Last Weekend

So last weekend was an eventful one for me, but I've been so busy all week with work that this is the first chance I've had to post about it!

So, it all started when I took my car down to Devon to get Dad to have a look at it due to a noisy exhaust. This is my car, I call her Edna -

I bought Edna for £800 off of a dodgy dealer 5 years ago, she has had her problems, but in 5 years she never once broke down, and she never once failed to start. Anyway, turned out the problem with the exhaust was a much bigger job than first thought, so, I now have a new car, courtesy of bank of Dad :) and here she is -

I haven't yet decided what she is called, but I'm thinking Betty is appropriate :) It took a lot of getting used to, having a car that works as it should! But I love it, even if she doesn't have Edna's personality quite yet, she is great fun to drive, very economical, and best of all, only £20 a year to tax!

Anyway, to the point - I was essentially car-less in Devon from Saturday to Tuesday, so I needed a project! And here are some photographs of what I made. It is a little messy, but it was all hand-stitched, as my machine was here in Bristol.

Lining and zip pull

Zip

Pocket

Beaded handles

I didn't have to buy anything to make this handbag, I started off with an old pair of jeans, cut the legs off and cut across the crotch. I then stitched up the bottom, created handles by plaiting 2 lots of 3 strips of demin cut from the entire length of the leg of the jeans. I decorated the handles by stitching on some beads, and decorated the outside of the bag using some old pink net I had left over from a fancy dress costume. The lining is made out of an old work shirt, and my mum supplied the zip, which she had cut out of something else herself. Whilst the stitching is perhaps a little untidy, it is holding together fine and I have been using it all week :)

In other news, all of the amazon supplies that I ordered have finally arrived, so hopefully there will be some cross stitch cards up here soon too :) I am in the process of doing a small owl in blackwork too, so photos of that one to follow shortly.

Anyhow, I have some Indian food just about ready to come out of the oven (yey) so bye for now! S x

Past Projects

So, here are a few photos of 2 projects I completed last year and gave away as Christmas presents. The first one is a scarf I knitted, not very ambitious I know, but a lot of work went into it and I am pleased with the end result. And so is my Dad, which is lucky as it was his Christmas present :-D He is modelling his scarf.

This scarf took me around 3 years to make in total, but only because I kept on getting bored and putting it away for months. I did more than half of it in one session, whilst watching the entire first series of 24, in 24 hours :-) I miss being a student sometimes!

The next project took me much less time to complete. It is a blackwork piece that I made for my Mum for her Christmas present last year. It was made from a kit, which provided the pattern, aida and thread. It was my first attempt at blackwork, and I think it turned out fairly well :-) I enjoyed doing this project, blackwork is particularly rewarding to me as you can see the design taking shape relatively quickly, compared to cross stitch. I have a much larger blackwork kit waiting to be started, but I am determined to finish the big cross stitch I am currently working on first, so it may be a long while before I even open that one! Anyway, here are the pictures of the finished and framed final product -

My embroidery floss that I ordered from amazon has now arrived, it has all of the colours that I need for the card designs that I have in mind, but sadly, none of the aida that I ordered has arrived yet, which means I can't start work on them just yet!

I started and finished an entire project this weekend, as I have been without a car, and the weather has been crazy bad with floods and suchlike, but that is a whole other story, which will follow soon :-)

Cheerio for now, S x

Supplies

So, Christmas is on the way (I feel like I shouldn't be bringing this up in mid September, but there are only 3 months in which to make all of my Christmas cards!) which means, supplies are required! I have done a cheeky bit of ordering from amazon, last year I made all of my Christmas cards using ink stamps and glitters, so this year I have decided to make cross stitch cards as well :)

Money is very tight at the moment, so the items I bought are not brands that I have heard of before - hopefully they are still easy to work with, I will let you know. I have bought:- some holly green and santa red 14 count Aida, and a selection of 100 skeins of stranded cotton in various colours. I have also bought a small 4" embroidery hoop, to enable me to use less material and therefore minimise wastage.

There are a couple more bits and pieces that I need to get, such as masking tape to stop the Aida from fraying as I am working with it, some double sided sticky tape for mounting the cards, and possibly some double folded blank cards with apertures cut out for a more professional look for some of the nicest cards, although I may be able to make this base myself given a bit of patience.

I am eager for my supplies to arrive :) although I am going to Devon to see my lovely folks, and possibly get a new car(.....) over the weekend, so not much opportunity for card making.

Also, I did make it to the gym this evening :) good thing too as it was pizza for dinner tonight!

Over and out S x

The Beginning

Hi, I'm Steph. Right now it is 6pm and I am lounging on the sofa in my fleecy owl pj's, trying to avoid going to the gym. I will go today... probably! This blog is going to be about me, and my crafting journey, I will include little snippets about myself, details and photographs of my projects and mini tutorials for specific techniques I have used - If anyone would like to learn how I have done any of my projects just leave a comment. Any feedback and constructive criticism will also be gratefully received.

I have called this blog Crafting My Journey as I am pretty much starting with nothing but aspirations and hope. I have completed a few small projects, and have a couple more underway (photos to follow in the near future) but I have little craft experience, and hope to learn a lot myself as I progress. At the moment my main interests are cross stitch, knitting and card making, but I have always been interested in making and carving candles since I was a little girl. The only thing stopping me from focusing on candle making is the size of my flat (very small - no space for all the melting equipment etc.) and not having the money to start myself off! Hopefully in a year or so, this blog will be more centered around candle making.

The title also holds significance to me, in the sense of finding my journey through life. Other than in my boyfriends arms, and the hearts of my family, I often feel I have no defined place, as of yet. I have had many different jobs, and never particularly enjoyed them or fitted in. I was unemployed for a few months and enjoyed that even less. I feel that my ideal job would be to own a little shop selling the things I make. I can sit in the shop working on my next project while customers are browsing. Maybe I could even run evening classes in some of the crafts I learn to do - assuming of course that I am any good at them! So this blog will also be about finding myself.

The most important thing to me, is making other people happy, and I am looking for a way of doing that through my job. My dad used to say I would be an author, as I have a very vivid imagination, my problem is (as you can probably tell) that my writing skills aren't up to much. I am also passionate about music, having been involved in numerous choirs, bands and activities since a very young age, however, I could not accept the hate that comes with the love a famous musician may get. There are so many directions my life could take, but I am 23, and still yet to decide which one to embark upon.

Anyway, It is now 7:30pm and I am still not at the gym! I must make a move :)

Much Love S x