Attic24

Making the Seasons :: October

Helloooooo!!! Welcome to the twelth and final installment of Making The Seasons! I cannot quite believe that a whole year has passed since I first discovered Craftpod, inspiring me to embark on a monthly mission to make something inspired by the seasons. It's been a hugely enjoyable year long project, made even more special by the fact that I've been joined each month by my friend Gillian at Tales from a Happy House. There is something undeniably appealing about sharing the creative urge with a like minded soul who thinks along very similar lines, and I have love love loved creating my monthly makes with Gillian. Our styles are very different, but it's been delightful to see what each month has brought forth for us both and I have truly loved every single project.

For this month {October} I decided to make one of the projects from the Autumn Craftpod box, as these delightful subscription boxes are still making my heart beat as fast as ever, a whole year after I first set eyes on them. The projects are so beautiful, and the whole box is always an absolute treat to receive through the post. This season there is a beautiful Autumn sampler to stitch, a paper mushroom sculpture to make and ooooo some gorgeous toadstoool washi tape which made me squeal!!!

Jo always pops a really lovely seasonal card into the box and the Autumn offering is just wonderful. It's an illustration by Brie Harrison who's work I fell in love with this year on Instagram, I just love the simplicity of her style and the emotions they evoke. 

Sticky tape and stitching aside, I decided I'd have a go at making the Mushroom Sculpture, designed by artist Kate Kato of Kasasagi Design. I've been a huge fan of Kate's work ever since reading all about her in Country Homes and Interiors (April issue) and then stalking her on Instagram......

image credit : Kasasagi Design

....oh her images make my toes curl with happiness!!!! She is so so so talented - you would never believe the things she manages to do with paper. Yes, paper!!! It's such a simple medium, but Kate manages to make it do magical things and her carefully constructed natural still life studies (made from JUST PAPER!!) are things of rare beauty.

image credit : kasasagi design

I love pretty much every single thing she makes (her butterflies and flowers are utterly delightful), but her Autumn studies are particularly stunning. 

So I was curious as to how she would translate her unique art into something that the masses could have a go at - would it actually be possible to make a paper sculpture that resembled a real living thing?

The essence of this project was very simple - there were a whole load of pre-printed shapes that needed to be folded in half and cut out, and then there was glue,  a single pipe cleaner and some tissue paper. Simple materials that promised to deliver great results if you followed the instructions and allowed plenty of time and patience.

There were 72 shapes to cut out to form the mushroom gills, and these shapes then had to all be methodically glued together. It trod a fine line between being meditative and tedious, but I did enjoy the simplicity of applying glue and sticking, knowing that by following some precise instructions, something beautiful would (hopefully) come about.

Once the gills had been assembled, it was time to create a mighty fine mushroom stalk, using nothing but a humble pipe cleaner and some ripped up pieces of tissue paper. 

This was good fun, if a little messy....

.... and honestly? I was a little bit proud of how my 'shroom stalk turned out! 

One of the things i love about Craftpod is the absolute attention to detail. For example, Jo had included the most teensy tiny cute wooden pegs in her box, simply for you to be able to hold the paper gills together whilst they dried. It was such a thoughtful touch, and one that I very much appreciated when I was flapping around with very gluey fingers, trying to hold everything together and make it stick.

The part where you have to glue the gills to the stalk was much harder than it sounded, and it's one of those things where you wish you had six hands. I somehow managed to make it all stick together, although I confess I got impatient and a bit antsy at this point and went in search of the hairdryer in order to speed up the drying process. A good blast with some hot air and I was satisfied that enough drying had happened, meaning I could safely proceed to the next part of the making process.....creating the mushroom top.

This was more fiddly, messy fun (note my fingers absolutely covered in glue), and involved ripping and sticking layers of tissue paper over the top of the paper gills. It was very faffy as it involved trying to spread the gills out evenly whilst sticking the tissue paper in place, made extra challenging by the fact that my fingers were sticking to absolutely everything, including the table.

I kept going, aided by Little B encouraging me along and telling me that I was doing great. I think he was really very impressed that I was attempting to make a lifelike mushroom - gawd I seriously love that my children do not ever, ever question my weirdness. I mean, doesn't every mother spend hours creating fungi out of glue and paper, purely for pleasure??!!

The very last step involved brewing up a very strong concoction of tea, and painting it around the bottom edges of the mushroom. I was doubtful about this (I thought my mushroom already looked fab), but the difference it made was astonishing. It somehow transformed my paper 'shroom cap into something that looked very un-paper like, and honestly I just couldn't quite believe what I was holding in my hand.

Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wish, wish, wish that I hadn't been in a major rush to get out the door and deliver Little B to his friends house for a Halloween sleep over, cos I would have loved to style this project to death. The mushroom was just begging to be beautifully photographed with all manor of natural Autumn finds, but I simply didn't have time to faff. So a few feathers from my feather stash (yes, of course I have a handy feather stash) and a few leaves fallen from the tree at number 28, and that had to do.

I am so so pleased with this make - it is so humble (paper and glue!)....

....but so oddly fascinating and beautiful at the same time.

I have a new found respect for all paper/glue artists, it's not the light breeze that you would think and requires a huge amount of attention to detail and painstaking patience.

I was thinking that I would quite like a proper home for my paper mushroom - maybe a small pot full of moss, with a critter or two crawling about....wouldn't that be lovely?

But for now it's resting quietly on the mantel, looking all natural and eye catching. I rather like it.

Please do go and see what Gillian has been making this month, her seasonal posts are always beautifully photographed and a real inspiration. You can find all of my previous MTS posts {here}

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps my September project is finished and I'll be taking some photographs of it to share with you very soon xx

pps..................couldn't resist taking one more photo................

ppps.....I've just found a wonderful video showing Kate Kato at work - please do take a look, it's just wonderful xx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: September

By the time you read this, Yarndale will have been and gone and I'll most likely be collapsed in an unglorious heap. The weeks leading up to Yarndale are incredibly busy and full on for me, and I generally get through September feeling like I am clinging on by my fingertips. The juggling of my responsibilities can be overwhelming to be honest, but I try and take it in stride and not let myself get swept up in too much anxiety. I've been kept very busy working on the big Creative Community display for the festival which this year is all about butterflies. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who made and sent butterflies for Yarndale (360 of you joined in - thank you!!!) - I've taken lots of photos to share with you next week.

Being up to my eyes in colourful butterflies for much of this month has meant that I've not had the time to do my Making the Seasons project. Wah!!!! I'm so disappointed that I haven't managed it (despite trying to be uber-organsied and planning it out well in advance this month), but that's just the way it is sometimes. So I thought I'd show you a little of my thinking/inspiration right now, with a view to actually getting creative in early October once life returns to more of an even keel. 

You may remember a few weeks ago I shared my crochet coat hanger project with you? Oh, that was such a delightful and spontaneous bit of hooky delight! I loved making it, and have been admiring it hanging on the back of my door ever since. I made the coat hanger specifically to act as a pretty prop for this upcycling project that I had in mind - I got it into my head that I wanted to have a go at jazzing up an old cardigan with a bit of colourful decoration. 

At the start of the month I searched on eBay for some likely woolly candidates - I wanted a plain coloured cardigan with pockets that I could add some embroidery to. After much crossing of fingers and some optimistic bidding, I failed miserably on eBay and lost all of the bids on all of the cardigans in spectacular fashion. So I decided to go on  a little charity shop run instead, and the Gods of Unloved Items must have been looking after me because they delivered an absolute beauty right into my hands in the very first shop I looked in.

I snagged this lovely teal coloured lambswool jumper for a very acceptable £3.99 in the British Heart Foundation shop, and I pretty much skipped out of there with a massive grin on my face. Hazzah!!! Who needs eBay with it's vastly over priced auction goods?!!!!!

The cardigan in question is of good quality and a lovely colour, but when I showed it triumphantly to Little Lady she raised her eyebrows and pronounced it "fit for an old granny". I admit the buttons are a little old fashioned, and most likely a Teen isn't going to think much of a second hand v neck woolly cardy, but I have great plans in my head for this garment. Granny Chic is within my grasp!

First thing I did was to search out some new buttons. I absolutely love love love cardigans with quirky mismatched buttons, always have done and probably always will. I searched on Amazon for something suitable and found myself paddling in a whole huge sea of button choices - so many buttons to go at! after much deliberation I decided on these little 15mm wooden buttons so that I could keep the size/shape of the button uniform but mix and match the patterns.

They are seriously cute, just look!

Here is the cardigan in all it's granny-ish glory. I've decided not to do anything too radical to it - all I really want to do is change up the buttons and put something pretty on the pockets.

I've long been a fan of folk-art style embroidery, and this lovely teal colour makes the perfect backdrop for some folksy flowers I think. Let me show you what I mean.......

