Craft Fair:


Old Spitalfields Market:



(Attempting a "less is more" approach for my second stall at old Spitalfields Market. Alas, more is always more whenever I'm involved)

I've managed to get a lot better at different aspects of my craft: I'm all over zips now, feel much more confident with quilting larger size quilts due to my magnificent walking foot, can draft a pattern for simple objects with some zest, and have experimented with lots of different fabric types.

I have been incredibly lucky to get access to some wonderfully eclectic collections of fabric. Both my Mum and step Mum have helped to swell my stash with donations from their own attics as well as from their friends. I have run out of storage! Fortunately The HusWife and I came across a chest that someone had left at the side of the road the other day and we (he) managed to manhandle it home. But that's for another post.

I'm very much looking forward to another year of sewing. I'm going to do some playing around methinks. Try some techniques out, do some samples and try to find my textile voice. All I know is that learning the craft of sewing makes me very happy; a wonderfully hands on release after a day job spent at a computer. A great balance.

Happy New Year everyone :-)

Good lord woman. What have you been up to?

Alas, things have been quiet in blog land for me. Work work has been mentalist in the run up to Christmas - sort of having to fit 2 weeks into 1 to get everything sorted, so defo running on empty.

However, found some time for a spot of crafting. For our Christmas party at work I got Matthew as my Secret Santa gift recipient. Now Matthew has spent the last month at the office playing LMFAO "I'm sexy and I know it" full screen on his computer, full blast, at least 3 times a day. Sometimes on loop.

So I made him his own outfit:



This is Matthew (on the left):



This is what the dude from LMFAO looks like in his outfit:



Yeah. You do the maths.

Capolana cloth...

...is hanging on my line, drying in the winter sun. Actual capolana cloth from actual Mozambique. I am very excited about this.



My Aunt Pru (known henceforth as VAP - Venerable Aunt Prudence) is currently spending a year in Mozambique with VSO, having been given a sabbatical from Amnesty International. She is doing a spot of excellent blogging about her experiences there; I find it a fascinating read, not just because it's by VAP, but because it has real insight and describes a place and culture that is about as far removed from the rich hustle of London.

She wrote a brill piece back in July about Capolana cloth and me being me put in a cheeky request for some samples to play with back here in Londres. And VAP being VAP, she purchased some bits, dispatched them with a friend who was traveling back to the UK, organised for my cousin Omar to go and pick them up, and then got Omar to pop round to deliver them with a cheeky smile. Now that's what I call service!



I'm loving the colours and patterns; they are certainly brightening up a dull London winter. It seems a shame to chop them up as they work so well as large pieces, which of course is how they're designed; I'm going to hold onto them for a while and decide what to make with them after we've got to know each other a little better.

Thanks VAP, my dear. You totally rock. xxx

Designers Makers at Old Spitalfileds Market

Gosh, well, what can I say? A slow old day at Old Spitalfields I tell yee. Having never done a 'normal' market before I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. All raring to go, and having not slept the night before due to excitement/anxiety, my trusty slave labour for the day (Mrs Becci Augur, highlighted goddess, gossip merchant and all round good egg) picked me up early and we hotfooted it down there. It was bleedin' freezin', but we set to with great gusto.



Our stall always looks a little, er, over-egged compared to some of the clean-lined modernist splendour achieved on stalls nearby. I would like to think of it as welcoming and vibrant. Perhaps it just looks a tad rubbish. Hey ho.



We met some lovely neighbours, and wiled away the hours catching up on gossip and making the odd sale here and there. I sort of managed to give quite a lot of stock away, in an effort get some good karma flowing around. Eventually, I got a bit grumpy and wanted to leave early but Becci made me stay, and by the packing up time of 5pm, we'd made enough sales to cover the cost of the stall, parking, lunch and a baby sitter for that evening. Not a resounding triumph, but better than nothing. So either my products are wrong, or wrongly priced, or it's the wrong location for me. I have one more go there before Christmas, 17 December, when I'm hoping that people will be panic buying pressies and thus will rid me of my stock. I'm going to drop my (already low) prices, as I have an overwhelming desire to clear the decks before the start of the next year of sewing.

Looking at all my products this weekend made me realise I need to have a good hard think about what direction I want to go in. And I cannot consider any direction while I have boxes of stock sitting under my desk reminding me that they are not sold. So, if you're in the market for a kindle or ipad sleeve, a cute coin purses or indeed a man quilt then give me a shout. I'm open to offers ;-)

In the meantime here are some of the cuties I showed this weekend:

Even urban warriors need tote bags

Don't they? How else are they going to transport their essential warrior items as they warrior their way through town?



Thought it might be an idea to test some alternative fabric approaches on all my products at my upcoming stall for Designers/Makers at Old Spitalfields Market. Seeing as it's quite the funky hipster spot and all. The HusWife reckons men don't use tote bags. He clearly hasn't been to Hoxton recently, where the skinny-jean wearing, assymetric hairstyle types spend all day long carrying tote bags.

I've only made a few, just to see if they sell, like. If they don't, I'll owe The HusWife a million pounds. Let's hear it for the urban warrior tote bag!

Rummaging in my silky stash ;-)

Finally got my hands on a new kindle (hurrah! for kindly cousin Imran) and so the pattern is perfected! And a rummage through a hitherto un-rummaged through bag produced the loveliest bits of silk; samples from a shop long forgotten - embroidered flowers, and weird quilted silk and every sort of silk in between. So now I have some lovely lux kindle sleeves ready for action!

Maths headache

Do all those technology companies not realise how much pain and anguish they put me through when they release a new product? Well do they? No, I think not. So, Kindle has released its new eReader, which is smaller (but not thinner) than the last, and so I need to give myself maths brain ache to come up with a new pattern. Because my attempts to persuade everyone I know to buy one so I can use it to make a new sleeve prototype have failed thus far - so I'm relying on the dimensions given on the site, my old pattern for the larger size version and my trusty calculator.

Might pop into John Lewis tomorrow and see if I can subtley have a go at popping a Kindle into a prototype...