Making Rainbows

I've admired all sorts of fibre art on social media for years, without ever having the time to have a go and make something of my own, so lockdown was the perfect time to have a go and make a rainbow. Especially as the rainbow image was being used in all the support NHS campaigns, it seemed double perfect.

Luckily, being a craft hoarder, I had plenty of wool, piping cord, and ribbon to get started, so quickly did.

I made this little one for me, and hung it in the window, which quickly attracted admiration from the neighbours (we live in a block of flats, and this was in the window facing our shared garden). 

I then made these ones, and posted a photo on social media, and quickly started to get some love!

By this point I'd run out of piping cord, but was sure I had some rope somewhere (no idea why?!?) and I quickly found a bag with lots of different thicknesses of rope! Winner! I wrapped and wrapped, and pom pom'd and glued, until I'd run out of my initial rope stash. 

Luckily our local independent DIY shop was open, and had some sash cord in 2 thicknesses - perfect for wrapping!

I bought a 10m length and was very happy, but then got so many orders, I'd wrapped the entire 10m in one day! So popped back the next day to but another length. And again wrapped the whole 10m, so popped back a third day to buy another 10m!!

By this point, the lovely shop owner enquired as to what I was doing, and why i needed so much cord!! I assured him I was not some sort of murderer/bondage fan, and showed him some photos of my rainbows!

Since then, I've been steadily making rainbows in all sizes and colour combinations, and making good on one of my lockdown resolutions - to use up my entire wool stash!!

They are very therapeutic to make, and I might sneakily add one to every window in our flat (we have 5 - haha!)

New Name Banners

I've been sewing name banners for a good few years now, and so get lots of repeat design orders - mint and grey elephants being the most popular - so it's very exciting when I get a new design request.

I especially love when a customer knows exactly what they'd like! Here are some examples of some recent new designs....

Embroidered Llamas & Pom poms

Guinea Pigs

Embroidered Llama & Cactus

UFO & Planet

Hedgehogs & Owls

Happy Birthday Banners

Alongside all my personalised felt name banners, I also make Happy Birthday banners (and Christmas ones too - but it's too early for that yet!!). I love the idea of having a long lasting, reusable banner that can come out again and again for everyone's birthday, and replaces all the terrible single use banners you find in party shops.

The original one I made was in yellow and grey (surprise surprise), but I've since made a range of custom ones to suit other people's tastes too!

Here are some photos...

Which is your favourite? And which colours should I make next??

A-Z of name banners - part 2

It's been a hard decision choosing banners to put into this A-Z of names. Ideally, they'd all begin with the right letter, and so would the name (e.g Hearts & Henrietta which was one of todays posts). Sadly most of them don't conform to this, so I've usually picked one of each to show off.

Here are my recent ones:

Cole & Clouds = yay! Double 'C'

And then Connie with some awesome lions!

Daniel & Dinosaurs = Double 'D' - win again!

And another cool Connie, with 2 different dogs. 

Emilia & Elephants! = Double 'E' 

Emilia is such a beautiful name, and quite popular at the moment it seems - I've sewn 5 of these banners, all in different colours, in the last year. 

Faiz with 2 different animals. Because why not?

And Alfie and Foxes. It doesn't begin with F but does have an F nicely placed in the middle!

G is for Gael, and Giraffes. Sadly not in the same banner, but they still both look beautiful!

H for Hannes and Hearts - again not in the same banner, until I got the order last week for Henrietta with Hearts - which fitted in perfectly instead!!

More to follow, we're only on H! Watch this space! 

New Flat! Having fun with interior design...

Just before Christmas, myself and the boyfriend bought a flat!!! I know this is a fairly normal thing that people of our age do, but it is made all the more tricky for us by the fact that we live in pricey West London, and wanted to stay here as we love the area.

Well we managed to find a lovely little flat near Acton Park, and the most exciting this for me has been having fun with the interiors. This is the first time I've ever been able to choose my own furniture, rather than just put up with what the landlords/my parents have bought to go in the house, and so it is very very exciting to be able to choose my own!

I am also an avid follower of many peoples enviously sleek and beautiful Instagram feeds showing off sleek and cool interiors, so the main problem was how to limit myself. I dream of the day when I have an enormous house to fill and can just buy it all, but for our relatively small one bed flat it is a very tough decision on what to decide to buy.

We were quite lucky that it was in very good condition, so all we really needed to do was repaint it so that the flat wasn't entirely peach (ugh!)

We had the compulsary trip to Ikea, complete with meatballs for sustinance, but managed to find some good pieces which manage to hide away a lot of our (well mostly my) things.

I got excited and decided I wanted to paint every wall or room a different colour, as we've lived so long in completely white rental spaces, but then toned it down and went for just painting the hallway bright yellow, and one wall in the bedroom turquoise, with the chimney breast in the living room being pale grey. Great for photographing my name banners on!

Here is the beautiful dark turquoise - to go with a fancy new bed (from Dreams - and it lifts up so again we can hide lots of our things away underneath)

And pride of place on the beautiful windowsill behind my desk is the beautiful Singer sewing machine that a friends Mum found in a charity shop for me. It is so beautiful. And takes my tally of sewing machines owned to 4 which is maybe a slightly ridiculous number for a one bed flat, but they do all get used!

So this is the current state of the flat. Excitingly there are still many more things to do and buy, but it is slowly coming together!