.....I know these are mittens, but the woolly embroidery is just so gorgeous, don't you agree? And you can see how this might work on the pockets of my cardy? I can see it!! I want to do it so badly!!

These mittens are the work of Nienke Landman who lives and works in the Netherlands (I think. I'm pretty sure her blog is written in Dutch). I first came across her on Instagram - her photos are an absolute inspirational delight and never fail to make me swoon with pleasure. This lady is so talented! She knits and crochets and embroiders the most wonderful, colourful things, and images of her lifestyle do something to my heart which makes it feel like it's being squeezed. It makes me feel excited, emotional and full of joy, and maybe just a little bit in love with it all. Please do go peek at her Instagram feed and take a little scroll, you will see what I mean I'm sure. And as an extra bonus, there is a most charming video to watch too. It's beautiful. All of it swoon-worthy. 

Out of all the beautiful images by Mooi Van Draad, it's these embroidered woollen mittens and gloves which I have fallen deeply in love with. The stitches are simple but so beautifully done, and the sweet little colourful folksy designs have captured my heart.

Incidentally, as I was drinking in all the images, I came across one of a stitching-in-progress (SIP?!) and was intrigued to see that she uses something that looks like a thin soluble fabric to stitch over? I guess it means you can draw out the design on the soluble fabric, embroider onto it, then dissolve the fabric away in water when you're done. I've never tried this technique, does anyone have any experience of it? I'm going to investigate where I can find this magic!!

As you will probably know, once you get sunk into researching something like this, it's like tumbling down a majorly huge rabbit hole. I got stuck in Pinterest for all eternity (well a good hour, maybe more), chasing links and clicking away on a gazillion images of woolly embroidery. The above mitts caught my eye and I tracked them down to Ravelry - they are called Dala-Floda mittens which for some inexplicable reason makes me want to snort with laughter. I'm sure there's a meaningful translation behind those words, but they sound so comical to my English ears. 

At the very end of my Pinterest marathon, I found these embroidered leg warmers which made me gasp out loud - OH!!!!! SO so so beautiful!! Although to be honest I think I would prefer to see these on my arms rather than down there on my legs. They really are lovely, and I feel very inspired to try designing some woolly embroidery pocket motifs.

So that's pretty much where I'm up to as of now - I'm itching to get my stitchy fingers going with this, hopefully in the next few weeks once I've recovered from Yarndale. I'm going to try and find out more about the soluble embroidery fabric, and gather together some suitable yarn (I'm thinking 4ply merino - I've got a stash of this in my studio). I'll be sure to post a MTS : September : Part 2 post to share the outcome of the Granny Cardy - I hope after all this sharing that it's going to work out - no pressure or anything!

Gillian and I are almost at the end of our Making The Seasons year with just one more month left to go....do pop over to her beautiful blog and see what she has been up to in September, it's very inspirational.

You can find all my previous Making The Seasons posts {{ here }}. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

Making the Seasons :: August

Hellooooooo, and welcome to my little Attic space, it's been a bit quiet here of late but all is well and I'm happy to be back. I've got so much to share with you too, this month has whizzed past like a super-whizzy thing and I can hardly believe that here we are on the cusp of a new school year already. Although it's still Summer (it is, it is, it is), I've noticed that the light is different all of a sudden, and our days are very noticeably shrinking. There's been an ever-so-slight crispness to the air, a delicate wisp of autumn every so often which I mostly try and ignore (summer, summer, summer!) but I can't deny that seasonal change is on it's way.

When I was thinking of my August Making the Seasons project a few weeks ago, I immediately felt like making something very obviously summery. I wondered about trying to do something with shells and seaglass, but I couldn't quite get my brain to come up with anything creative that wasn't too faffy or demanding. I've been very very low in mental energy just lately, which has made me want to stay firmly ensconced within my creative comfort zone. And that means crochet. Of course! If in doubt, a hook and yarn will always satisfy my creative urges, it never fails to lift my spirits and make me happy.

With the shortening days and my continuing erratic sleep patterns, I've been getting up very early most mornings whilst it's still dark. Fairy lights and candles (and coffee) are making these dark, quiet starts to the day feel rather nice and I've not minded it in the slightest. So it seems fitting that for this month I decided to have a go at crocheting some glass jar candle lantern covers. I'm sure you know the sort of thing I mean, there are a tonne of pretty images online. They are usually quite delicate and lacy, with pretty holey patterns to let the candle light shine through.

As I still had seaglass on my mind, I chose three soft, summery beach glass shades for my lanterns. This is Stylecraft Classique cotton in the lighter 4ply weight - the colours are Soft Lime, Peppermint and Sky Blue. And I used a 3mm hook.

I am lucky enough to have the sort of neighbours who will willingly rootle through their cupboards and present me with half eaten out-of-date condiments when I ask quite casually if they have any spare jars knocking about. As you can see from the above photo, the jars I managed to round up are smaller than the average jam jar - these ones contained mustard, sweet chili jam and pesto at one time and worked especially well for this project.

 

I didn't even contemplate designing my own pattern for this as I knew for a fact that there were already some lovely crochet patterns online that I could use. I settled on a simple design by Icelandic blogger Ólöf Lilja - you can find an English version of the pattern HERE. Please note that the pattern is written using US crochet terms.

 

 

Crocheting with 4ply yarn takes some getting used to, it felt ever so slightly fiddly at first but I soon got used to the smaller hook and more delicate stitches. 

I love the ease of this pattern which is worked from the bottom up using simple stitches. You have to be prepared to adjust and adapt the pattern depending on your yarn, tension and size of jar, but on the whole crochet is pretty forgiving and even cotton 4ply has enough stretch in it to allow it to ease when you need it to.

I ended up changing the original pattern and instead of using double-treble stitches, I made shorter treble stitches instead. This made my lantern slightly less holey, but I'm really happy with the results. I also had trouble reading the instructions to create the top part (the bit which goes around the neck of the jar), I just couldn't for the life of me understand what I was supposed to be doing. So I made up my own instructions, working rows of double crochet, then finishing with a last round of crab stitch.

I was able to crochet the whole cover without having the jar inside - you do need to check if the neck of the cover is going to stretch enough to fit over the jar! This is really important!! The first cover I made, the top edge was too small/tight and no matter how many bad words I said I just couldn't get the jar to magically squeeze inside. So I frogged all the dc rows then re-made the top part adding in more stitches, checking it as I went along. Happy to say it worked out fine the second time.

I've got some sweet peas on my table in a small ink bottle at the moment, and it occurred to me that they would look fabulous sitting inside a little bit of hooky. They do look sweet don't they?

But no time to faff with the floral booty - I've got more jars to cover in hooky goodness!

The littlest jar cover was very quick to make, and it was very much easier to get the top edge to fit this time as I knew what to do and how to check it as I went along. 

The third jar (an old mustard jar) has curved sides and a small bottom (sounds delightful!) so I had to alter the starting circle to make it smaller but other than that I followed the exact same pattern. The crochet happily stretched to accommodate the curves of the jar so there was no need to alter the pattern at all.

I whipped these jar covers up in a few hours, such a satisfying little project from start to finish. 

I did wonder about adding some extra decoration (I could picture a delicate row of mother of pearl buttons along the top edge), but in the end I decided to keep it simple.

I really LOVE the effect of the crab stitch edging - this is the first time I've ever tried it and I think it gives a beautiful, understated finishing touch.  

Lots of the crochet jar lanterns I saw online were made using white or natural coloured yarn, but I'm so glad I chose colours for mine. During the day they will be unlit on my mantel, and I wanted them to look as pretty and summery as possible.

I couldn't wait to pop come candles inside and light them up - this was pretty much the one and only time when I wished the daylight hours away so that I could see the effect of them lit in the dark!

They look sooooooooo pretty all lit up! They create dancing shadows on the wall behind and a lovely soft glow in the room. I really like the lacy effect way more than I thought I would. I'm usually one for solid and rich colours, but these soft pastel holey things have surprised and delighted me.

I'm so happy with my lanterns! I'm going to search for some scented tealight candles so that I can enjoy some dancing light and fragrance at the darkened ends of the day. 

Did you know that my first Making the Season post was way back in November last year, which makes this the tenth installment? You can read all my previous posts {here}

I absolutely love creating these seasonal makes with my blogging friend Gillian - our creative styles are very different but that's what makes it so exciting for us both. You can find all of Gillian's MTS posts {here}, do pop over and see what she's been up to this month.

And I'll be back very soon to catch you up to date with my Summer comings and goings. Lots to chat about!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: July

I've just spent a happy time looking all the way through my Making the Seasons posts right from the very beginning. I have really loved seeing my creative makes subtly change as they've moved through the seasons, and am excited to share this latest installment with you. Working on a monthly seasonal making project with my lovely friend Gillian is so much fun! I do find it quite a challenge to come up with something new and exciting each month, but it's the best type of challenge. I find that I can't really think about it too far in advance either as I tend to work best when I'm feeling totally spontaneous and just a wee bit pushed for time. 

