I don’t have enough patience to slow stitch large projects so finished this 6” mat with machine embroidery.
A good practice of embroidery stitches and a little using up of the fabric and ribbon mountain though.
Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow stitch.
Use What You Have
Paper embroidery
I bought a cheap die set from Globeland on Amazon and have been stitching on paper for the last month.
The set includes a die to make Aida effect punched paper, dies to make different sizes of hoops, buttons and sewing accessories. Well worth the price at about £7.
Serging ahead?
Our library has a ‘fab lab’ where you can play on machines such as 3d printers, sublimation and sewing machines. I decided to see if a serger was something I might find useful.
A one hour session making up assorted bags and pouches was enough to convince me NOT to buy one. Fiddly to thread, scary to use and I can do a mock overlock with my standard machine.
Thanks to the library for the trial run though.
Practice makes… better
This beautiful Swedish mat had a small stain on it so I stitched (simple straight and cross stitch with embroidery floss) over the printing until the stain ‘disappeared’ and now it is back in use as beautiful as ever.
Stamp for mailed cards
Another attempt to empty the patterned paper remnants bag…
This time I used a stamp die for the bigger stamps and my scan n cut for the smaller ones. I finally chopped up pages of butterfly, floral and birds paper and used long neglected franking stamps and some old paper distress ink to create the collage on a sheet of magazine paper.
Wonky houses
Experiments with fabric, ribbon and patterned paper remnants to create a series of cards.
Upgrade little by little
A combined effort to recover some hangers AND use some of the donated ribbon in my overflowing haberdashery box.
After removing the old fabric cover, but saving the foam padding which was in good condition, I discovered the hanger bit unscrews.
I used the old fabric as a pattern for the new and sewed a tube with a button hole where the hanger would screw back in.
The ends of the tube were hand stitched closed and the butterfly chain ribbon hand stitched around, including covering the button hole.
Not easy to line up the screw hole for the hanger but a satisfying little job.
Which came first?
In this case it was the chicken.
A pair of paper cut outs (calligraphy paper aplenty in my drawer) were sewn to sandwich a crème egg inside. Ready for little Easter gifts and tucked away so we don’t inadvertently nibble them.
Then a few eggs were made using up magazine papers and washi tape (will I never use it up?) again sewn shut and packed away for Easter.
The basic shapes were cut from my scan and cut to the maximum size of my papers. I can see this working with other stock shapes for single sweet treats throughout the year – hearts, cars, stockings …
Must remember to keep the sewing machine needle with my papercraft projects as the paper blunts the needle quickly.
Hob cooked granola
An experiment in DIY healthy which turned out very well indeed!
I ‘fried’ old fashioned oats in just enough coconut oil (I used a mug of oats and a tablespoon of oil) until they started to toast – a good 5 minutes of stirring – then added in a spoon of honey.
Once it was well mixed, I turned off the heat and stirred through some shredded coconut, chopped walnuts and almonds, some seeds and some chopped dates.
Various recipes suggested a little salt, olive oil rather than coconut and all sorts of variation on the fruit, seed, nuts but this seems like a free and easy way to make your own version of granola.
Once cooled, store in a jar or tin well out of sight or you will snack and graze through it too quickly.
Tapenade-ish
Left over olives sat forlornly in the fridge until I made a cheat version of tapenade…
Stoned olives (about 30 of them)
Clove of garlic
Lemon juice
A teaspoon of capers
A sprig of dried thyme (or basil or parsley or …)
Salt and pepper
Chopped until pâté consistency
janecrafts 