Busy making cushion covers.

I have been busy making cushion covers for my living room today. I bought the fabric yesterday in Salisbury, so that's the quickest I have made something after buying the fabric in a long time. It only cost me £8.50 as two pieces were remnants and then I bought half a metre of a contrasting dotty fabric.  It made three cushion covers, so that is very good value.  I just needed a bit of colour in my room. I made them easy with no zips ( I hate putting in zips)

I have to buy some different fabric to make three more cushion covers now.  I am desperate to have my 'Wesley Barrell' sofa's re-covered but it will cost almost £3,000 to cover both of them. We have had them 24 years and they are still looking good, but I am so fed up with looking at the fabric that's on them.  Trouble is Wesley Barrell wont just make new covers, they take the sofas back to the workshop and completely overhaul them so they come back like new sofas, complete with new cushions . I can dream on as we just can't afford that amount of money  at the moment.  So i will be content to just jazz the room up with some zingy colours.

Street Art

It's been a while since my last posting and I haven't any new craft projects to write about. I do have a soup recipe to share that I made up ' Roasted pumpkin and Lentil soup' but not in this post (sorry) I have taken photo's and will write it all down and post for next time. I have made it three times now and it's delicious.

However this post is about some amazing street art that I took photo's of in and around Brick Lane, London, we were in London this week-end staying with my son who lives in Crouch End, and he kindly took us to Brick Lane and Spitalfield Market which had a vintage fair on Saturday. We went a bit late so I didn't really have time to browse the amazing goods for sale, next time !!!!!

Anyway here is a collection of photo's which I thought were pretty special and brighten up the whole area. It's wonderful that the local council leave them all alone and don't view them as graffiti.
Seeing as this blog is (or should be) about crafts I thought I would show this photo first -

Amazing !! a whole buggy done in crochet, what a lucky baby and so unique.

This one is a genuine 'Banksy' and is behind glass to protect it. I had to put my camera through some locked gates and point and hope for the best. It actually came out OK. It was behind locked gates and up an alley that I couldn't get to without going all the way around to another street.

And here are the rest I took.

Bag finished and Handle on - At Last !!!

Well at last this bag is finished, thank goodness for that as it's taken so long to get around to deciding what to do about the handles. I decided that a long handle would make a nice change, and  as as I rather like to wear my bags across my body so as to have my hands free I thought I would give this a go.

It actually worked out rather expensive as I had to knit it double and bought 2 balls of wool which cost almost £6 each ball. That left me enough to make a double inside pocket for my mobile phone and keys and the little tags for the button fastening.  So all in all an expensive bag, but at least it's unique and a one off and I do like to be different !!

The handles ( I knitted two) didn't shrink as much as I anticipated so I was left with two rather long handles that didn't look right, so I thought long and hard for a couple of days and come up with a pleasing solution.  I twisted both handles together and stitched them as one handle  from side to side of the bag.  This made it very strong and comfortable to carry, so I am pleased with the end result.  I intended to sell this one, but like it so much it is now part of my bag collection.

Here's the finished bag

 Back detail of a couple of needle felted flowers worked directly onto the bag

Double inside pocket for mobile phone and keys, with button down safety so the phone doesn't slip out when the bag is set down.

It's a good size and carries quite a big. I need to invest in some professional base to add strength to the bottom as I don't like the way it sags when it has items inside. other than that it's great.

A new Felted bag and good news on the Orla Kiely mugs

This is a bag I have been working on for many months. I lost interest in it and then suddenly got going and it's almost done. I just have to make the handles and an inside pocket.

This is before felting in the washing machine

Front view

I needle felted some small flowers onto the back, just to give it a different detail to the front.

I bought some felting wool in a colour that is quite close to the deep aqua to make the handles with. You can see a little chain of it I tried out next to the needle felted flower.   I should have it finished in the New Year.

Orla Kiely mugs update

I am delighted to report that my mugs have been replaced (see my allotment blog for full details)  and that apparently the company that make the mugs for Orla Kiely had a batch that weren't glazed properly, so I guess mine were from that batch.  That makes sense of the fact that the latest one bought from John Lewis recently hasn't stained at all, but the ones bought earlier in the year elsewhere had. The mug company were so generous as I got more than I already had replaced.  Fantastic customer service ! I am so pleased.

HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS AND A HEALTHY AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

M XX

Does anyone have a problem with Orla Kiely mugs?

This is a copy of the post from my Allotment blog as I know some readers only see this blog, so I wanted to put it here too, apologies to anyone that reads the other blog and sees this again.

I have just e-mailed Orla Kiely customer services as I can't be the only one who has a problem with their beautiful and very expensive mugs ! the problem is the quality of the bone china mugs they use. Let me explain ! they stain so badly and even the dishwasher doesn't move the stains. I have resorted to using a kitchen spray that has added bleach, which I know wont be doing any good whatsoever to the long term life of the mugs, but I'm desperate. I have even used a teapot rather than putting the teabag directly in the mugs, but that didn't work either.

I have other bone china mugs that cost half the price and they never stain, so this is very annoying especially as they cost £8.50 each. What an expensive mistake !! I realise that you pay for the design, but I expect quality as well for that money !! OK moan over, and I am waiting for their reply. In the meantime does anyone else have these mugs ?? and do you have the same problem.

I feel better now I've aired that !  If we don't complain about these things to companies they get away with rubbish goods ! and we mugs ( pun intended) pay the price !

M x

And the WINNER is .......

http://mylottieheaven.blogspot.com/2011/11/and-winner-is.html

I had a friend pick the winner. (see allotment blog link )

Last few days to enter the book giveaway

We now have 17 names down for the giveaway, so I thought that seeing as I did say that as soon as I have enough interest that I'd do the draw. So I am going to get a friend to pick a name on Friday and the winner will be announced on Friday evening. So you still have a few more days to leave your comment.


Visit my allotment blog to enter your comment and link

http://mylottieheaven.blogspot.com/2011/11/fantastic-giveaway.html