I decided earlier in the week that my July Making The Seasons post would be all about butterflies. We have a buddleia (butterfly) bush growing at the front of our house, and after some dramatic self-pruning last year (it snapped!), this year it's grown back healthy and strong and is absolutely smothered in flowers. It reaches to just below our bay window which means that we get a terrific aerial view of all the winged critters arriving at their favourite flower-restaurant. 

So far this year I haven't seen many different species (I'm going to be taking part in the Big Butterfly Count once we head into August) - mainly Small Tortoiseshells, Peacocks and Large and Small Whites. No Red Admirals or Painted Ladies yet, but I'm hopeful that I might get to see some before the summer is out.

I absolutely adore butterflies, and have done ever since being a small child. Does anyone remember the Brooke Bond picture cards that came inside packets of tea in the 1970's? There were a whole host of different subjects to collect (J remembers collecting dinosaur cards) and I was an avid collector of the butterfly cards. I so clearly remember having the exact book pictured above, although I've no idea what happened to it.  

I bought this one from eBay a few years ago, partly for the nostalgia gig, but also because I love the butterfly illustrations so much....

....there are 50 in total, with interesting educational facts given on each page. I love this book and even though I only paid £3 for it, it feels very precious to me. I wonder who it once belonged to? Who collected and glued in all the little cards? Who cared for it and kept it in such good condition for the past forty years? I wish I knew.

This is my modern day guide to the butterflies of the British Isles, bought after a trip down to Dorset when I saw so many species that I couldn't identify. I really, really wanted to have that knowledge tucked away inside my brain so that I could pass it on to the Little People, or at the very least have a nifty chart or book so that I could find out. Well now I do have the nifty chart, I just need to remember to take it with me when we go to likely butterfly-ish places.

So back to Making the Seasons. In the interests of complete honesty and disclosure, I have to tell you that I ordered up some very pretty edible butterfly cake toppers (these ones, aren't they lovely?) with the idea that I would bake and decorate some beautiful and highly photogenic butterfly buns as part of my seasonal July project. And......it didn't happen in time, not just yet. I do still intend to do some butterfly-inspired baking with Little B and I shall be sure to show you the results, but for now, my butterfly offerings are going to be inedible and made of yarn.

Do any of you have the above books by Lesley Stanfield? They are absolutely brilliant and I can highly recommend them if you like creating decorative bits of nature. I find the patterns a bit on the tricky side to decipher, but with the combination of written pattern, graphic chart and photos it's usually possible to fudge it enough to make a passable go of it.

Earlier in the week I set myself up at the dining table for a creative butterfly-making session, all giddy at the prospect of getting to play with my colourful cotton yarns. On the right hand side the yarn is Stylecraft Classique Cotton DK (50g balls) and on the left are the dinky little Ricorumi balls (25g) that I bought for mandala making. Frothy chocolate dusted coffee and I was ready to hook up a whole swarm of pretty winged critters.

Drank the coffee whilst browsing through the books, trying to decide which butterfly to attempt first. The patterns made my head swim, so I popped outside for a bit of a breather and when I came back in, a new ball of fluff had been added to the pile. Cheeky little kitty.

My first attempt was a Large White butterfly which looked gorgeous in the book. The designer had managed to create the look of veins running up the wings by very cleverly using double-treble front and back post stitches (uh-huh, dtr post stitches). This was not at all easy to execute and I got into a right old mess with it. I kept getting muddled up with the wrong side and right side, and the front and the back post business just got the better of me. I made one (rubbish) wing and am sorry to tell you that it flew right off my hook and straight into the bin...whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Onto the next try.................

Second attempt was the yellow Brimstone, and I managed a bit better with this one. I liked it because there was no turning (all the stitches were made in a long line into a foundation chain) so there was no confusion with trying to work out wrong side and right side. Some of the stitches were seriously tall though (quadruple-trebles) which made the wings look a bit holey and loopy but I like the overall shape of them.

On the same page as the Brimstone was a Golden Haristreak which I decided to make using blue yarn instead. This one was made in two parts which were then stitched together and my brain quite liked the way this one was designed. I could see the logic in the shaping and how to make each wing, and I crocheted it up with no problem.

I decided to add a little bit of decorative stitching around the outer edge of the wings - it occurred to me that butterfly wings are just crying out for little itty bits of decorative stitching. You could really go to town making them look as pretty as possible with all sorts of embroidery stitches.

So one abandoned wing in the bin and two butterflies complete (and actually looking like butterflies) and I was on a roll.

I need to make more! 

A quick flick through the book again - oooooo I LOVE the Peacock butterfly, but that's a knitted pattern and so not within my capabilities at all. Hmmm.....what about the Camberwell Beauty? That looks pretty and I like the shape of the wings very much. Lets give it a go!

This was another pattern where you had to work each wing in turn, making short rows back and forth using different stitch heights to shape the wings. A little picot to add some detail on the wing edge - very nice.

Second upper wing now, a mirror image of the first.....

.....wait a minute that doesn't look right, what happened there? The second wing is upsidedown? OK, no worries, I'll just pull it out and start the second wing again.

NOooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! The second time I tried, I ended up with exactly the same upsidedown issue, so I'm sorry but wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, into the bin it flies. There will be no Camberwell Beauty in my swarm.

What's next?

A Red Admiral, yes I think I can do this.

Yay!!!! It has four wings that look like wings should!

I had to fudge the black crochet edging quite a bit, making it up more than reading the pattern, but overall I'm happy with how it turned out.

When I looked on my nifty butterfly identification chart, I saw that the crochet version wasn't quite as accurate as it should be. Red Admirals have white patterning on their wings which make them very distinctive, so I decided to add a little bit of white stitching.

There, that's better - the white detail made all the difference. I love my Red Admiral!

Three butterflies on my table, and a day or two goes by. I sit myself down for another making session and decide to attempt an Orange Tip this time.....

Similar to the second butterfly I made, this one starts out as one line of stitches and I like this method. 

It didn't take me very long at all to make this lovely butterfly, and I was amazed at how real it looked. I saw a few orange tip butterflies a few weeks back when we were walking up in the Yorkshire Dales, and had remembered how vivid those little  flashes of orange and black are in real life.

I felt really inspired by this little butterfly, so decided to be brave and attempt something of my own from scratch.

I chose to make a Small Tortoiseshell as this is one of my best favourite butterflies and the ones we see most often fluttering around our butterfly bush. I used my nifty guide to learn the shape of the wings, and set to work. This was crochet on the fly and I didn't write a single thing down - I worked fast and concentrated hard, trying my best to create those symmetrical and beautifully shaped wings. After a lot of effort, I made something that actually looked really rather butterflyish, and I felt elated!

One of the reasons I wanted to try creating the Small Tortoiseshell was because of the patterns on the wings which I love so much. This was quite fiddly to do, but I worked the stitching slowly and methodically, one wing at a time until it was finished.....

.....ta-dah!!!!!!!!! An Attic24 original Small Tortoiseshell, which will most likely remain an original one of a kind. I can't think that I would ever want to try and do that again to be honest, it really was a bit of a labour of love.

The last butterfly I made was in two shades of blue, inspired by the Holly Blue male on my chart. This is another pattern designed by me, and this time I did make some notes as I was crocheting and shaping the wings. I still need to tweak it a little more, but I'm going to try and write the pattern up if I can. I fancy it would make a lovely little brooch and it would really make me happy to be able to make butterfly brooches in a whole rainbow of colours.

 So there you have it - the results of my butterfly making week. It's not a lot to show for what feels like a massive amount of expended brain power, but oh I do SO love them!!

I had a think about what I might like to actually do with these butterflies of mine - a mobile perhaps? A set of brooches? Stitch them to a summer wreath, or make a butterfly mandala?

I haven't had quite enough time to give the end result much thought to be honest, as it's been very blankety around here during the past week. 

But what I have really enjoyed doing is having a play with them, gosh, I had the MOST fun with this today! I often think that faffing and photographing handmade things is as much fun (if not more so) than the actual making process. I took a lot of photos - loads and loads of them - so here are just a few....

Ahhh........so lovely. Butterflies are incredibly joyful aren't they? The sight of them always makes me happy.

I have an idea that I'd like to create some sort of a picture with my crochet butterflies, kind of a nod to the rather old fashioned Victorian collectors displays found in natural history museums and old houses. I'll have a look for a suitable frame next time I'm out and about. I'm rather weirdly excited about this idea.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I've been up to this week with my hook and yarn - there may very well be more yarny butterfly business coming next week, I really want to work out that pattern to share with you.

