I Heart Wall Art: Make a Noticeboard With Scarves

Now then, if like me, you prefer to make your life difficult via the means of:
a) Trying to not ever buy things new, unless they're full-on proper eco-friendly produced
b) Always wanting very pretentiously to do something a little bit 'different' but not actually having any ideas jump into your head easily
c) getting a bit cross and bothered and wishing you were a really creative 'blank canvas' person who just goes "Ooh, ooh, how about we twist some twigs into a giant pepperpot shape, interthread tin-can shards in it and then invent a whole new peg system made from old cotton reels and make a noticeboard that way!"

Yes, sound like you?  Then what the heck, my love - just steal this idea.  Honestly, do.  It looks awful purrdee and is a proper good scavenging project.  Plus of course, it's got hearts in it, and like it or lump it my good people, hearts are a nice shape, aren't they.

Deely-boppers. Key to our business. Ahem.

Stuff and Things You'll Need

• Scarves from t'charity shop.  Also good - silky tops you've kept to re-use for something.  Best is silky things because they will not be bulky and will insinuate themselves nicely through rings and round nails etc
• Rings - I found a bedillion inch diameter or so metal curtain rings in a charity shop once, and I used those.  Failing that, use whatever rings you can lay your hands on.  Can't find any?  Don't worry - leave 'em out!
• Magnets if your rings are metal - ideally little craft magnets (strong ones), but you could just round up all the magnets yer kids have abandoned
• Paper clips, curtain cafe clips, bulldog clips - anything clippy or hangy or holdy or grabby.  And yes, they are the proper technical terms.
• Hammer and Nails
• Tape measure, Pencil, Rubber

   
Ready?  Hop to it!

We gave our workroom wall a good clean to rid it of dust and, ahem, pencil drawings, and removed bits of blu-tack and sellotape.  A nice clean blank canvas for you to whack your scarf art onto.

Poke through, bring round, poke through again.

1. Tie/sew your scarves and silky bits together, and measure how long it is.  You'll need this figure in your head to give you an idea of how big or small your outline is going to be in the next step
2. Put the curtain rings, if you are using them, at regular intervals.  Simply poke through once, bring round and poke through again, as you can see here, so that the rings are 'caught' on the scarf.
3. Next you need to sketch your heart-shape on the wall (or hey - any shape, it doesn't matter!  Go crazy you creative loons, you) using your pencil.  Start lightly - it took us a while to get the heart shape

   

   The mighty dustpan and brush

   right, let me tell you, and involved lots of standing back and viewing it askance and squinty-eyed before we got it right, which in turn involved a lot of drawing, rubbing out and re-drawing.  
4. When you're happy with the shape, start hammering the nails in to the wall.  Now listen here - you have to angle them slightly, and the angle will differ depending on the shape the scarves will make.  For example, the downward 'dip point' at the top ofthe heart needs a nail which is angled downwards so that the scarves don't just slip off, upwards....think tent pegs and guy ropes and you'll know what I mean!  If in doubt, just hammer them in a little, so that you can manoeuvre them once the scarves are tied on.  You'll soon see what we mean.
5. Next - begin placing your scarves round the nails - if you're on your own, you may need to tie the first bit to a nail, or it'll keep slidin' awff.   Amanda and I were doing this together so one was holding the first bit in place while the other looped and curled the scarves into place.  If you found the whole nail angling thing tricky, you can always 'loop the loop' the scarves round each nail.

   

   Get cafe clips from curtain hardware suppliers

6. Tie the two scarf-length ends together when you've created your shape, or if you prefer, tie them to a nail. Don't worry if you have too much - just let it hang down, or cut it, or wind it round some more.  Don't get hung up with measuring, no, no.
7. Now's where you get busy hanging things off your hearts!  Now, I'll leave this to your imagination - we had all sorts of funny bits and bobs - we've got some things stuck on with two magnets, some things jammed into paperclips just hanging off scarves; we've got cafe clips holding stuff, and of course we used the nails too - see the dustpan and brush there?!  Basically, use whatever you think might work!

