Tag Archives: Handcrafts

2 Raspberry Cushions

23/05/2010 4:23 am \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

Flash-back about seven years: we picked this chair up at Melville Markets (a local carboot sale) for $5; it was pretty rickety because it was missing its front foot-strut. My clever husband whipped up a new one the same afternoon and we had a nice new chair for our entrance hall!
I had a piece of foam cut to fit its seat and covered it with fabric from the remnant bin in Laura Ashley, and added piping I made from some leftover raspberry pink Indian cotton I had used for curtains in our previous house. I think from memory the piping cord I used for inside the piping is actually rough old rope I found in the shed, rather than the proper nice white cord you can buy in upholstery stores… yeah (shamefaced), I’m of the waste-not-want-not kind…
The cushion has little self fabric tabs with velcro sewn on, inserted in the back seams to loop around the back rest struts. This stops it from sliding off and across the hallway if a pussycat happens to do a flying leap up onto the chair…
The embroidery in the other cushion was a little kit I picked up on a craft store exploration excursion I went on with my sister-in-law S one day, this was back in the dark ages when I was into cross-stitch! I know it’s not centred very well in the cushion, but meh… The fabric for the main of the cushion is the same raspberry pink curtain fabric as the piping…
I often wonder if those raspberry pink curtains are still up in our old house.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: cross-stitch, handcrafts, home wares

Felted wall hanging

28/03/2010 3:42 am \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

Another felted thing. I made this last year some time. This is hanging on the wall in our front room, to be admired by visitors (hehe). I really enjoyed the process of making this because by this time I had worked out how forgiving felting is and that you really can’t mistreat it; as long as you’re working with colours you love you really can’t go wrong here.
I envisaged this to be a sort of textile visual document in no language, a sort of crafted poem; a felted “page” with embroidered strokes and/or marks and dashes making a “text” on its surface. I like how the the progression of colours turned out in the felted background and intended the vertical stitches of the embroidery as a kind of visual progression of colours and form in themselves… They bring to mind the tally of days that long-term prisoners scratch out on their cell walls; or the painted wall markings that are sometimes found in pre-historic caves, the homes of primitive people. This could be a document from an undiscovered isolated culture, made by a people who use fabrics for their record making, and a language of strokes with colours, height and spacing forming an alphabet.
I sewed a bit of thick-ish wire across the top at back to stiffen it so it wouldn’t collapse when hanging, and it’s hanging from fishing wire which is almost invisible so the piece seems to be floating against the wall. The size of this is roughly 52cmx28cm (20.5in x 11in)

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: felting, handcrafts, own design

Eco-friendly gift wrapping

21/02/2010 1:50 am \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

This isn’t a new idea, but is one I’m adopting from now on.

Recycle old cereal boxes into gift bags, by covering them with newspaper. So easy, and quite attractive, as long as you use nice-looking pages. I recommend you avoid ones with items dealing with tragedy and disaster… nobody want to look at their gift and be confronted with “Con man fleeces pensioners for millions” or an expose of a corrupt local policeman…etc
The above one, with car sales, would be good for a boy( er, apart from the flower, well I was just trying to pretty it up for the picture….) The comics pages and crossword pages would be good to use for this idea. too If you do have access to discarded foreign language newspapers, all the better as these add an exotic air to the gift box.
Gift wrap is so…extravagant, don’t you think? In terms of waste, as well as cost. And most cereals come in a plastic bag within the box, so it’s not as though the box is dirty when you’ve finished with it.
(Disclaimer; some “giftees” may find this a tacky concept. Yeah, seems crazy, but some people may not appreciate the planet-saving motives behind this idea …. You’ve been warned)