Crafting, cats and vintage finds

So, what do you make for the geek girl about town when she is about to set off into the big wide world?
A Tetris dress of course.
(Pattern from Vogue, fabric from Spoonflower)

Also a set of table mats/coasters,

and a cushion for her room.

And a pair of oven gloves that used to be a pair of jeans.

You want a tute for the oven gloves?
I forgot to take any pictures as I went along but it's fairly straightforward. Take an old pair of jeans and cut a strip from one leg the size of your oven gloves (I just used an existing pair as a pattern). This will form the insideof your oven gloves. You may have to piece it as I did to avoid tears or worn patches.

Cut two pieces from the back of the jeans, the width of the oven gloves, incorporating the arse pockets and going as far above them as you can get without including the waistband. Cut a strip from the other leg and piece it with the two pocket sections so that the open ends of the pockets are toward the centre and the whole piece is the same size as your inside piece.
Cut a piece to make a hanger. I just used a strip from one hem cut close and frayed back, but you could use a belt carrier loop piece as well.
Cut two pieces of wadding the same size as the inside and outside pieces, and baste one to the wrong side of each piece in a 10mm seam.
Place inside on top of outside, right sides together, sandwiching the hanger between them. Sew together around outside in a 15mm seam, leaving a 10cm gap for turning. Layer seams and trim corners. Turn right side out, pushing out corners with a knitting needle. Press and ladder stitch opening closed. Linking this up to Think Pink Sundays at Flamingo Toes

I promised cats in the title. Here is Loki who has now learned to climb up the fence and trees. Jinx was up there too, but she'd gone by the time I fetched the camera.

And vintage finds, I mentioned them too. Here is the most fabulous vintage gingham apron I bought on Ebay. I love this. I just want to wear it and bake things. And make jam. And chutney. And drink tea. A lot.
And if you love vintage things check out the wonderful giveaway at The Victorian Motto Sampler Shop

Wish you were here?

I have received my postcard in the Summer Postcard bloghop organised by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.
My card comes from Heather at It's Geek To Me

Heather says
"Hello from rainy Salzburg! I'm afraid we didn't see any butterflies while we were in Mirabell Gardens.  We didn't see any singing von Trapps, either, but that's OK...I sang enough for all of them!"

Doesn't that look beautiful? Thank you Heather for a lovely postcard, and thank you Jo for organising another fun event
Oh, and while you are blog hopping, hop on over to The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe for another awesome giveaway

This is the girl

This is the girl who

wouldn't eat her peas

watched The Lion King every single day

loved to dress up as a princess

or batman

got bored halfway through a football match and sat down in the centre circle to make daisy chains

passed all four A levels and is off to Leeds university to study Maths in less than three weeks.

In other news, pop over to The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe for a fabulous giveaway

Fun with Felt and Playing with Pastels

Here are some fresh and fruity felt coasters (ooh the alliteration, my English teacher would be SO proud) I made in the vain hope that we might actually get a summer. The original idea came from The Purl Bee via Pinterest. I didn't use their templates though, I cut concentric circles with my cuttlebug and winged it with the segment pieces.

And, also based on something I saw on Pinterest, a cuddly toy camper van, because everyone needs a squishie VW. And because I had some orange felt left. I've got yellow and green left too. I feel a fleet of vans coming on. I  used a bit of  vintage braid for the hanger, I thought it went with the seventies hippy feel, and I gave it a little Cornish bumper sticker, which you probably can't see due to the rather blurry picture. I should have made the logo a bit bigger I think.

And finally for something completely different :-
a drawing, in pastels, of the frankly ridiculously handsome Mr. Tom Hiddleston, as Loki Laufeyson, from the movies Thor and Avengers Assemble.
By me, for Eloise, who shares my admiration.

Flower Festival

This weekend sees the annual Flower Festival at the Chapel in the village. The theme chosen for this year was "The Best of British".
Here is the display I did on behalf of the Horticultural Society. I was aiming for a sort of psychadelic, swinging sixties, London vibe.

