Liberty Teacup Pincushion

I've had a teacup pincushion for years - I made it back in 2008 when I first took up sewing again, and it's been very useful. Lately though, it's been looking a little sad:

Such a mess - faded, worn and discolored! So last week I thought I would give it a bit of a makeover. I used a small piece of my favorite Liberty of London Tana Lawn fabric, and re-used the same teacup. The inside is poly-fill mixed with steel wool, this is meant to keep the needles nice and sharp.

Making a teacup pincushion is really easy. You start by making a ball shape using fabric and poly-fill (or you can use quilt batting, wool, thread and fabric scraps, or whatever else you happen to have on hand), and then simply glue the ball to the inside of your teacup. I used the saucer as well - that way you have somewhere to put your seam ripper, bobbins and all those other little things that have a way of disappearing right when you need them...

This was a quick and easy project, and it added some color to my sewing area. Win-win! If you feel like making your own teacup pincushion, here is a link to a tutorial that explains the whole process in more detail.

Subversive Machine Embroidery

Hallelujah, we have Internet access! This past week we've been having a ton of problems with our Internet provider, and while I'm not sure everything's fixed yet, at least we finally have access. It's true what they say, you don't know how much you depend on the Internet until it's taken away.

Less time browsing Facebook and Pinterest has meant more time for crafting, though. Among other things I reorganized the two closets that house my craft supplies, and this gave me the energy to finish off a couple of WIPs that have been hanging around in there for way too long. A great feeling!

I am a big fan of the craftivism movement and sites like Subversive Cross Stitch. Ever since my mom got her Husqvarna Viking Designer Diamond sewing machine, I have been brainstorming ways to combine that subversive feel with the medium of machine embroidery. I'm not much of a cross stitcher myself (not enough patience!) so when mom introduced me to the cross stitch software that came with her Designer Diamond, I was understandably thrilled. I've spent many hours in her studio sewing and creating, but only this week did I get around to actually mounting the finished pieces. Here are a few of them!

I mounted most of the pieces in embroidery hoops because that's what I had on hand, plus I like the look. But I also had a couple of thrifted picture frames which worked well after a fresh coat of paint.
 

 That pink frame now houses another "Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Human Rights" embroidery which is winging its way off to a friend to become a birthday present  for her sister. That's part of the charm with machine embroidery - once you have a design programmed and ready to go, you can make several versions of the same design quickly and conveniently, experimenting with different color combinations, background fabrics, sizes and so on. The top picture in this post shows the same "Girls" embroidery on a really nice structured linen - I will be using that fabric again for sure!


I also made a couple of hoops featuring "subversified" Swedish sayings. Not sure what I'll do with them yet, I might have to start a hoopla wall to feature them all. Right now my mind is reeling with ideas for more subversive machine embroidery, so I'm sure there will be more to come!

Do you have any ideas for sayings, quotes, factoids or anything else you think would fit on a cross stitch wall hanging? I would love to hear your ideas!

Crafty 2008 (part 2)

Time for some more pictures! This first one is from last summer. It shows my pincushion, made from a thrifted teacup. I love teacup pincushions, they're both pretty and practical! There's a tutorial here if you'd like to make your own. You can also see one of my ATCs in the picture, and the Booties I made when Stella was born.

The next photo shows a little bunny embroidered for Stella last fall... The cute pattern is a freebie from Wee Wonderfuls - check it out here! I turned it into a little doll but I actually think it was cuter before I stuffed it!

The last photo is actually from 2007, and it certainly isn't my own work.. But I just had to share it! Look at this vintage wedding dress! Look at those puff sleeves! All those ruffles! I just love it! :-D

Have a great week!

Swap stuff

At the beginning of the year I joined a couple of small craft swaps over at Craftster. Cutting back on swapping is one of the many ways I'm trying to save money this year, but it's way too much fun to give up completely! So I've decided I'm only joining swaps that are small, low postage, and allow me to work from my stash.

For these latest swaps I decided to make some stamps - I bought about four sheets of grade A PZ Kut a while back so it was a great way to de-stash! These are the stamps I made!