In the meantime, I want to show you images from my virtual collection of Totally Inspirational butterfly-inspired art....

This is the incredible work of paper artist Kate Kato who works under the name "Kasasagi Designs". Kate makes delicate and very life like insects and plants using a combination of stitching and paper sculpting. The detail in her work is astounding and I love to see her beautiful compositions pop up on Instagram. I love all her work but her butterflies are especially appealing.

This is another crush of mine - the work of crochet artist Kate Jenkins. Yes, these insects are all crocheted!

I would love love love to see these crochet and embellished butterflies in real life, to really examine all their intricate detail right up close....but for now I'm just quietly swooning over the amazingness of them.

And lastly, I just stumbled across these beauties a few days ago on Pinterest whilst on a search for yarny butterfly inspiration. Aren't they gorgeous? These are also crocheted, but on a very different scale to the ones above - they are huge!

This Small Tortoiseshell butterfly isn't small at all and measures 28 x 20 cm.  I am completely smitten by it. Designed and made by Dutch designer MieksCreaties, you can actually buy the patterns to make all the different butterflies .....oh I am so so tempted! I really hate deciphering crochet patterns, but these crazy-beautiful things are calling my name. 

I think that's about all I've got to say about crochet butterflies for now - my mind is already wandering ahead to August and wondering what seasonal delights will ignite my creativity next month. Funny thing - I just typed moth instead of month, I think I've got winged insects on the brain!

Please do pop over and say hello to Gillian - her July Making the Seasons post is delicious and is making my mouth water! 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: June

As you have no doubt gathered by now I absolutely love having fresh flowers in the house and always try to have a jug of something pretty and floral on my dining table. Mostly the flowers I have indoors are cheap and cheerful seasonal market flowers, but at this time of year I prefer to have small home-grown posies in a jug, or even just a few tiny stems in an old glass ink bottle. Being able to go into my back yard and snip blooms to bring to the table is one of my all time favourite pleasures, gosh it makes me almost delirious with happiness to be able to do this simple thing.

This past week I've been enjoying a beautiful bunch of flowers bought very cheaply from the supermarket, although these aren't your typical supermarket offerings. I was thrilled (like almost peeing my pants excited) when I spotted a bucket of flower bunches labelled "Summer Growers Choice", or something like that (I knew I should have written it down, I just can't remember if these were the exact words, but you get the drift I hope?!). Each bunch was slightly different and contained a mixture of single stems, a real English cottage-style mixture which made me giddy with delight. I mean, just LOOOK at that delicious stem of pink snapdragons, isn't it ravishing?!!! 

But it was the daisy-like stems of Feverfew which really captured my heart. My Mum used to grow these all over the place, in the garden and at her allotment plot and I loved that she would have them in her cottage, spilling out of jugs and vases. Some people think that Feverfew is a weed as it freely self seeds and grows in the most unlikely of places. But it's actually a herb and has medicinal properties, although neither of those things matter much to me to be honest. Weed or herb, I don't particularly mind, I just love the old fashioned simplicity of this flower and the fact that it reminds me of Dorset and childhood.

Last week I'd been pondering on what I might like to make for the June edition of Making the Seasons, and knew it had to be something floral. Summer months are just overwhelmingly flowery in my mind, they really are. Inspired by the flowers on my table, I thought I might like to try stitching some daisies. Not just any old stitching, but that irresistible placement of weeny little crosses that has me so in it's grips at the moment.

I wanted my cross stitch to be small and simple - 2 shades of green, plus white and yellow.

A little square of pale grey 14 count aida and a dinky little 3 inch embroidery hoop.

Creating a design for such a small hoop is harder than it seems, and it feels like every single cross has to be very carefully considered and placed. However, I happen to LOVE this kind of design challenge and it didn't take me all that long to create a daisy design on my laptop that pleased me.

So do you see my lovely printed cross stitch chart??? I made that chart All By Myself!!!!!!!! Yes, I did indeed!!!! Well, with  a little bit of help from my other half. 

You see, my very, very, very talented and clever husbundo can write computer programs to do pretty much anything that tickles your fancy. So a few months ago when I casually told him that I might like to have a go at designing some cross stitch patterns, he offered to whip me up an app for my laptop. See how casual I made that sound?! In truth it took us a couple weeks to work on it together, and through trial and error with me figuring out what I needed as we went along we came up with a really fantastic and very workable cross stitch design app for me to play with.

I can select my thread colours to create a colour palette on my screen, then I'm able to click away on the little grid to fill each square with colour. It's soooooooo good!! 

Once I had my chart printed out I couldn't wait to get started on the stitching. As you can see, this is cross stitch on a very small scale so it didn't take long at all to stitch the stem and leaves.....

....and then start work on the flowers. As I stitched, I realised that I wanted to change one of the flowers (the little one on the right in the above photo, as it has no yellow centre showing and looked a bit forlorn). So I took my very sharp little scissors and hacked out the flower stitches completely (far harder to remove crosses than it is to frog crochet let me tell you), then went back to my computer, altered the chart and re-stitched...

.....ahhhhh, that's better!! So so so sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't tell you how proud I am of this dinky little design, it just pleases me so so much!

J's app also allows me to save these nifty stitch charts to my computer, so that I can then share them here on my blog if I want to.

I don't know if anyone is remotely interested in stitching themselves a tiny little daisy cross stitch, but if the idea grabs you then please feel free to use my chart :) If you want to print it out, you'll need to right click on the image, select copy image, then paste it into a word document to print.

You need 2 shades of green, plus white and a rich mustardy yellow. I used 3 strands of DMC embroidery thread when I made my cross stitches. And 14 count aida fabric, but I think I already said that.

The actual design (stitched on Aida 14) measures 5cm / 2 inches square. Find the centre of your fabric and start stitching from the centre of the design (which is marked on the chart). I think that's about it - cross stitch is pretty straight forward really.

This whole thing has been beyond exciting for me, and has opened up a delicious new part of my very greedy Creative Mind which is always on the look out for new things. Oh, the possibilities!!

Endless, exciting, thrilling possibilities for creating pretty seasonal designs to stitch with joy.

I can hardly contain myself.

The small scale of this 3 inch hoop is just delightful, and I really want to make more. More and more and more. For Summer, for Autumn, for every season throughout the year and everything nature inspired that makes me happy. I am thinking of little cross stitch strawberries now, or maybe some wispy summer grasses.........oh my heart!

I've popped my hoop on my mantel along with the feverfew daisies which found their way into my old glass ink bottle. I might eventually create a little bit of a display on the wall somewhere, if the stitched hoops start to grow and multiply and happen to become a collection.

So that's June for you, all joyful and stitchy and making my summer loving heart sing. I'm already wondering what July might be about, I never quite know what little seasonal thing will take a hold of my heart and bring forth a surge of creative inspiration. 

I hope you enjoy sharing in my seasonal inspirations and creative makes - you can find all previous months tagged in the {Making the Seasons} category. I love sharing my monthly making adventure with my bloggy friend Gillian - I've not seen her June project yet but I do know what it is and I am squeeeeeing with excitement waiting for her big reveal. We chat back and forth about our ideas and thoughts for each month, and it amazes me how different our individual styles are, but how similar our projects often turn out to be. This month we are especially in tune with each other......do go and see over on her blog Tales from a Happy House.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: May

Hello, and welcome to the May edition of my "Making the Seasons" series of posts - this month is entirely inspired by wild flowers and a bit of botanical going's on, as that seems to be my current fixation. In case you were wondering about my Making The Seasons projects, there is absolutely no forward planning whatsoever for the things that I choose to do for these monthly posts that I'm creating with my friend Gillian. I'm not sure if Gill plans her projects in advance, but I can tell you that I don't seem to be able to. I just trust that  a seed of creative inspiration will germinate and flower at the right time for me to execute it, photograph it and then show it all to you before the month comes to an end. Gillian and I do chat back and forth via email about what's bubbling inside our creative minds and what sort of inspirations we are enjoying for the month we are currently in, but it generally feels rather abstract as I digest my seasonal feelings and try and decide on a creative direction for them. 

During the past few weeks I've felt really uplifted by the abundance of growth happening all around where I live, it's been really inspirational and therapeutic on so many levels. I've loved walking in the woods, strolling beside the river and jaunting through the meadow, observing and photographing all the flowers, grasses and trees that are bursting back into life after our long winter season. Usually I am content to just use my camera to capture what I see on my walks, but last week I felt compelled to gather a few stems to bring home with me.

Meadow flowers and grasses are so dainty and pretty, and it's easy to overlook the perfect details when you are walking past great swathes of them. Much better to have a stem or two to be able to appreciate all that delicate beauty up close. I spent a while just observing the arrangement of these teeny tiny cow parsley flowers, and thinking how fabulous nature is at design work. I know that these sweet little flowers have provided botanical inspiration for many designers - did you know that you can buy Cow Parsley wallpaper? Or how about some Cow Parsley fabric? Maybe you'd rather like a Cow Parsley jug instead? Ahh, I know just the thing - what do you think about a crochet Cow Parsley Garland?!!