A lot more interesting than a boring old noticeboard, eh?  We shove things we love, reminders, our sewing patterns all hole-punched and hanging on a nail, ready to whip down and use when we get orders; we stick receipts on nails, hang works in progress, even coat-hangers sometimes, with other things hanging off them.

Take part in some heart wall art!

What will you do?  Ooh, and what shapes are you thinking of using?  A cat? An owl?  Kisses?  Tell me!

7 Reasons to buy our Sewing Patterns

We love our Sewing Patterns, and we're simperingly proud of them.  Shall I tells you for why?  Shall I?  Hm?

We've been doing lots of nice PR things lately, and people often ask what it is about our Sewing Patterns that makes them different, or special or easy or unique; and being a little slow on the uptake, it only occurred to me after the fifth person asked this, that I ought really to have answered this question already.

Like, duh...

Both Amanda and I have followed many, many sewing patterns in our time.  Some difficult, some head-bangingly impossible to follow, some wonderfully simple, some kinda in the middle, ish, somewhere.  Some nearly made me cry.  Some were joyous.  So it was from our experience as beginner users that our Patterns were born, and for this reason we have always fiercely defended the 'beginner' nature of them, in that easy patterns are nice for everyone, not just beginners.  My mother is an extremely experienced dressmaker (she made both me and my sisters' wedding dresses) but I can remember her frustration at the pattern she was using - it was tortuously written and omitted enormous chunks of information.  She found herself groping her way blind through vast tranches of tulle, netting, interlinings, stiffenings and other masses of froo in order to figure things out.  It wasn't pretty.  And the swearing was a little colourful.  And I nearly always came out the worse for it because I then had pins stuck in me during fittings.

Anyhoo, armed with all this history, here are the things we love about our patterns, and which we guarantee you'll get in each and every one.

1) No Wordy Cutting Lists!
Don't know about you, but honestly I find written lists tricky - I'm a very visual person, so I mean no offence at all to patterns which use them, but I likes pictures.  So we always use cutting list images - you can see literally every single piece you're going to need.

2) Consistently Named Pieces
When you sew from a pattern, you start off with lots of pieces, and halfway through you have half-constructed bits....I often got confused in patterns because there didn't seem to be the halfway house names; patterns often stated "Now take this piece" or worse, omitted the noun entirely - "Turn over and stitch along sides"  Turn which bit over? The bit I've just done or the thing I had to do before that?!!
We always make sure that once a construction is completed, we tell you what it will now be called, and when it comes up again in the pattern, that's how we refer to it.  Sounds basic - helps in the long run!

3) Integrated Seam Allowances
When you cut out our patterns, you won't be expected to add seam allowances.  I know this can in some cases be necessary, expecially in the world of dressmaking, but we tell you every step of the way what seam allowance you'll need.  It's almost always the same throughout the pattern, but even so, you will always be told what it is.

4) A Besquillion Diagrams

It's one of my very favourite jobs here at OriginalStitch, so maybe that's why we have so many of them, but we use looooooads of diagrams in our sewing patterns.  Don't know about you, but it is just so very much easier.  I draw them myself, when I have designed the product myself or stood over Amanda while she makes it, so they are straight from the very horse's mouth - I have drawn them from the exact construction at that very point, so if there's still pins there, I draw them; if there's loose threads hanging down, I draw them.  We then have our lovely designer Jon colour 'em in all pretty so they're even easier to understand, and have shading where there would be some, and right and wrong sides of the fabric properly coloured.  Lovely.  If you're terribly clever, you can probably almost make something without even reading, which is what my mother does.

"What seam allowance am I using?" she said once.
"It says it right there look Mum - quarter of an inch, see?"
"Oh I haven't read the pattern, I'm just using the pictures." she said.

