The Joys of Pattern

Following on from my crafty chores, last night I attended to all kinds of sewing "odd jobs": cutting out this pattern piece, sewing on those sequins, finishing this, starting that... including making a start on a batch of Lily of the Valley brooches:
I'm making a batch of 10, so that meant cutting out 60 of the little white flower shapes! Phew.

Then today I've been breaking my brain by doing my accounts. Ugh.
I actually quite like writing things down, adding things up, making charts, etc (I especially like a nice bar chart) but staring at the computer all day! Yich.

Even my eyes going a bit funny doesn't stop me from checking out my blog favourites though... At the moment I am totally addicted to the visual feast that is Print & Pattern, and it's got me thinking about all the bits of pattern in my life, my favourite patterned things and why I love them. So, I'm going to do a little mini series blogging about them: lots of little patterned corners of my life to cheer my blog up amidst all these dull admin-ish tasks I've been doing lately.

First up: the most awesome drawer liner from our blue 1960s breakfast bar (itself not a very stylish feature!). It's just one little drawer, and mostly buried under cutlery and coasters, but its geometric cheerfulness makes me smile every time. It has also made me a total convert to the idea of decorating the insides of things: so many of my bits of furniture could do with an internal makeover...PS my tree stump brooch got a sweet mention over at Rare Bird Finds yesterday, hurrah!

Orange Orange Orange (365 / 264)

I have orange on the brain!

I was trying to think of something orange I could make as a gift for a friend who loves bright colours, and I thought maybe an orange version of my poppies? So I dug out some appropriately zingy orange felt from my stash and liked it so much against the black that I'm now planning to make a whole set of them (and probably a hairband too, I think I have an orange elastic to match).

Then thinking about orange I had a small "eureka!" moment as I suddenly worked out that peach (of course! why didn't I think of it before?) was the ideal colour to pair with white in a new version of my cherry blossoms:
I'd been contemplating a white version for ages but couldn't think what to use as the second colour. Luckily, I have both soft peach felt and pretty peach seed beads so I got to do some instant gratification crafting. Unluckily, I picked the wrong colour thread to start with (far too orange) but the peach I used second (at the front of the photo) is spot on. Very satisfying.

Also fantastically satisfying: while I was internet-less, one of the chores I managed to get done was hanging some of my pictures. These are above our fridge and freezer in the kitchen (due to be repainted white over the summer). Many of these are from Etsy, and most have been sitting around framed for about 5 or 6 months while I tried to work out where best to put them - it's so great having them up on the wall at last! There's a random piece of paper stuck up there too as I'm testing out whether I want to hang an extra little picture in the cluster (I think I probably do). I can see these from my workspace (aka the kitchen table), they are cheering me up greatly :)

UPDATE: My poppy design is now available as a sewing pattern, and the cherry blossom pattern is coming soon! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

365 / 92 - lots of new things

Right, so last night I was supposed to be working on restocking a few things, cutting out lots of pattern pieces etc. I settled down on the sofa with my supplies around me, put a David Attenborough video on (check out this awesome bird), and started work only to get totally distracted almost immediately...

I got two oak leaf pieces cut out and finished my little embroidered wood slice pins and was about to cut out lots more pattern pieces (honest guv'nor) when I thought "ooh, I'll give that embroidered badge idea a try" and spent the rest of the evening doing just that! First up I made a little "tea addict" pin:
Then I decided to save tea drinkers time by making little badges declaring one's tea-drinking prefences to the world (mine's black no sugar) - I'll be listing these as custom/personalised items and making them to order:
Finally I made a start on some of the little embroidered picture pins I started scheming back on day 57 while I was doodling little pictures at work. I'm planning a whole series of these, lots of kitchenalia as I'm loving all things kitchen, cooking and crockery -themed at the moment. To start off though, cutlery and teacups:
Here's the whole evening's work...
I did get a few more pattern pieces cut out, as you can see - making a few more tree stump pins. The tree stump showed up on the Etsy front page this morning as part of a quite delightful "faux bois" treasury. Thanks again to memake for the pdf! I did get a rubbish screenshot of my own this time:I am rather afraid I shall get distracted again this evening and not get any of my plans attended to, but I am planning on making little penguin pins , finishing that little pile of tree stumps and also working on lots of oak leaves. I sketched lots of oak leaves while I was away as I'm planning on making a couple more slightly smaller versions of the ones in my shop at the moment. Here are the sketches. I have my favourites but I want to try a few of them out...