It's funny, but when I do these they always seem so huge and then when I see them amongst all the others they always seem absolutely tiny.
Anyway here a few others that caught my eye:-

Telephone Box. This one is genuinely huge, the phone box is pretty much actual size, so you can imagine how big those dahlias on the top must be.

The Red Arrows

Grow Your Own
look at the little carrot and parsnip waving at you from the corner.
Squee!

Gifts and Prizes

The Assistant Head at the village school where I work part time retired on Friday, so I made her a little something, Happy Day from Sub Rosa ~ chart here ~ ( Happy Day for the Assistant Head that is, not for the school!), stitched on a 40ct linen from The Crafty Kitten, of which I was sure I would remember the name when I threw out the packaging. 
Guess what? 
Yep. 
Forgotten it. 
It is stitched using Carries threads in Peacock, Sapphire and erm, Slime. Horrible name, lovely colour.
I added some buttons and dyed lace instead of the border parts of the design; I'd like to pretend it was inspiration, but actually it was because I ran out of time; and finished it with the same lace and an organza bow. It's backed with the blue silk dupion it's shown on.
And yes, it should have been the April Challenge for Needlecraft Haven, but better late than never.

I also recieved an exchange gift this week (VSCyberstitchers, I showed the sent gift last week). Linda sent me this wonderful project pouch and matching biscornu.

And here is reverse of each of them, together with the contents of the pouch, some thread cards, pearl headed pins and lovely thread all in matching shades of apricot, lemon and green
Thank you Linda, they are gorgeous.

In May I entered a draw as part of the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway and was lucky enough to win a piece of sewing themed Subway Art from Heather Kojan at Quilt.Cook.Keep.
David got around to printing it onto canvas for me the other day, and here it is all stretched and mounted on my study wall.

It was Carnival Week in the village last week Eloise and Naomi entered as Harley Quinn...

and Clark Kent respectively. 
(recognise the jeans Linda?) For some reason the judges judged them as a pair, which strikes me as mixing genres, but then I'm pretty sure they didn't actually know who Harley Quinn is. Either way they must have liked them because they came home with the trophy for Best Dressed Collector.

An exchange and two bits of upcycling

Here is a little hardanger needlebook I made for the VSCyberstitchers July Exchange.
Shh. It's a secret where it's going. 
The design is by Kay's Creations, I've had the chart quite a while and an internet search brings up nothing so I'm not sure if she is still designing. 
I used a piece of Belfast linen from Crafty Kitten in Midnight Skies, and Kreinik Silk Serica and Bella (my favourite fibres for Hardanger), added a few Swarowski crystals and lined it with silk dupion. I hope my mystery recipient likes it.

Naomi has been eyeing up some lace shorts. 
They are not cheap. 
This pair was. 

• Take one pair of jeans from the charity shop. 
• Chop off the legs and save for future, as yet undecided, project. 
• Pin some vintage lace round the raw edges so it overlaps the raw edge. (This was some I found in the bottom of my aunt's sewing box, it seems to be the hem from a 50's/60's lace coat dress that had been shortened). 
• Machine zigzag in place (zigzagging will help stop the denim from fraying further)

I added a tiny extra scrap of lace to the pocket at the front, and stitched one of my enormous collection of vintage crochet coasters to the arse pocket*. These have been officially labelled as cool, so I must have got something right ;D

The other upcycled project started life as a vintage pillowslip. (Well, technically I suppose it started life a s a nice crisp new pillowslip, but you know what I mean) The funky retro graphic came from The Graphics Fairy ~ a great source for vintage copyright free graphics ~ I printed it out onto photo fabric (found on EvilBay), appliqued it to the front, and popped a little vintage button on each corner for fun.  I cut a little bit off the top of the pillowslip, made a casing and threaded a manky old shoelace  funky vintage drawstring through and ta da, a nifty laundry bag for Eloise to take away to college in September. 
Now I need to explain that the idea is not to mail it home when it gets full...
I'll be linking this post up to Think Pink Sunday at Flamingo Toes and Brag Monday at The Graphics Fairy.
* Blogger does not recognise the spelling of the word "arse", mind you, it doesn't recognise the spelling of the word "Blogger" either...