5) No Template Enlargement

When you cut out our templates, you won't have to enlarge them.  I'm quite happy to admit this may be a matter of preference, but I try to think of the person sewing from their abode up the top of a Welsh mountain, with no access to a photocopier shop, and as temperamental an all-in-one printer as we have (shh, don't tell it I said that, it's easily upset...).  So our templates are designed to fit on an A4 sheet, so that when you print it out, it is real-size.  You may have to join pieces together to make the whole template before applying to the fabric, yes - but we make this as easy as possible by including full written instructions and using nice little symbols.

6) They're available immediately!
Our patterns are currently PDF downloads, which you can access right there in your purchase email, once you've been to the website and bought one.  We have chosen this method because of our eco ethics - we felt it was a little cheeky to go printing out reams of paper for our sewing patterns when we bang on about environmental concerns.
Having said that, we'd be interested to know if you would like them as a paper version, because we would seek to work with some lovely bonkers paper made from rhino poo, or beer dregs, or old Barbie packaging or something.   (We ain't joking, our tags ARE made from old beer dregs!

7) Online Support
You can get support when making your pattern from our OriginalStitch Cafe- it's where all the manuals and manufacturing information is housed for our stitchers to access, so it's where we put information relating to the sewing patterns.  Come and join, and any help shouts you put out we'll pick up - either myself, or Amanda, or even one of our lovely stitchers will soon come to your aid!

So, if you haven't taken a peek at our sewing patterns yet, have a little look - we're working on a whole raft of our Piece & Jam Collection items next, so we'd love to know - what would you most like to see next in our range of Sewing Patterns?

In the Making: The Men's Shirt & Tie Bag

Now where did I put those pi...oh yes, in my cakehole

We are in love with our Fortune-Teller Bag, it's super simple to make and bags of fun to wear.  You can run one up in 3 minutes flat. Nearly.  Well, maybe half an hour, but that's how quick and simple it is if you do our scarf tutorial, residing for now over at Mrs Thrifty's, where we proudly guest-blogged.  However, that's strictly for friends or for meself, but transferring the design to our product range means a little more quality control.  So here is one, a custom make for my good friend, who saw mine and ordered her own.  She stole her husband's shirt and sneaked it down the Post Office.  She could have stuck some of his ties in too - so the handles are old ties, but for now, we used some lovely old vintage lining fabric so the handles slide smoothly inside the bag casings.

When the shirt arrived I got my grubby, shoddy benailed mitts (aren't they a disgrace, my nails?  My four-year-old painted those on for me 3 weeks ago.  I'm just waiting for them to grow off because I've run out of nail varnish remover).

Um, as I was saying, I got my shoddy benailed mitts all over the shirt and cut it to smithereens before reconstructing it into a bag. 
Naked.  No, I'm kidding, I just happen to have a strapless top thingy on, but I admit it does look a little dodgy.  Unless we want to start up a naked sewing club?  Hm?

Hang on...pins, needles, rotary blades....I'm thinking casualty, embarrassing potential for ending up on the medics' facebook page entitled OMG You'll Never Guess What Injury Came Into Casualty Today

I'm thinking maybe we stick with clothes.  Let's leave naturism to beach volleyball.

Anyhoo, here it is; from shirt to bag.  It's where all shirts dream of ending up....

Grabbing buttons...

Cutting off cuffs...

Lopping off collars...

Cutting out the big shapes....

Sewing 'em together...

Adding lining pieces...

Piecing the structure...

Is it a cuff, or is it a pocket?

Stitching it all up...

Giving it legs - got to have your brand in there

Not wasting the breast pocket!

Putting buttons back on...it looks like tiny knitting!

Give it a little security with a button-up tab...

Re-using the buttons and button placket for a little detail...

Rouche up the handles....

And voila - one Men's Shirt Bag.

Coming soon to the website!  So if there's one of yer man's shirts you've had your eye on, stick a balaclava over your head and sneak into his wardrobe to half-inch it, nabbing a couple of ties while you're at it, and bob's yer uncle, a truly unique Men's Shirt Fortune-Teller Bag.

These will be available as a product to buy on the website very soon, but you know you can just get in touch with us anyway, right?
Here, at Facebook...
Here, at Twitter...
Here at the website...
and Here on the Blog!

