Onto the green

I'm going to be busy busy busy doing green ripples this week.





I'm running behind schedule. This is only no.13 of 20 cushions... Was it a full 
week ago I was on no.11? 





The first week of school has been very distracting. Yes, I'm starting to panic.





The pattern is Lucy's and the yarn is Jo's.





Hope it's a good week for you :)

Pattern making (of a different sort)

I found this wonderful book on drafting your own patterns and thought it might 
be fun to try this method of dressmaking construction... (I've decided the just-cut-
and-adapt-later method is rather wasteful).



And this is what I made...



I asked my big girl for a description of her 'perfect dress', took exhaustive 
measurements and then drafted my pattern. I made a mock-up in calico, which 
ended up being the lining.



It's not perfect but all in all I think it's okay. She loves it too and has already worn 
it out and about (which surely with any teenager is the real barometer of whether 
it's 'passed the grade'?!) ;)



Now she wants me to make her a dress from Belinda's and Susie's beautiful fabrics...
but she'll have to wait for a bit. We're off to the mountains for a break. I'm so 
looking forward to pure crochet time :) Oh, and I'm really looking forward to reading 
the new Haruki Murakami book too...


Have a lovely week!

Big News

I'm still reeling here from the amazing events of today... I have my first stockist!
They have placed an order for 20 cushions... and it's all come out of last Thursday's post! 



I think the word for how I'm feeling is  bemused ;)


The best part is that they insist on paying me what they are worth (wow!)... no more
simply covering costs with a little extra on the top... it's strange even contemplating it ;)



What to do with my pricing on Etsy though? Do I leave that at subsistence levels, 
ie. just covering costs? It's a difficult question. Maybe if I don't have the same 
products crossing over in both arenas I can get away with keeping things as they 
are on Etsy? So, from now on Etsy prices will be like mates-rates for fellow Etsians :)



As you've no doubt noticed by now, the red ripple is finished and made up into a 
cushion with natural linen and red buttons on the back. My other good news from 
today is that someone has already asked to buy it  :)



I don't know why I feel so guilty to be feeling so happy...  How ridiculous am I?
Hope you are having a wonderful day and week too.

Our Creative Spaces: Playing with New Technique

I've been doing lots of playing this week... experimenting with just what works 
(and doesn't) with the new-to-me crochet technique I posted on last week.



Play 1: Multiple colours and creating shapes and shading.
So, multiple colours (I had three going at once) was straight forward.
Creating shapes wasn't too bad (as long as you don't mind a fuzzy definition!) 
but shading didn't really work. 







Play 2: One colour small shapes.
This was very easy and much more effective. The shapes still don't have definition 
but instead look like paint dabs, which I rather like. I like the little speckly peeks of
colour you can see in the spaces in between too :)





Play 3: I did try text too but it was just terrible AND I forgot to take a photo before
madly unravelling it all... sorry ;)


Anyway, I feel like I understand the limitations of this technique a bit more.
I also added bits here and there so I can make something useful out of it...
I'm thinking it could make a cute pencil case if I fold up the halves and crochet a
couple of panels for the sides? 
Just an idea... you may see it in the shop one day ;)


Hope you've had a great week... Find more creative spaces here.





p.s. I have a 500 posts giveaway that will be drawn this Sunday 30th October.


p.p.s. There's also a Pay it Forward happening if you're keen?




UPDATE
I have crocheted sides and have an almost pencil case.
All it needs now is some lining and a zipper....

Our Creative Spaces - Crochet Couture in Progress

Okay, so the title is very misleading... The inspiration was crochet couture 
but I guess mine is simply crochet clothing item in progress ;)





Inspired by the amazing creations of Helen Rodel some months ago now, 
I began hooking away at a bubble cluster, adding a bit of track stitch here 
and there for relief.





The idea is to finish with one of those midriff over-smock 'knits'.





These are the stitches I've used...

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

I'm going to crochet back and front together when I've got them to the same 
length and do a continuous row of the track stitch at the base I think.


It's falling off my shoulders at the moment so I'll have to do some more
track stitch at the top as well.

What's in your Creative Space today? See more here.

Our Creative Spaces - MOF 1

Sometimes you know you have to do things, finish things... but it just doesn't 
happen for a long time. Alisa mentioned having a month of finishing (MOF) a 
couple of weeks ago and I decided it was long overdue for me too. 


Do you remember this skirt? It's from way back in January. A crochet hexagon 
make-it-up-as-you-go-along kind of skirt. 





Of course, the problem with those kind of craftings is that they so often go 
wrong. It's been sitting in my craft room for months now... ever since I realised
that my improvised waistband had made it about two sizes too big....

The original idea was to draw it together with some braid... but there's only so far you 
can draw crocheted hexagons and the clumpy look was not good.

 Then I decided my clumpy waistband would actually look quite sweet 

as the hem edging...  so I flipped it around.

I remembered the amazing shirred fabric I bought on my trip to Chicago 
(It was love at first sight. I knew it would come in handy!) ... and so it has :)


I cut off a strip less than the skirt width (winging it again) and sewed it to the 
now-top of the skirt. There was a cheat factor here, though – I didn't have 
any more of the yarn, so instead of crocheting half-hexes to make a straight 
edge, I sewed along and cut off half of every second hex ;)

One finished crochet hexagon skirt with shirred fabric waistband :) 

I can't believe how it all seemed to come together this time... serendipity.

What have you been up to in your creative space? Visit here to see more.

My Creative Space - Trying to Design

I'm playing along with Kirsty's My Creative Space this week. 

Visit Kootoyoo to join in or to see more spaces.

This week I've been procrastinating a lot. I haven't been sewing, I haven't been crocheting, I've done a bit of painting/drawing, but mostly I've been faffing about trying to decide on an Atomic design to burn a screen.

I've realised... 

(a) my blocks are falling apart and I just can't keep individually block printing the design each time (my poor thumbs!), and 

(b) that each time I block print the design it's all spur of the moment whimsy regarding placement... no two are the same!

So, I'm trying to decide on a final design... it's not going well ;)

So I've been amusing myself with making triangle patterns... 

Happy Creative Space everyone! I hope you've been more creative than me! ;)


I have a giveaway (below) too, if you're interested...

Molly's Dress: Finished!

Yep, it's actually finished! I've taken my time on the last bits - I don't know about you but I could so easily imagine coming this far and wrecking it in the final stages. So, it's been slowly slowly here.

Funny thing is I'm so relieved and sorry at the same time. It was a project I'd thought way beyond my reach that has really challenged me. I haven't given myself a challenge in a while but it's actually a very invigorating thing to do. I'd forgotten how satisfying it is to extend yourself. Okay, enough grinding the organ! Moralising over. I can finally say it: Drumroll please! Molly's dress is done.

Tell me about your latest challenge?