It might surprise you to know that I didn't automatically reach for my yarn and crochet hook to capture all this wild flower beauty.

And I didn't gather fabric and threads to stitch with either.

What actually popped into my head were.......................

.......................pebbles!

Bet you didn't see that coming, did ya?!

As you might expect from a self confessed sea addict, I have a fair collection of beach finds here in the Attic which include a smooth pebble or two. Having pebbles sitting in the house comes in rather handy when a sudden urge to try some botanical pebble art springs out of nowhere. I decided that I wanted to try and translate my May walks into a lovely decorative reminder of the season, partly inspired by these...................

photo credit : Natasha Newton

.......oh will you just cast your eyes over the beauty of these painted pebbles! Aren't they gorgeous?

This is the work of artist Natasha Newton and I've had a big huge smoochy crush on Natasha's pebbles for years now. They are absolutely exquisite in their detail and precision and I seriously adore the simplicity of the white designs against the natural pebbly backgrounds. Natasha uses a very fine brush with white acrylic paint to decorate her pebbles (you can get a great feel for her artistic talent on her Instagram account), but to be honest I don't think I have enough painterly skillz to try this technique for myself.

What I do have to hand though, is a very, very good paint pen which makes light work of adding a decorative touch to pretty much any surface. It's a bit like having a Magic Pen, as almost anything that comes out of it ends up looking rather good. I didn't plan my design in advance, but went straight into it, trying to capture something of the delicate nature of the Cow Parsley....

....and actually, I don't think it came out looking too shabby for a first attempt.

Now before we go any further, I have to tell you a bit more about these Posca Pens. Ohmygoodness, they are pens of wonderment! The one I'm using has an Ultra Fine nib (0.7mm), but you can get fatter ones too. They use water-based pigment ink to produce paint-like colours that can be used on almost any surface. The ink evenly flows out of the nib making them super-easy to use, and although they are water-based, the resulting designs on pebbles are pretty water resistant from what I can tell.

I bought my white pens from Amazon {Posca Ultra Fine white pens on Amazon UK :: Amazon US}

You can also get some beautiful coloured Posca pens too, although so far I've resisted this temptation. There is something very soothing about using just white, and I've enjoyed the simplicity of this approach very much.

I dug out four smooth pebbles from my collection, decorating three of them with botanical designs and the roundest one with a simple mandala design. Painted mandala stones are a BIG thing out in the world wide web, oh there are huge numbers to be found on Pinterest (go on, I know you want to see. Go take a quick peek here, but don't be long - hurry back to the Attic once you've had your fill of the visuals!)

Similar to crochet mandalas, decorated pebbles don't really have a use, but that's quite OK once you accept the fact and give in to the uselessness of them. I've had my pebbles sitting on my outside table with my gathered wild flowers, and they've made me feel content just being there and bringing forth sunny meadow memories. I love the feel of them in my hand, there is simple pleasure to be had in the feel of a smooth, sea-washed pebble passing under your fingers.

We've continued to have the most beautiful warm sunny weather here this past week, and on Sunday we took a short walk at our favourite weekend destination :: Bolton Abbey.

I enjoyed the lush, dappled woodland pathways....

....and the abundance of wild flowers growing along the river bank.

Ah see over there, on the other side of the river? That's one of our favourite river beaches, and once we cross over the bridge a bit further down, we'll be able to hop over to potter about a bit.

It's not the seaside and there aren't any waves, but there are lots of tranquil little river beaches to be enjoyed all along the River Wharfe in this part of the Yorkshire Dales.

The riverside pebbles are just as appealing and pebbly as those found at the coast...

....and instead of seagulls there are fluffy ducklings which kind of makes up for the lack of waves.

We pootled at the beach for quite a while, enjoying the morning sunshine and the peaceful atmosphere. The boys spent their time searching for suitable flat stones for skimming across the water, and I searched out a few suitable smooth stones for decorating purposes.

The following morning, I sat outside with my coffee and a couple of magazines, and was thrilled to see that natural inspiration and botanical themes were heavily featured in the pages. I must be on trend, yay, go me!!

I soon got busy with my Posca pen, taking inspiration from the images in the magazines (Country Homes and Interiors).

I picked out simple floral and leaf motifs found on prints and home textiles and translated them as simply as I could into small designs for my pebble collection.

You have to have a weeny bit of arty confidence with pebble painting - this is not a pen that you can correct, so you have to use confident, sure lines, taking care with shapes and patterns as you draw them directly onto the surface. It's a huge amount of fun I have to say, and very soon I had company outside in the early morning (I just looked at the time stamp on these pictures, and it was just after 8am)....

....enter Little B through the back door, still in his pyjamas, looking for his Mum to see what she was up to. He watched me draw just a single leaf on a pebble, and immediately asked if he could have a try. 

He thought for just a moment about his design, confident in what he wanted to do. A star and some flowers, the earth and sky.

Meanwhile, I was on a roll and more botanical designs rolled out of my head and onto the pebbles. 

I felt like I could have decorated the whole river beach!

Little B begged and begged for one more pebble, telling me he really, really wanted to try drawing a bird. I suggested he have a go at drawing it on paper first - we found a simple motif in one of the magazines and had a practice at copying it. He was nervous to take the design onto the pebble, but once I stopped holding my breath and looking over his shoulder (so so hard to back off!) he set his mind to it, and he did superbly well, adding in detail and making it his own.

My last pebble was inspired by the buttercups sitting pretty on my table, and I think this is my favourite pebble of all. It holds the memories of this time and season, and I dearly love it for that and will treasure it. I must remember to draw the date on the back.

So this is what I ended up with - a modest collection of painted pebbles which capture the essence of May, the joy of nature and wild flowers, riverside pootles, woodland walks and meadow strolls. Sunshine and dappled shade, cool water and a light breeze. Bright early mornings and radiant golden evenings. All the things that I love about this month and this time of year.

At the moment I've got my pebbles nestled into an enamel plate on the dining table and I like having them there. I'm enjoying looking at them and playing with them every day, they are so tactile and soothing. I might keep them, I might gift them, I might return them back to nature at some point. But for now, they are staying right here and bringing me joy. And that's a pretty good thing, don't you think?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You can read my previous "Making the Seasons" posts {HERE} and have a look at Gillian's seasonal makes {HERE}. We hope you enjoy what we are making and creating each month! xx








 

 

Making the Seasons :: April

Sitting here to write this post a whole month after my March Making the Seasons write-up hardly seems possible somehow. How has a whole month passed by in the mere blink of an eye?!

I really love thinking about creating in tune with the seasons and as the months pass by it's interesting to see how my Creative Mind responds to the changes in weather, colours and seasonal celebrations. As soon as I saw this spring embroidery created for Mollie Makes, I fell in love with the bright, jolly colours and the gorgeous floweryness of it all. I knew that I would love to try making it, and it felt absolutely perfect for celebrating April and the start of Spring here in Atticland.

This embroidery was designed as a stitch-a-long, with pattern installments released each morning over the course of five days. However, there was no information given about what threads would be needed before the project started which I found frustrating, as it made it impossible for me to join in at the time the patterns were released. I'm guessing the Mollie Makes team assumed that this sort of project would appeal mainly to folks who already have embroidery supplies at their fingertips.

No matter, I was still keen to do it in my own time and figured that so long as I downloaded and saved the five installments then I could start stitching the following week once my threads arrived in the post. I manged to find some lovely fine linen fabric in a local remnant shop (it was a bargain as it had a stain at one end and the lady in the shop heavily discounted it for me), and I already had the 7 inch white flexi hoop. I bought a water erasable fabric marker {from Amazon UK} and set about tracing the design onto the fabric. I tried out the marker on a spare piece of fabric first - I was a bit doubtful about it actually erasing completely but this marker is amazing and literally disappeared completely in a split second as soon as it touched water.

Some of you may know that embroidery and stitching was my first creative love before I discovered a passion for crochet. In fact, I actually studied textiles and embroidery for three years at university (yes, I have a BA (hons) degree in Embroidery, believe it or not), so this type of decorative stitching isn't a new thing for me. However, it's been a long time since I worked any hand embroidery and I felt weirdly nervous about starting this pretty hoop design. I wondered if I would remember the different stitches, and if I would still have the skill to make them perfectly neat and precise? Only one way to find out.......