Life's Just Better With Jam

Of course, it's taken me so long, their feet no longer fit.  Ahem.

We discover, Dormouse Moneybags and me, that all of a sudden a half-term or an Easter or a Christmas holidays is slap bang sitting right on top of us.  Wham!  Just like that.  We're all, what the, how the, where the heck did the time go?  Are our children ever in school?

I like how it looks as if they've signed their feet...

And in those weeks of course there's little point trying to do anything involving the following high falutin' thinky activities - planning, strategy, website editing, product design, image editing.
You know, just the stuff in our jobs.  No way.  Forget it.  And certainly not making products for our lovely (we're curtsying right now, curtsying) customers, who deserve only the highest quality products we can muster.

Add one gorgeous bright red giant bathmat!

But we're addicted to sewing, so we do both attack little projects for our own home, since it doesn't remotely matter if we cock those up.  Yes, I like to make a right old scruffbag of a thing for my gaff.  I don't care about loose threads, scruffy edges, double-stitching, linings, neat hems, market trends, on-trend colourways or nuffink.  No, I just grab some scraps, cut 'em up, hoop up, throw a sausage at the kids, stitch something to something else, lob some squash at the kids, stitch some more bits to some other bits, cut, snip, stitch, say "Yeeees!" to whatever thing they've just asked for (crisps was it? Tequila? Tree-climbing? Fire-starting? No idea, just can't stop in the middle of machine-embroidery), stitch a bit more, pinking shear some edges, bob's your uncle and here's a bowl of ice-cream with chocolate sauce and yes, of course, help yourself to too much telly.

Enter me for Mother of the Year Award, you say?  Oh yes please, do, do.

Machine-embroidered scraps for a picnic blanket

Anyway, so here are the things I'd been meaning to make for donkeys' years, and scruffy though they are, I'm glad I've done them.  They are the very things I love - they inject creativity into the fabric of this house.  They are there to please no-one but me (and if they please other people, hooorah!); they are spontaneous; vintage; sustainable; re-used; and best of all, being used, so I get to have a little cock-eyed smile at them each time I see them.  Slightly smug.  You know that smile.
I must tell you that the bathmat idea is not mine, no - I saw it in passing at a nice blog once, and always meant to do it.  You can find a smashing tute for it here if you're not confident about tackling it freestyleeee....

The picnic blanket idea has been germinating for a while in my bonce.

 

These are all machine-embroidered squares with daft phrases on them, like our Piece & Jam Collection.  Ok, it's going to take me a while, but once I've done 12 or so, I'll throw them together with some other squares to make a picnic blanket - whack an old shower curtain on the back and hey presto, all ready for an English picnic, for which waterproofing is always advisable. A load of foody phrases, coz life is just better with Jam.

Whose voice can you hear now?  Yep.  That's right.  Homer Simpson.

Yes, that is Eddie Izzard, most beloved of this Isle.  There'll be a few more of his by the time this picnic has finished.  Cake or death?

So, now then - I'd like to know any of the following in your comments please...either here or on our Facebook page....

a) What did you make in the holidays, and on a scale of 1-10, how scruffy was it?
b) What were your most shameful hands-off childcare tactics?  Share.  Seriously - I need some tips!
c) More Eddie Izzard phrases for the picnic blanket please.  And by the way, these are for everyone - please make a picnic blanket using them!  Could you pass me the idioms please.  Thank you.

10 No-Messin’ Rules for an Efficient Laundry Day

The Mama of All Bung-It-In-Bags

You think I'm kidding don't you?  I'm so NOT kidding.  I've only gone and written a perrrrrroper, nice and domesticated blog post!  This will knock your socks off. Just make sure you pick 'em up and clean 'em after.

My Hardcore, No-Messin’ 10 Rules for an Efficient Laundry Day

Our new Piece & Jam Collection takes iconic shapes and phrases and turns them into mini-artworks on every day stuff. Sound a bit arty farty? It's not really - this approach to our products comes from trying to make the paraphernalia of housewifery fun, not just functional.

