Craft Club: Strawberry Pincushions

Why a craft club? Why not. After much dithering, daydreaming and wittering I spoke with Caroline at the Book Boutique about my wish to start a Craft Club up. She agreed and I Decided on a date and then figured out how to make an Event on Facebook right here. Please click if you feel like venturing into the deep dark heart of Derbyshire and dragging your crafts along.

CRAFT CLUB: STRAWBERRY PINCUSHIONS

Learn to make strawberry pincushions. Come along to the craft club and make some small strawberry pincushions. We shall have some small strawberry making kits available to purchase or bring your own fabric and sewing supplies.

Where: the Book Boutique, Church Street, Ripley, Derbyshire.

When: Monday the 26th of September
Time: 7pm-8:30pm
Contact: Apryl meridianariel@hotmail.com with any questions you may have.

The Craft Club is a brand new friendly and informal place to hang out with like-minded crafty folk. We’ll be here at the Book Boutique In Ripley 7pm until 8:30pm on the Monday the 26th of September. If things go well there will be more meet ups in the future.

Please do pop along and join us. Please feel free to bring along any craft project you are working on, chat, learn some new skills, browse the bookshelves and have fun. There will be tea and cakes to purchase and we really hope you have fun joining us for some crafty fun.

a pincushion tutorial...ish

Today instead of doing the crafting I'm mean to be doing I made a little pincushion. Don't worry i will be doing some of the crafting I NEED to get done a little later after I have consumed vast quantities of coffee and had a little stroll around town. Tomorrow is an inset day at school before half term so I'm determined to get the most out of today and have some me time. Which includes sewing for no reason and going for a stomp around town with my ipod blaring in my ears. Anyway here is a little tutorial that you can use to justify the buying of chocolate. Seriously.

ingredients:
1 package of Sainsbury's pots au chocolat (or any alternative pudding in a little pot)

a spoon

dish soap

fabric

pins

toy filler

all purpose craft glue

these are the puddings you are looking for.

instructions:

1. Open the package of pots au chocolat. Using the spoon scarf down one pot. the wash the ceramic pot with the dish soap and set aside to dry.

2. cut a circle from your fabric that is roughly twice as big as the pot au chocolat ramekin.

3. carefully sew around the fabric circle about a quarter of an inch from the edge. Gently pull the threads together creating a little pouch to stuff to the gills with toy filler. Carefully tie the threads together. It doesn't matter if it looks messy no one will see it.

4. making sure the ramekin is perfectly dry squeeze out a large dollop of glue in the bottom of the pot.

5. carefully place the fabric puff into the pot. You may need to hold it for a minute or two so that the glue adheres to the fabric. And there you go a new pincushion.

crafter's notes: The fabric is a pink and white harlequin that I received in the Alice in Wonderland craft swap. I will probably give the pincushion away as I'm not big on pink but I am pleased with how the pincushion turned out and as there is a second empty ramekin floating about the kitchen I might use that one too.

Lillian and the Slightly Sinister Strawberry

Meet Lillian she is 7. She is pretty, bright as a button, has an air of melancholia about her and likes to dress like Wednesday Adams. Lillian likes to write gory dark fairy tales where the handsome prince is incinerated and eaten by the dragon. Snow White poisoned the Dwarfs to live in their home, push her stepmother in a well and unleashed a plague on the Forrest creatures. Or there's the one where the troll eats all the Billy Goats Gruff and then goes and dies of indigestion. Its all very horrid and I shouldn't ask if I were you. She also likes to write her own endings in books with a red pen, they all end rather badly, you don't even want to know what she wrote at the end of my vintage copy of the Wizard of Oz, lets just say the lion was very hungry and leave it at that.
Lillian's pet strawberry. technically it is a pincushion but don't tell Lillian that, she says that the Slightly Sinister Strawberry is real and has slightly sinister intentions towards you. It is only ever so slightly evil, so mostly you are OK, but you might find that your shoes are tied together, that the last cookie is missing from the jar, or that the battery has died on your phone or your ipod the second you step out of the door. The Slightly Sinister Strawberry goes everywhere that Lillian goes and it helps her to write her fairy tales. Apparently it also bites.

Lillian is a one of a kind bespoke doll, made from fabric, vintage buttons, vintage doily, and yarn. She is primitive in style and not made from a pattern, I was inspired by the materials at hand and the strawberry pincushion I made the day before making Lillian. Lillian comes with her Slightly Sinister Strawberry.

'Anyhow, you’ve been warned and I will not be blamed
If your Wild Strawberry cannot be tamed'. -Wild Strawberry by Shel Silverstein

Lillian and her Slightly Sinister Strawberry will be on sale in my etsy shop in a few moments.

every zombie needs....

somebody to love...and eat the brains of...

my very first zombie plushie. His name is Bob and he likes brains, the colour pink, and long walks through zombie infested streets.

he also makes an excellent pincushion... Zombie Bob is only tiny, he easily fits in the palm of my hand. Not a bad attempt at a softie, seeing as I have only made a small owl before this. He didn't turn out exactly as I doodled and imagined him but still cute enough, for a zombie.

...so I'm addicted to owls

little owl pincushion

I know I have a problem, I can't help it I adore making things with poor little owl. I have been working on this pincushion on and off for a week now, probably more off than on as thats the way things go around here. Or at least the way things swirl around my head. I don't know what to do with tthe pincusion there are a few rough areas but it mostly looks good and smells nice as I put a few drops of rose essential oil on the polyfil as I stuffed the pincusion. Its made from scraps of my favourite cotton linen blend, some laura Ashly blue and cream gingham, vintage lace, and vintage buttons which I thought were black but in certain light are a very dark purple.

the back of the pin cushion

So what should I do with this little pin cushion? list him on etsy? if so how much? keep him? swap him? stick pins in his little owlie heart? give him away?

what to do what to do.....