A little mermaid to suit my swap partner's mermaid theme. This was probably one of the fiddliest stamps I've ever made, and I'm not completely happy with the way the scales turned out. I need to get a finer blade!

This little turtle was adapted from an image in my partner's Wists, so it's not my original artwork, but I still really like it!

Quick gift

I'm back! Still getting used to the new computer (the screen is twice as big as the one we had before! Everything is huge!) and I had another Economics exam yesterday... Hence the recent lack of posts. But I thought I'd share a little gift I made for a friend's birthday last week. This post over at Sweeet Jessie's blog is what inspired me.

I found a Moleskine cashier notebook, some scraps, and went to work. It's so simple it's almost silly! All you have to do is arrange your pieces on the cover, use a tiny bit of glue (I used my trusty UHU stick) to secure them, and then sew all over the cover in any pattern you like. Here's my first one, I'm sure there will be more of them in the future!

What do you think? All the fabric came from my stash. I'm in love with the red paisley fabric, it comes from an old skirt my mom wore way back in the 70's. I'm trying to think of more stuff to make with it... Any ideas?

I'm still alive

We're having another heat wave over here, and I've been stuck inside studying... Phew! But now I'm finally done with my exam, so I've had a little bit of time to craft. I really wanted to do some sewing, but inspiration still hasn't hit. So instead, I decided to make another batch of homemade paper. Last week when I visited my mom, I mentioned that I remembered making paper with her when I was little. Luckily she still had a screen left, so we whipped up a first batch. We used recycled newspaper, and we didn't use a blender (mom wasn't to keen on wrecking her expensive blender with paper goo...) so the pulp had a lot of chunks in it. Here is what the finished sheets looked like:


This second time I made more of a serious attempt, and I followed this tutorial over at flickr - I can totally recommend it, it's super detailed! I put more white paper in the pulp this time, and I used my old cheapo blender. Worked like a charm! Here's a picture of the second attempt:


I'm not sure whether you can see it in the photos, but this batch came out a lot smoother and lighter than the first - which is great, since I'm hoping to stamp on it with some of the awesome stamps I received in the stamp swap at Craftster.

And this evening, since it's too hot to do anything else, I went through some of the paper that was going to the recycling, and shredded it in preparation for another batch of paper sometime later this week! :)


Have fun in the heat!

Thrifty weekend

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who left such nice comments about my quilt! I posted a thread about it on Craftster, and it got so much attention that my quilt was featured in the "Hot New Projects" section for a while:

It was great fun and also resulted in some new readers for this little blog, so I'm happy!

This weekend hasn't involved a lot of crafting, but I did do a lot of craft-inspired shopping! I'm still scouting the Gothenburg area for good thrift stores, and I haven't found any that I really love yet. Any Gothenburg residents reading this, let me know which stores you like! On Saturday I went to a flea market in a part of town called Bellevue, and spent about an hour wandering around in search of craft-worthy objects - keeping my eyes peeled for deals with the help of a slightly less enthusiastic boyfriend. Keith has been working the late shift for a few days now, so he wasn't overly excited about getting up early to look for wool sweaters and teacups. He puts up with a lot, poor man! :-) I found a few neat things at the Bellevue market, but you do have to wade through a lot of rubbish to get to the good stuff, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got a lot of patience! On Sunday, we went to a big thrift store called Holmens Marknad. We didn't stay there too long as they mainly sold furniture, and our little apartment is pretty full as it is! But of course I didn't leave empty-handed. Here are the results of my thrifty weekend:



The lovely blue and green fabric is a bed sheet, I'm not sure what to use it for yet but I love the print! I'm afraid my camera isn't quite good enough to show the pretty colors. The second pic shows a couple of nice wool sweaters that are going to become mittens, brooches and other neat things inspired by Betz White and her amazing felted wool creations. And I'll leave you with my very favorite purchase: these cute buttons that I foresee will be used a lot in the future as my sister is due to give birth to a baby girl next month!