I am not known for my enjoyment of washing chores (I'm a very shoddy Domestic Operating Officer), but that’s exactly why I need it to be an efficient and time-saving operation.  I would rather be sewing, you see?!  So here it is:

1)   Count your pegs. Have I gone mad? Seriously – count your pegs, and check out how much hanging space you’ve got. We’ll come back to the pegs and line in a minute...

2)   Sort your laundry bins. Don’t have huge ones. But do have a few, because you’re going to sort clothes the moment you get naked, my friends. Establish the following laundry baskets:

a.   one for white undergarments

b.   one for dark undergarments

c.   one for workshirts

d.   one for dark clothes

e.   one for light clothes

f.   I tend to shove all the kids’ clothes in one or two bins divided into lights/brights

g.  I have one for woollens and silks etc (which, ahem, never really get washed.) Anyway – you get the drift, yes?

Try to plan your Laundry Baskets so they relate to where you put things away – so if you have all the kids' tops and t-shirts in one chest of drawers, have a laundry basket for that category.  All the husbands’ pants and socks in one chest of drawers?  A laundry basket for that category. 
Pyjama drawer? Pyjama laundry basket.

3)   DON’T move your laundry baskets from their allotted positions, on pain of death! They live there to catch yer smelly smalls – let your Laundry Bags do the moving jobs.

Disobey the Receptacle Rule at Your Peril

4)   Start thinking in ‘loads’ and ‘receptacles’. Have SMALL receptacles such as laundry bags to take your stuff from laundry basket to washing machine. We designed our Laundry Bags in two sizes – half and full load!  Don’t overload!  Too much and you’ll end up with ditched knickers on the floor. Moreover you’ll have too many clothes to hang on the line and not enough pegs to hang them with!  Ah, do you see? Told you it would make sense.

5)   Obey the Receptacle Rule: Always have Only One Load Per Receptacle, and Always One Receptacle Per Load! The laundry bag is like a faithful bodyguard – it stays with its load at all times.  Leave the bag by the machine (a line of rustic hooks on the wall by the machine is perfect for hanging bags on), and there it is – ready to decant your shiny smalls into when done.  

6)   The Load fits the Line! Now your perfectly size-defined load of washing will magically fit the number of pegs in your lovely Peg Bag, and the amount of space on your line.

Peg Bags like art. Bring it, they say.

7)   When dry – fold as you take down. And this is where that tip about matching your laundry baskets to where things live helps – on a good day, I fold all the items from the line onto a chair, then carry up and put them all away in just ONE place, not 18! No stray teatowels, no odd socks, no belligerent towels creeping in. And the trusty Laundry Bag gets put back upstairs, ready for its next lovely filthy occupants.

8)   One in the Machine, One on the Line, One to Put Away. Have a Maximum of 3 rule! A cheeky queue of Laundry Bags next to the washing machine isn’t so bad, if you have a utility room that can accommodate such guests, but get upstairs and put the clean and dry ones away first, you slattern you.

9)   Have a Washing Calendar.  If you’re really efficient, you can even do a calendar, for all your categories, including towels and sheets (for which bulky monsters our beefy Bung-It-In Bag is designed). Not forgetting of course, Sunday Evening at 9.30pm – School Uniforms.  Ahem...

10) Be green in your washing choices - if you prefer a stiffer alternative to Laundry Bags, you could try sourcing a fairtrade jute basket, or look for a recycled plastic basket like the ones in Folksy store Merja’s Crochet Recycle.  For other washday products, try Nigel’s Eco Store; for some cool British-made and green pegs, you could give these recycled clothes pegs from GreenTree a try and if you really want to have some fun – make your own cleaning products – that’s what I do.  For all the ingredients to make them, try Summer Naturals, and give this smashing little book a try – Natural Stain Removers, by Angela Martin.

Ooh, you'll be mean, green cleaning machines in no time!

Top Tips on Shopping Eco 2: Buy British Handmade

Buy from someone else, please.

