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Wednesday 31 August 2011

A Little Lacey Lesson.

  After my wonderful visit to Second Hand Rose and saw their beautiful handmade vintage lace display i decided to have little play with some of my own vintage lace collection.

So here it is, 
A Little Lacey Lesson.

You will Need
 1 Vintage handmade lace dolie.
 An embroidery hoop of fit.
Sharp 4B or 5B pencil
Six strand embroidery thread (The colour of your choice).
An embroidery needle.
Embroidery scissors.
An iron.
Scraps of vintage fabric to decorate.


To start you will need to make sure your give your piece of vintage lace a good press with a steam iron on a moderate hot heat.

Pop you piece of vintage lace into the embroidery hoop and you are ready to start.

Choose a saying, quote or just a few nice words to embroider onto you piece of lacey art work and draw the design on lightly in a sharp soft 4B or 5B pencil.
I find it easier to follow a gentle pencil line with doing my hand embroideries. But if you think you can do without please feel free.


Using back stitch, and the embroidery thread of your choice embroider the words into your lace doily.


Once you have finished this, you think about decorating with a small amount of vintage fabric.
I like to be in keeping with my words, so i chose to do a heart.



I used a cross stitch to applique my heart to the doily, but you can use any hand embroidery stitch you feel that fits in with your theme.


Take your art work out of the embroidery hoop and again give it a good press with a steam iron on a moderate heat.


Once finished hang in your required place for yourself and other to admire.

footnote: Thank you to the lovely Second Hand Rose for all your lovely lacey inspiration



Tuesday 23 August 2011

A Happy Trip To Worcester

So, 
Sunday morning at precisely 4.30 am was meant to be the big day for putting up my PomPom Bomb. This did not go at all as i had hoped. 

Team Guerrilla Crafter and i headed out to our secret location only to be straight away be met by a security guard. 

Oh Dam Dam and double Dam.

So unfortunately my plan has had to go back to the drawing board for a while, while i prepare for a meeting with a lovely lady in the lovely market town of Shifnal about putting some work in her gallery and maybe running some workshops. 
(more to be revealed soon)

So with a heavy heart about my lack of Guerrilla Pom Bombs i awoke early yesterday morning with an urge to be by the river. 

So i put together a picnic lunch for the dear for Mr S and I, and a bag full of Guerrilla Crafting goodies for myself and off to Worcester we headed.

After a walk around the city we headed to the river to have our picnic.


This is the beautiful view of Malvern Hills from our place by the river.
Whenever i see them their greatness amazes me.

Before long out tummies were satisfied and i strolled back into the city to resume my Guerrilla Crafting ways.

Everywhere i went i left a Guerrilla Crafter trail behind me.


 Cathedral Gardens

Road Street


On the corner of Church Street


Hop Market

I do hope that the lovely people of Worcester found these intriguing and took one to look up when they get home. I walked passed the one on Church Street later that day and all but one had gone.

My final mission was to head to the beautiful grade 1 listed Guild Hall. 

And here is what i had to say.





So after a hard days pondering, wondering and Guerrilla Crafting i made my way to the beautiful Second Hand Rose to check out their vintage delights.


I was most certainly not disappointed. I was met with a beautiful handmade vintage lace display all around the walls of the shop.
Now, if you didn't already know handmade lace is a huge passion of mine, I have been collecting handmade vintage lace doilies from thrift stores for some time now. 
So as you can imagine, this really excited me.





With the day drawing to a close and full of Lacey display inspiration, i headed back to my Little Victoria to start cooking up some Lacey plans.



Thursday 18 August 2011

Planning for a POMPOM BOMB! PART 2

Hello all,
 well the day for my plan unveiling is almost upon us, but before the big day comes there are just a few more planning images i would like to share.

The last few days i have been sewing my little fingers to the bone. 
Nina has been working so hard that when i took the bobbin out to re-thread, it was to hot to touch!

My efforts for the last few days have been threading garlands and making signs of crafting encouragement and a messages of sustainability for the big event.


I have started to become quite nervous about the whole thing over the last few days. 
What if it does not make enough of an impression?
What if there are not enough pom poms?
What if people just do not get it?

But never the less i have crafted on, and these wise words came to mind

(Which can be found here)

So with this in mind i did what i had to and, carried on.




So there are some snippets of what to expect when the big day comes.  

footnote: I leave on this thought
CREATIVITY
CREATES
COMMUNITIES

Sunday 14 August 2011

Sausage Dog Surprise.

At the beginning of last week I popped into my local stockists Scary Canary to drop off some more stock when a very sweet lady stopped me to let me know she had brought some of my things and asked me if i could make a surprise Sausage Dog purse for her sisters birthday.
I thought "why not, i do like a challenge" 

So off i went home to Little Victoria to get my pencils and sketchbook out. 

I unfortunately do not know anyone who owns a Sausage Dog so i could not do any primary research, but the magic of the Internet prevailed. 

So here it is Sausage Dog Surprise. 




footnote: If you were the lucky lady surprised by this Sausage Dog, Please get in touch. 


Friday 12 August 2011

Planning for a POMPOM BOMB!!!!

Hello all, 
Sorry for the lack of posting over the last week but I come with  exciting news. 
The reason i have been so quite recently, apart from all of my sewing marathons, is i have been planning my largest yet piece of Guerrilla Crafting.

I cannot yet reveal too much, but i can reveal some of my planning efforts.


This is going to be Guerrilla Crafting on a much larger scale than i am used to. 


There will be pompom garlands, bunting, signs, poster and much more. 


My major fear is that all these efforts will only be on display for less than a day before the powers that be take it all down. 
BOOOOOOOOOOO!
But only time will tell.

footnote: I am really excited. Watch this space!

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Tea Time Theme Time.

Well it seems that my Tea Time Theme Time collection is proving quite popular. As fast as i can make them they are going straight out again to the lovely Scary Canary.


I thought I would let you know,
I have recently been having quite a rough time of it here at Little Victoria. 

So with many craft and vintage fairs book for throughout the summer, my stockists expecting new stock and my new lines for Christmas still to design. Which I may add, may sound early but believe me it is not at all. 
Nina the Bernina and I were all ready for a many long sewing sessions. It is times like this that Nina is so extremely important to me and Guerrilla Crafter.

 During my first sewing session last week whilst sewing recycled leather key rings for my new range Nina started making some unusual noises. She began clunking and screaming instead of the normal gentle hum. I obviously started to panic. 
Nina had to be sent off to the local sewing shop for repair. I felt lost without my lifeline to the sewing world.
BUT..........
Alas My Nina returned along with my crafting mojo and we set straight to work this morning.






And after that  crafting marathon I was still not satisfied because with Nina away for over a week I had a lot of catching up to do. So I continued and finished the day with making a new range of little fabric purses. 







I hope you like all of todays hard work. I am now rather weary so i bid you good night.