Day 1 of the stitch-a-long actually began with the main flower in the centre which was a mass of solid filling stitches in multiple colours. I was unsure about diving straight into this large bit of stitchery so I opted to begin with the smaller flowers first, hoping that I could find my stitching mojo and ease myself gently in. These little flowers are made using back stitch, straight stitch and satin stitch - oh yes, I can do that! Although my leaves came out a little bit uneven, I was so pleased to see some floral goodness emerging on my fabric that I didn't much mind the wobbliness.

The next thing I tried my hand at was the round and round "ranunculas" which were formed with a combination of French knots in the centre and a woven wheel around the outside. 

I've never made woven wheels before so I went to YouTube and watched the lovely Chrissie making them look easy-peasy.

The finished effect is gorgeous (especially using two different colours) and it made me want to make a whole load more just for the fun of seeing those plump floral circles materialise in front of my eyes.

Sitting in a sunny spot with the aim of simply stitching for pleasure is a really enjoyable thing to do. Although I still found myself feeling a little nervous about making a huge stitching blunder, I really loved the creative process.

Embroidery is a  slow, mindful hobby that can't be rushed, and I really do love it for that. And I really, really have a thing for french knots.....

......oooo I do love to see a collection of perfect little knotty, bobbly stitches! It was unbelievably satisfying to make those, I have to say.

Once all the small flowers were finished, I felt confident enough to tackle the Big Flower.

The embroidery on these large petals used four different shades to fill in the shape completely. This is known as "long and short stitch" and takes a surprising amount of care to gently blend the different colours subtly together.

There were some brief instructions given on how to use the direction of the stitches to define the petals and create a shaded colour effect, but mostly I just tried hard to copy the photo and make my flower look as good as the original.

I don't think I did too badly with my colour blending?

I worked on my spring stitching over the course of a week, picking it up when I had enough time to sit quietly and get myself into the creative zone.

I was especially pleased to finish off the large flower which was probably the hardest bit of the embroidery for me. Once it was done and I showed it to the kitty for approval, I felt a bit of a relief. Phew. All those stitches, oh soooooo many stitches!

The banner and words were pure pleasure, I do love the simplicity of a neat bit of back stitch.

Actually, the word SPRING was embroidered using chain stitch which I had to remind myself how to do....

....it came out a bit uneven but I'm not too bothered. I'm one of those people who really like handmade things to look and feel genuinely handmade - the imperfections and little mistakes are all part of the process. Big giant glaring mistakes would make me want to pull it out and re-do, but little wibbles are good to stay.

I really like the happy colours and pleasing texture of this embroidery (those woven wheels are delightfully three dimensional), and I did enjoy the creative process. Oddly enough though, the stitching didn't feel as relaxing as I thought it would - I had to really concentrate a lot (a bit like when I'm knitting), and it reminded me exactly why I love crochet so much. Crochet is the ultimate in relaxed creativity, and oh I do so adore it for that!

So have you spotted the thing that's missing? Yes, it's the bee! 

The reason there isn't a little buzzy critter hovering above my flowers is that I forgot to order black thread....! I was so overwhelmed with the beautiful floral colours that I completely overlooked the need for black (I think my subconscious mind must've blocked it out on purpose), so I'm waiting for that to arrive in the post.

The missing bee means that I've not been able to soak away the blue marker pen just yet, so I'm sorry that I can't really sing and dance and show you a final stitchy ta-dah. I've got in mind to carry out some Spring mantel faffery, with pretty jars of flowers, colourful cards and my lovely new spring hoop looking all seasonal and beautiful in the morning light. I'll be sure to share with you when it happens........very soon I hope!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps you can find all my previous Making the Seasons post here, and you can catch up with Gillian's beautiful monthly seasonal makes here.

pps. I forgot to mention that this lovely design was created by Anne of "LolliAndGrace". You can find more of Anne's designs in her Etsy shop xx

 

 

Mollie Makes Spring Stitch

photo credit : Mollie Makes

Helloooooooooo my lovelies, it's only me, the obsessive stitcher in the Attic. I actually had another post all lined up ready to share with you today, just some snippets from the past week as I've been home with the family enjoying a really relaxing Easter break. However, as there exists a pressing need for me to share all the ins and outs of my Creative World, and as my latest stitching escapade has a time limit placed upon it, this just couldn't wait another day.

I've decided to join in with a bit of an embroidery stitch-a-long hosted by the team at Mollie Makes. The above image popped up in an email a few days ago and although I'm still eyeballs deep in my cross stitch phase, there was something about the glimpse of this sweet Spring hoop that captured my heart. So I've decided to try and give it a go, mainly because I've just packed away my Winter mantel decs and I fancy seeing something pretty and spring-like sitting on my mantel for the next month or so. I figured this would be a beautiful project to celebrate Spring as part of my "Making the Seasons" monthly project. 

photo credit : Mollie Makes

This embroidery was designed by Anne Oliver who I've discovered writes a lovely stitchy blog called Lolli and Grace. 

The idea is that every day this week (five days in total) there will be installments of this stitch a long released online - you can read more about it all HERE. The only thing is that each installment is available initially for a 24 hour period, hence me writing this in haste to tell you about it in case you fancy joining me. You can download/print the parts when they appear and save them for when you are ready though, and I think there will be a couple other opportunities in future weeks to access the info if you miss any of it this week.

photo credit : Mollie Makes

So day 1 was released today (find details HERE) which lists the thread colours and gives instructions for tracing the pattern and beginning the embroidery. I LOVE the design - I'm a little worried that there are some rather complicated looking stitches included, but Mollie Makes has some basic stitch info (here) and I'm sure there must be a tonne of stitch know-how online. I am excited to give it a go - it's probably not achievable for me to finish it within the next five days (I'm waiting for some white fabric to arrive in the post, so can't actually start until that comes), but so long as I remember to download the info each day then I can go at my own pace during the next few weeks. 

Today was warm and sunny here in Atticland and it felt like Spring for the first time this year. However, I know that Spring doesn't really arrive properly until the very end of the month, but today's glimpse was just glorious.  I am so appreciating our longer, lighter days, and am more than ready to put Winter behind us now. I hope you're enjoying the weather where you are, and that you are feeling happy and creative - I know I am!

I'll be back soon with some home-life snippets xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: March

Now that the season is finally showing signs of shifting from Winter to Spring, this past week we've ventured back to our allotment. Our main tasks right now involve clearing up the winter mess (sadly, a storm damaged tree which fell right across our plot), admiring the wildlife (huuuuuuuge frogs and a mass of frogspawn in the pond), and sitting quietly on the bench at the top of the sloping site to take in the view (it's a south-facing sun trap). Behind the bench, our plot becomes a wild kind of shaded bank beneath a very large tree. It's covered in ivy and honeysuckle with bluebells that will flower in early May, but right now it looks extremely pretty with primroses, primulas and narcissus planted by the previous plot holders. There is blossom in abundance too, as the tree I told you about in last month's Making the Seasons post is flowering it's heart out. I popped up there yesterday to pick a few blooms to bring home, and it delighted me so much to do this simple thing. They are slim pickings as I wanted to leave plenty flowering at the plot - I gathered just enough to bring into the house so that I could create a little spring/Easter visual celebration.

A few years ago, I saw a photo in a magazine showing a small spring flower arrangement where the stylist had used painted eggshells as miniature vases. It was so simple, beautiful and inspiring that the image made a lasting impression in my mind, and I knew that at some point I would love to try doing this for myself. It's taken me a while to bring the idea to reality, but I can tell you that it was worth waiting for! 

I usually buy my ordinary brown free range eggs from the local butcher, but this week I happened to have some gorgeous "Bluebell Auraucana" eggs in. I deliberated about painting them (the magazine eggs were painted in soft chalky pastel shades, perfect for an Easter display), but in the end I decided that I really loved the natural blue shade of the egg shells, and actually I was feeling far too impatient to carry out the whole painting/drying waiting game. So I simply chopped off the tops of my egg shells with a small sharp knife and emptied out the eggy innards to save them for some baking.

I went down to the cellar to dig around for a suitable vessel and found a vintage cake stand that I bought a few years ago from the local collectors centre. I wish I'd photographed it to show you before I covered it in moss as it has such a pretty floral design in the middle. Speaking of moss....................

................isn't it an absolute delight??! Also from the allotment, I seriously love this particular green colour - it's so vibrant and fresh looking and it's pleasing me on a very deep level to actually have some real live moss in the house. I L♥ve moss so much! I used some blobs of blutack to secure the eggshells on their ends, but the mossy hillocks also work to keep them nestled in place. Also, note the kitty feet in the background, she is always so curious about the things I do here in the Attic.

I really, really, really, really enjoyed arranging my little spring flowers in their eggy vases, only the process just didn't last long enough! So I took them all out and did it all over again, just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. I think possibly I overdid it in my typical more-is-more way and maybe I should have used less flowers as it all looks a bit jumbled. But honestly? I simply don't care - I love the sweet exuberance of it all.