Now, in the spirit of truthfulness and for the benefit of all peoplekind, I'm going to recommend to you our competitors.

Er, what?

Not our competitors', ours ours ours!

You know the bit where The Husb claps his hands on his head and pulls handfuls of hair precisely in the opposite direction of the follicles?  Yes; this, one such.  Ok, so maybe it's not the best business idea, but if I am to promote British, hand-made, locally crafted works of beauty, like our products, then I must champion us all, I tell you. Up the hand-made! So to speak.

Britain is full of such astonishing artistic talent, selling products for, I promise you, much lower prices than you might imagine.  So you can buy good-value, beautiful stuff, and do your bit for your carbon footprint by buying British-made.

Latest haul, netted in Charity shops.  Look at the chandeliers!

Now we here are all about eco-friendly, so our products use only vintage, pre-loved or recycled materials, but you don't have to go so earth-gentle to do your bit - simply buying from an individual who has made their product on these 'ere shores will be helping to reduce your environmental impact, because you can be sure your product was made in a loving home, not a vast soul-less factory with unhappy workers paid pitiful wages for soul-destroying hours, shipped vast distances to reach you.

Gimme! Gimme names!

Christmas pressie from Quirky Thistle, aka Mum. Keeping me warm one lap at a time

Where to find these things, and be sure they're made here, you might wonder?  Many small-scale makers are championed by a great website called Folksy, an amazing treasure trove of artist-makers, working from home, selling their wares.  Everything you can buy there will be hand-made, and in most cases unique - that's the bonus of individually made pieces.  I'm not talking just fabric, I'm talking ceramics, wood, prints, jewellery, clothing, and a whole bunch more, including the Old Apple Tree whence I fell, though she won't be too pleased about being called Old. Yes, me old Mum will soon have a shop up there to sell her lovely quilts to people for money, instead of making them free, for me.
Darn you.
Darn you all, you greedy, good-for-nothing workshy customers, you!
Sorry. Now I owe her a blog post once her shop's up.  And she'll clip my ear when she sees me.  Darn it.

And I promise you, these things are often not expensive.  I bought many Christmas presents from makers at Folksy, except, I admit, for the toxic unmentionables Father Christmas informed me were on the Daughts' Christmas List.  Fair do, Santa, I said. Ones own children are not always the best proponents of ones work.  Said Hetty, and I quote, after I foolishly asked her if she liked something I'd made "Not much, Mummy, I don't really like fabric".  Or Isla "Yeah, no, I don't like those colours, Mummy, and you know, it's, like, not made from plastic teenage upward inflection and sneer?"
Down we go, aaaaaand Bump. Hi Earth, only me.

Yanyhoo....Notonthehighstreet is another great online retailer pointing you towards fab makers based in Britain. And there are many organisations out there which showcase and promote British designers and makers - you can see my badge here on this blog for UK Handmade, another community which supports the work of UK based makers.

And to top it all, we are delighted to have been approved as a seller on FromBritainWithLove, a beautiful website dedicated to showcasing and routing you to Britain's most talented designers, crafstpeople, producers and retailers.  We're thrilled to be on there, because there are some big names and fabulous products on there, and that's very exciting for us.  Hoorah!  Up the OriginalStitch!  You know, I mean, not literally.

So, listen here then - if you're a maker - please leave a comment below with your website, folksy, or facebook details, and if you're a reader-buyer, then do have a look at all these lovely places, and come back to see who's left their details here.  I don't mind sharing, because that's another thing - this is a friendly community that helps its fellow crafters out, and for buyers that translates to great customer service.  Home makers bust an absolute gut to get customers' orders right for you, ain't that right, you makers?  Yeah!  Up the workers!  So to speak.

And here's some fun: We're going to select a maker at random from the comments, buy one of their products, and offer it as a giveaway in a blog post coming soon.

So, come say hi, leave a little comment and your shop's details.  Looking forward to hearing from you!  And you reader-buyers, take a little time to check out these places; you'll be happy with what you see.