With the Great British Sewing Bee back on the television, I thought I'd revisit the wrist pincushion tutorial I wrote back in 2016. I still have the original pincushion, and I often use it when I'm sewing. We are who we are, and I still lose my pins if I don't have them actually attached to me! At the time, I had some wrist pincushion kits for sale on Etsy, but in different fabric. Unfortunately, once they had sold out I couldn't get any ... Read the Post...
Thoughts on Throwing Things Away
Lots of us have an uneasy relationship with throwing things away. We all know that we need to try to generate less waste. Fast fashion is an environmental nightmare, supermarkets still sell pasta in plastic bags that can't be recycled, we have electronics we no longer use and what on earth do we do with CDs and videotapes? In the Little House on the Prairie books, Caroline Ingalls throws nothing away. Nothing is wasted. Every last scrap of ... Read the Post...
Landscape and Creativity Part 2: Dyeing With Nettles
In the last post I wrote in this series about landscape and creativity, one of the things I mentioned was how we can use our creativity as a way of exploring and expressing our connections with the landscape. One way is to use plant material found in the landscape as a natural dye. Using natural dyes has been on my list of things to try for ages. As part of my textiles course, I dyed some tiny bits of fabric with nettles, and I've dyed ... Read the Post...
How to Make a Waterproof Picnic Blanket
With warmer weather hopefully imminent, one of the things on my list of things to make was a waterproof picnic blanket. It's lovely to be out in the fresh air and the sunshine, but sometimes you have to sit down, and there isn't always a bench. I'm also thinking ahead to next spring. I'm determined to have a Japanese style cherry blossom picnic, and I will definitely need a waterproof picnic blanket for that! Our lovely temperate English ... Read the Post...