I plucked a few beautiful deep purple violas from the hanging basket at the front of the house to add to the yellow and white.....

...... and added some little feathers from my extensive feather collection too. 

I thought it would be a nice touch to add some foil-wrapped easter chocolates which I'd bought for the Little People.  I always enjoy Easter for the opportunity it gives us to enjoy sneaky bits of chocolate whenever we feel the need - I don't think this is something I've ever grown out of actually.

Whilst I was photographing and faffing with my flower arrangement, it occurred to me that something felt like it was missing. A little crochet bird perhaps, to nestle amongst the feathers and moss?

You might remember my mini chicklets from three years ago.................

well, I found some duck egg blue yarn and started to crochet a mini chicklet to perch on my table decoration.........

except that instead of adding wings.......................

I added...................................................................

EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, my chicklet decided it wanted to be a Bunny instead, so who was I to argue??!!!!

I scribbled down the pattern as I made the ears, just in case you might feel a pressing need to hook up your own mini-bunny.

I used DK weight yarn (Stylecraft Special DK) and a 4mm hook.

I'm writing in UK crochet terms.

You make the body in exactly the same way as described in the Mini Chicklet pattern. 

MINI BUNNY EARS (make 2)

Using pink yarn, chain 7; work 1 dc in 2nd chain from hook; 1 dc in next stitch; 1 htr in each of the next 4 stitches. Fasten off.

Change to same colour yarn as used for body of bunny. Insert hook in beginning dc and pull through a loop; chain 1 in same stitch; 1 dc in each of the next 4 stitches; 3 dc in next stitch.

Continue working down the opposite side of the ear, putting your hook under the single loops of the foundation chain, as follows: 1 dc in each of the next 6 stitches; slip stitch into beginning chain-1 to close round. fasten off, leaving a tail end for stitching.

Stitch the bunny ears to the top of the head, then use scraps of yarn to embroider eyes and nose, plus a little flower if you fancy it.

I made a little bunny tail by creating a miniature pom pom - I wound a length of white yarn around two of my fingers, then pulled the yarn-wrap carefully off my fingers and secured it around the centre with a tight knot. I trimmed the loops with sharp scissors to form a pom pom shape, then stitched it securely to my bunny's bottom.

I think my bunny secretly wants to be a mouse actually, as her face looks suspiciously mouse-like.....

.....but with bunny ears and a fluffy white tail, I think she passes the bunny-test.

I really love my table flowers and mini bunny. And of course I adore the moss too. I'm wondering how long I could keep a plate of moss going indoors if I watered it, do you think that could be a thing? I could decorate it with daisies and butterflies in summer....little toadstools in Autumn.....

Well anyways......enough gushing over the moss. Would you like to see the rest of my Easter decorations?

I always decorate the dining room fireplace for Christmas and Easter, it's one of those little rituals that makes me insanely happy and properly in the mood for the holidays. I treated myself a few days ago to a couple of lovely little papier maché birds from a local shop, I just couldn't resist them. I'm pretty sure that I won't be packing them away in the Easter Shoebox as I'd like to be able to look at them all year round.

I bought this greetings card earlier in the month as part of my quest to have cards for every season. It's a triple fold-out card called "Nest" by Mark Hearld. I'm a big fan of Mark Hearld's prints (I'm sorry I couldn't seem to find a website to link to, but if you google his name, you'll see lots of his amazing work. )

The rest of my easter decorations are all things that I've collected over the years, things that get stored away in the Attic eaves and which I very much look forward to seeing each year. There are painted eggs, a little decorative nest, some hand stitched felt egg cosies. My jug of twigs stays on the mantel all  year, but the twigs really work especially well at Easter time.

I kept my twigs simple this year, hanging my small collection of little hand painted wooden eggs (you can find similar ones on Amazon), and my crochet blossom from 6 years ago (SIX YEARS????!!!!!!!)

I made these little cotton flowers in 2012 and if you click on the link, you'll find the pattern for them at the end of the Easter Blossom blog post.

Little Lady came in from school yesterday and squealed with delight when she saw the mantel (a happy Mum moment!), but the boys haven't batted an eyelid or made one single comment. That's OK - I feel certain that I would decorate to celebrate the seasons purely for my own delight if I lived alone, so I know deep down that I do this sort of thing for myself rather than expecting the Little Peeps to be grateful for it. But I do hope that in some small way they will absorb their creative home environment and remember it fondly, even if those memories are just hazy, nostalgic snippets of their childhood in years to come. Crazy ol' Mum and her Seasonal Mantels.....remember that?

I'd love to know if you decorate your home for Easter - do you make an Easter tree? Decorate eggs? Make an Easter display on your table?

Whilst I was searching for Eggshell vase ideas, I found a few lovely random images that I thought you might like....

Putting a weeny bit of earth into egg shells and actually growing little plants in them - I seriously love this idea (and there is moss!)

These egg heads with their cress hair made me smile, and I think would be fun to do with Little B. I also love the simple painted faces on these eggs too.

And how about using egg shells to sow seeds in? What a fabulous environmental alternative to plastic pots.

♥

I find so much happiness in seasonal creativity, even just thinking about all the possibilities makes me completely giddy with excitement. I'm all set to do some seasonal baking tomorrow - I've got speckled candy eggs to go on top of some chocolate crispy nests, and I'm going to have a go at making Easter Biscuits  too. We always had Easter biscuits when we visited my Mum at this time of year, they are a true taste of the season for me.

Hoping you have a fabulous weekend doing things that you love - please do pop over to Gillian's blog and catch up with her Making the Seasons post, it's choc full (literally!) of creative inspiration. Enjoy! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps all my Seasonal posts are tagged in the Making the Seasons category so you can find them. Gill and I also created a #makingtheseasons hashtag on Instagram for you to tag in your creative makes for us to find - it's a visual feast!

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: February

It's the last day of February today and we're slap bang in the midst of a supremely wintry end to the month here in my patch. The freezing snowy weather which blew in from Siberia had been widely forecast and we were expecting it ("The Beast from East is coming!"), but it still felt like a bit of a shocker yesterday. The temperature dropped to -6° and the snow whirled in, bringing enough of the white stuff to lay down a 4 inch carpet, slow the roads to a near standstill and cause the schools to close for two days. Snow days home from school are such an excitable treat for the Little People, honestly, it's like their Birthdays and Christmas all rolled into one!

Here in the Attic, the cold, snowy weather has felt rather perfect for this exact time of year - it's precisely what springs to mind when I conjure up seasonal images of late February. So I am embracing it and delighting in these slow, lazy days when I can get away with existing for a while in my own creative bubble. During these times when the rest of the family is busy doing their own thing (Teenagers positively excel at this, don't they?!), I've either been crocheting or stitching. 

As many of you know, the Woodland Blanket CAL finished on Friday, although I actually finished making my blanket during the week before that. And so, well, you know, I erm.....well I may have started a new blanket in order to cope with my Woodland Bereavement. So far so good, it's working beautifully and I can report that I am coping with the loss of the Woodland Ripple rather well with a new set of stripes flowing off my hook. I'll show you what I'm up to once I've made a bit more progress.

In amongst the obsessive hooking I've been stitching, and I've been really, really enjoying it too. You might remember in my last MakingTheSeasons post I showed you the start of the Winterberry embroidery which came in the Winter Craftpod subscription box? Well I found a small window of time a few weekends ago to pick it up again and create some more berries......

....just look at those cute little blobs of seasonal scarlet! This embroidery was quite finicky to do (very fine and precise) but I found that the more I stitched, the easier it became. There were even a few times when I found myself gently lulling into that state of complete Mindfulness that can sometimes happen with repetitive, rhythmic crafting. I get this a lot when I'm crocheting, but it was a new thing to find it with stitching. It feels like a little bit of magic when it happens, it is such an unbelievably calm feeling where nothing else seems to register except for the gentle pull of the thread through the surface of the fabric. I've never tried meditation, but I guess this is what it must feel like. It's marvelous!

I finished my little embroidery hoop and just love the simplicity of it so much. It is perfect for this time of year. It's sitting sweetly on my mantel along with some other seasonal bits and bobs (which I'll show you more of in a bit) and making me very happy. Do you like the card too? This is actually a Christmas card, but as it seemed like the perfect partner for my Winterberry embroidery I decided to buy it for myself to celebrate February. The artist is called Clover Robin and is a recent discovery via Instagram. Oh, I love her work so much! You can read more about her {here} and find some of her delicious cards and prints in her Etsy shop {here}. Do go see, her work is a visual delight.

I really enjoy the inspirational nature of Instagram I have to say, and there is a heap load of creative talent to be found within those little square photos. I came across a stitchy lady a few weeks ago,  and boy was I in for a deep tumble down that particular rabbit hole.....crikey! I surprised even myself with how obsessive I quickly became when I decided to jump in to the world of Counted Cross Stitch with both feet. Who knew???? Certainly not me!! I've been embroidering and stitching since I was eight years old, yet I've never, ever been drawn to cross stitch. I've never in my life felt inspired by any cross stitch designs enough to commit to all those hundreds and thousands of repetitive little crosses. Far too boring. EH???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well I'm eating my words now, that's for sure!!! 

So this ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ is the thing that did it for me - all that C O L O U R!!!!!!! This lady creates her (very un-boring) cross stitch designs using the most glorious, amazing palette of colours, and I  just could. Not. Resist. It took me a nano second to be convinced that this Cross Stitch malarkey would be a Good Thing for me,  and before I knew what was happening I had downloaded the pattern, purchased the required 22 shades of DMC stranded cotton (all those colours, swoon) and tracked down the black fabric with special little cross-stitchy holes. Yes, you read that right - BLACK fabric!!! I know!!! See how powerful that colour must have been to convince me to purchase black fabric???!!!

So I had to learn quickly about all this - the holey fabric especially designed for cross stitch? Well that's 14 count Aida of course! Yup, I'm all in the know about cross stitch now. I am desperate to show you the excellent progress I've made, but I took so many photos that they really do need to be in a post of their own. 

I've found the business of sitting and slowly stitching somebody else's design so enthralling, and it struck me that embroidery is the perfect activity for these stay-home, freezing cold winter days. I can't wait to show you - more about the little crosses very soon.

Back to Winter white - the above photo was taken yesterday at 5.22pm as we walked home through the park after Little B's swimming lesson. After a day of white-out snow blizzards, we were blessed with a truly beautiful early evening. The light was so glorious, and I loved the pinky-golden glow to the whitened landscape. The past few days I've been thinking a lot about seasonal colour palettes - well , I think about this sort of thing pretty much all of the time to be honest, but this week I've been thinking specifically about what would make up a perfect Winter colour palette. You might remember my Winter Wreath from 2 years ago...oh actually, it was three years ago, well I never!! You can read all about it {here}. The colours I chose for my winter wreath are a very pretty representation of Winter I think - soft frosty blues, pale greens, delicate mauves and pinks, with a smattering of pearly grey and a dash of cream. That says Winter to me, probably more than white does.

Inspired by the thoughts of frosty winter colour, I gathered a collection of yarn balls into my yarn bag in order to make a seasonal garland for my fireplace. I've really missed my Autumn garland, and decided I would like to have something for every season to hang along my mantel. I was inspired by Instagram again, this time it was the re-connection with an old friend from my stitchy art student days. I saw a picture of her fireplace with a simple garland made from little crochet balls and loved the look of it - then realised that she had used my Little Balls pattern! Isn't that funny, that we managed to inspire each other without realising it?! So I've spent the past two days feverishly crocheting a stash of Little Balls in soft, wintry colours.

The pattern for these Little Balls is very easy amigurumi style (dc stitches worked in a spiral), first making a little half sphere.....

....then filling with a weeny blob of toy stuffing before decreasing to close the shape into a ball.

They are super quick to make (six little rounds of crochet), and insanely addictive. It's simply not possible to make just a few - you need handfuls! Bowls full! A whole hoard of these darling little things!

I thought you might like to see my colours - these are all scraps of Stylecraft Speical DK left over from past blankets. It's pretty much what I would think of as a Winter colour palette, with a subtle nod to the beautiful colours of Hellebores which flower at this time of year. 

❄ Cream ❄ Parchment ❄ Silver ❄ Grey ❄ Parma Violet ❄ Mushroom ❄ (winter neutrals)

❄ Lavender ❄ Grape ❄ Pale Rose ❄ Vintage Peach ❄ Soft Peach❄ (hellebore flowers)

❄ Sherbet ❄ Duck Egg ❄ Cloud Blue ❄ Storm Blue ❄ Denim ❄ (winter skies)

❄ Sage ❄ Meadow ❄ Lincoln❄ (frosty leaves)

I started out with 24 balls, although quickly realised this wouldn't be enough - I think I ended up with around 40 in the end. I used Storm Blue to crochet a simple chain, picking up a single loop on the side of each ball and working a slip stitch to attach it. I spaced my balls 8 chains apart. And I do find myself smirking as I am talking about my balls!! Tut tut, so childish.

I love what I ended up with - the simplicity and the speed of it made  this garland the perfect project for me this week.

Ohh...........cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cutesome little Winter Balls to add a dash of seasonal whimsy to my fireplace......

......look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What do you think?

My fireplace is very rustic and not very photogenic with its dark carved wood and brick effect surround (my friends fireplace is gorgeous, with a white painted surround and elegant ceramic tiles.) But I try not to be overly bothered by the brown and concentrate on adding prettiness instead. 

I'm so happy with my Winter fireplace, it really makes me feel all sorts of contentedness right down into my soul. When I think about Gillian and I going about our "Making the Seasons" creative things each month, it's not always the actual making that springs to mind. Often it's more along the lines of Creative Faffing that Gillian and I both love to do in response to the seasons. I suppose in posh designer terms you might label this activity as "styling". There is so much of this over on Instagram - styling has become such a trendy thing to do in recent times, creating visual content especially for the purposes of  sharing on social media. Huh. Well for me, it's more a case of gathering together a collection of small things that make me feel happy and in tune with the seasons, never mind how photogenic it all is. If it means something to me, then that's what counts.

Want to see some more bits of my Winter Mantel Faffery?

Let me show you!

Awwww, lets just take an extra moment to oggle those Little Balls - don't the colours look lovely (please pretend the brown wood is in fact a lovely painted white, just for now)

I mentioned earlier that I'm enjoying having seasonal cards on my mantel which get changed around with the months, well I think I am going to make this is a Thing this year. It's such an easy way to bring a little bit of handmade into the home and there are some fabulous artists out there making beautiful images that look great on cards. I think it's brilliant to support these small businesses even if you can't afford a print or an original, then cards are almost as good. Up above is another Christmas card which was given to me by friends, and I later found out that the artist is Claire Henley. The little snowdrop print is by Clover Robin. I've got a pot of hyacinths looking gorgeous too - the label said they would be white, but they are opening up to be a stunning buttery yellow colour which I've never seen before. The washed pottery and glass was gathered on a recent trip to Silverdale in Lancashire - I took some lovely photos that day, I'll share them here soon.

I've got a few twiggy stems of blossom on my mantel too this week, the buds were tightly shut little green bobbles when I picked them. Slowly they are opening in the warmth of the room to reveal the most delicate little flowers.......

......so, so very pretty.

I've no idea what blossom this is, it's from an overgrown tree on our allotment plot which the neighbouring house is desperate to have cut down as it's growing right into the side of their house more or less. The lady said she thought it was an almond tree, but I'm not sure. I'd love to know if anyone has blossomy knowledge?!

Hyacinths and twiggy blossom stems are all accompanied by twinkly little fairy lights and candles at this time of year. I bought a couple of inexpensive candles in glass jars from the supermarket - they were supposed to be scented but disappointingly they haven't really performed any scenting activity as yet. The glass jars were plain so I decorated them using stickers which came inside the Winter Craftpod.

These stickers are so lovely! They are printed on a transparent background so are perfect for sticking onto glass jars - the illustrations are by Ukranian illustrator Nastias Leptsova, oh you do need to go see her work, it's so unusual and extremely cosy! I've been captivated by her Instagram feed (@nastiasleptsova) which has almost no colour in it whatsoever - a world shown in sepia tones, which I find strangely comforting somehow.

I've spent a lot of time in this room during February, sometimes sat in the light of the bay window stitching (black fabric, oh my word, a true test for the eyes), or sometimes sat on a floor cushion right next to the fireside with my crochet. I've run out of tall candles for my candelabra ( I need a trip to that big blue and yellow shop!) but aside from that, my mantel is making me very happy indeed. Oh Little Balls, I do so like having you dangling there!

Hmmm.....I'd love to know what your Winter colour palette would be, do tell! Would it be chilly whites and blues? Would it have any pink or purple in it? White vs. cream?

I've just peeked out of the window and there is still a proper snowy blizzard blowing around the house, so I'm wondering whether tomorrow will be another no-school day for us, with some vigorous sledging followed by some gentle fireside creativity. Sounds rather good if you ask me.

I hope that you are enjoying the season you're in whatever the weather you've got, and that you might feel inspired to pop a few seasonal cards on a shelf or hook up a simple little garland in seasonal colours. A little seasonal making/faffery is very good for the soul and I can highly recommend it.

✿ All my Making the Seasons posts have their own category so you can find them easily - {Making the Seasons}

✿ I'm really enjoying doing these monthly posts alongside my friend Gillian - you can find her Making the Seasons posts  {here}

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx