Take a moment and escape from your everyday life into a craft fantasy world. Inspired by the enchanting world of Alice in Wonderland, two lovely ladies have come together to create this craft book Everything Alice, much like the story, this book is magical. It was enlightening to read the journey the book’s creators took to put the book together. Obviously a labour of love, the book taps into many different crafts to create 50 original projects, from the march hare’s house tea-cosy and Cheshire cat hand warmer to the lavender dormice and one of my favourites the Humpty Dumpty Doorstop, even the title for each project is inspiring.
It’s clear this book has not been hastily created, throughout the book the images and illustrations are beautiful, from the Invitation Cushion and Mad Hatter Hats to the Shadow Puppet Show . Each time you look at the book you will notice anther small detail with in the projects.
Shadow Puppet Show. Credit: Tiffany Mumford
We Made this.....
SW Craft Club Fabric Covered Tea Pot
Following the success of the book, more products have been launched to compliment it, including the Everything Alice Note Cards – Eat Me, Queen of Hearts Cake Stand and note books.
This book is a great gift, Everything Alice we salute you and give you 5/5
Don’t just take our word for it, click to read more book reviews on Amazon
To prove we are not bias and we don’t just feature
articles for the ladies, this week we’ve put together a very special article
for the men.
A month ago I popped down to the coast with Natasha DeVil and we had one thing
on our minds – raid the charity shops. Seems strange eh? Not quite, there is a
method to our madness, London has very expensive charity shops (oxymoron) but
as a lot of old people move to the coast when they retire, if you pick the
right town, it’s seriously like winning the charity shop lottery.
Anyhow winter is drawing in and we were on the hunt for
retro knitting patterns, thankfully we were in luck, it was like an Aladdins
cave of musky clothing, 1980’s films and
thankfully knitting paraphernalia.
Below I've picked some of my favourite images/ patterns...
Parental Advisory – whist the patterns are fab, draw your
eyes in more closely to the photography it’s a thing of retro beauty and the
models/ their poses are status of art. Enjoy!
Do you like? Below are some of the best patterns pages from Mon Tricot....
Ummm, haven't considered matching socks and jumper, but it is worth considering, he seems happy..
One word - Movember
This is the biggest men's cardigan I have seen in my life, I like the pattern, but the sleeves - Goodness
Notice the title Men's Fashion - I have high expectations
Speechless!
We’ve left the best until last – The Starsky cardigan.
Yes that’s right we have the pattern, needles ready SW Craft Club are going
retro this winter!!
If you’d like a copy of the patterns of any of the images, let us know
we’d happily email the pattern to you. What this space for the women's patterns coming soon.....
We have a very exciting announcement. This autumn we are launching our first newsletter - called Craft Candy (think of eye candy but craft... you get the idea)
The ‘Craft Candy’ newsletter will feature lots of different useful bits of information each month, including blog of the week, top tweets, events, markets, workshops, competitions, blog posts and much more.
Think of Craft Candy as SW Craft Club’s little sister, Craft Candy is slightly edgier than her big sister and as well as the newsletter, Craft Candy is going to have it’s own blog platform Craft Candy Blog a different type of blog on a Tumblr platform. Tumblr allows Craft Candy to list all of her favourite images each week along with an upbeat sound track (best to listen to it, her music collection doesn’t usually disappoint)
Find Craft Candy easily from the blog
Follow us on Twitter & Facebook, talk to us we do talk back....
Join the club and subscribe to Craft Candy, it;'s going to be a treat into your inbox....
Don't forget, we are still a local blog and we love supporting local craft.
But to do that we still need your support. This month we applied for a £300 grant
BUT we need 300 votes to receive the grant, please vote for us
Hello SW Craft Clubbers, my name is Natasha and I will be your guest blogger for today. I would just like to say I am very happy to be over here at SW Craft Club as a life time South Londoner and a crafter to boot.
Today I will be reviewing Emeliana Underwear’s Make Your Own Knickers Kit where you get to make your very own pair of upcycled knickers.
The kit basically gives you everything you need including material, thread, lace and easy to follow instructions. All you need is a sewing machine, a pair of scissors and some pins.
The info sheet advises that you take a paper copy of the cut out knickers pieces so that you can make more knickers at a later date.
Firstly you will need to pin the three pieces of fabric together as per the instructions and sew together.
Despite being an experienced sewer I don’t have much experience with jersey or stretch material so as advised in the info sheet it would be wise to practise stitching on some scrap material first. The trick with stretch material I find is patience and take your time.
Then you pin your lace to the sides and waist and sew together.
Then finish of by sewing the sides together, attaching the bow (not skewiff like mine) and trim all the excess thread and voila a pair of upcycled knickers.
As an experience sewer I found this project relatively easy and a lot of fun and it only took me approximately 2 hours to complete this project. However I do believe this kit would make a great starter project for an inexperienced sewer as the instructions are easy to follow and there is a website should you need any helpful hints or need to ask any questions and as I already said it gives you all the materials you need to make the knickers.
The info sheet is full of helpful hints and tips and the whole kit is very user friendly. This would make a great gift for either an experienced or inexperienced sewer and not only that if you take the advice and copy out the pattern you can make lots more pair of knickers.
These kits come in three different styles hipster brief, bikini and shorts, sizes range from 8-18 and they only costs £12 plus £1.95 p&p for UK orders and £2.95 p&p for overseas orders and are available to order on Etsy.
‘Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection’ is Aimee Ray’s second book injecting new life back into the art of embroidery. A ‘doodle stitch’ does exactly what it says on the tin; it turns everyday doodles into inspirational designs. Aimee takes a fresh approach to embroidery, making it a playful and fun craft accessible to all levels.
With a graphic design background in the comic book and greeting card industry, design has always been a big part of Aimee’s life. She quit her fulltime job in 2010 to work for herself and focus on her crafty side.
The Motif Collection expands on Aimee’s first book ‘Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners’, offering more than 400 embroidery motifs as well as 17 projects showcasing some of the best motifs from the book. It also includes an expanded and updated version of all of the embroidery basics found in the first book which is particularly useful if you are new to the craft. Unlike most craft related books, this one comes with a CD packed full of even more motifs for you to download and even edit.
One of the great things about The Motif Collection is it doesn’t assume any previous knowledge of embroidery. However, being a fairly straightforward craft it doesn’t need to spend pages and pages getting you up to speed and after just a few well explained instructions you are ready to get embroidering.
The book is neatly divided into sections; perfect for dipping in and out. The stitch library at the front of the book allows you to become familiar with new stitches, but is presented in such a way that you could easily flip back to these pages as and when you come to an unfamiliar stitch.
The project pages are well presented with clear instructions on what stitch to use as well as helpful annotations. More importantly these are well chosen projects that you would actually want to do! The Snow Day Hat and Mittens set turns an average looking hat and pair of mittens into unique and eye catching accessories that would be perfect as a Winter gift!
The second half of the book focuses on the motif collection. It is divided into categories including Food, Under the Sea and Garden Time so readers can quickly find a motif that inspires them. What stands out about this section is that Aimee includes finished embroidered pieces rather than just illustrations. This is a small detail but makes all the difference seeing how a piece will actually turn out.
The CD included with the book is packed full of additional motifs; the most useful being the alphabet category. Including a CD is a nice touch as it gives the reader more content, but in practice I’m not sure how much use it would actually have. When looking for new ideas, I’d much rather flip through a book of pretty pictures than root around in folders on my PC!
Overall this is a really well thought out book, perfect for gathering inspiration and new ideas. The author has truly thought about how this book will be used by her readers and designed it accordingly. This is the type of book that will have a place on your shelf for years; constantly being dipped in and out of when an inspirational doodle stitch is required! Here's one I made earlier
Last Thursday saw the lovely people behind Crafty Fox transform the Dogstar in Brixton into a haven for craft lovers, as they brought their popular pop-up market back to town.
Crammed with market stalls sellingeverything from handmade jewellery and cushions, to vintage clothes and artwork, the night market saw over 1000 guests flock to the Dogstar on the search for cheap and affordable items.
Stand out stalls included the ever-popular Hairy Molly, with their signature knitted beards and moustaches, as well as the spectacularly unique handmade jewellery from Storm in a Cup.I particularly liked the hand-drawn ceramics designed by the talented illustrator Jimbobart. Each piece is 100% unique, and guaranteed to bring a smile to everyone’s face with his punchy quotes and quirky drawings.
There was also the chance for you to get a little hands-on yourself, with the Crafty Fox Night School, held upstairs, away from the hustle and bustle below. It provided you with the opportunity to brush up on, or learn a new range of skills including knitting, crochet, and sewing.
Workshops ranged from making origami bracelets with Vicky from Stars ‘n’ Scars, to learning how to knit with Stitch Balham. There was also the chance to make crochet doilies with Viv Moriarty and opportunities to design Brixton influenced postcards with Elena from Dreamy Me.
I really enjoyed my workshop with the charming Gillian from Crafty Pint. She was providing people with the opportunity to make bow ties from vintage fabric. It was nice to get away for the extremely busy market and just relax to the sound of people chattering and getting along.
The infectious cocktail of handmade arts and crafts and hands-on workshops made it a great night, with local DJ’s spinning a hypnotic blend of contemporary and reggae, providing the soundtrack for the night. It made you completely forget you were in the centre of Brixton.
Everything on sale was affordable, and well worth its price. And the atmosphere of the night was amazing! Definitely one to look out for if you are a craft fan, or just interested in trying something new.
For those of you that don’t know, Crafty Fox is the brainchild of Brixton local Sinead Koehler, jewellery maker for Galavant. The market was launched in 2010 to provide a platform for emerging designers to showcase their work in a community-driven and creative atmosphere.
We’re back, refreshed and ready to go! SW Craft Club’s first summer has been awesome, we popped up in Tooting and Clapham with a feast of different crafts available to all for free, both dates were successful with over 250 people taking part and we’ve just come back from touring France and Italy.
We have some huge plans for the club over the next year and one of the plans is to refresh and update the blog, as our aim is to make it prettier, with more pages and lots more craft information for you. But, we need your help... (Yes, you..)
We’ve applied for £300 grant from Enterprise Nation, but in order to receive it, all we need is 300 votes for our bid and we’d love it you voted for our bid. It’s a simple process, here’s what you need to do:
1. Click on the link: http://bit.ly/rqSYlO 2. Read through our idea &If you like the idea, click VOTE 3.Remember to let us know when you’ve voted, we’d love to thank each and every one of you. 4. Oh! if you decided to sign up to it yourself, let us know we'll happily vote for you. Thank you
White Stuff is getting ready for the second annual National Wear a Tea Cosy on Your Head Day (NWATCOYHD) on Thursday 22nd September. The event will be an exciting day of fundraising with White Stuff staff and customers sponsored to don tea cosies on their heads and much more!
Last year White Stuff raised £26k for charity, lots of people got involved (even some famous faces) and we want to make the second NWATCOYHD bigger and even better than before. There are many ways customers can join in and raise money; including knitting their own tea cosy (with our downloadable Grannies Inc pattern), sponsoring their local shop, taking part in a ‘stitch and bitch’ session or hosting their very own ‘chari-tea’ party.
On the actual day there will be fun activities in our local shops and drinks and nibbles. If shoppers arrive wearing a tea cosy they will receive a free gift from our friends at Clipper. Followers on Twitter should look out for the #NWATCOYHD and Facebookers will be asked to tag themselves wearing their tea cosies on our Facebook page. Customers can also email us pictures of themselves wearing a tea cosy with the best entry winning a £200 White Stuff voucher.
Our local charities will be getting involved in fundraising too. Each of our 78 shops supports a local charity and all monies raised on the day will go directly to this cause. The charities are supported by The White Stuff Foundation, which was set up in 2010 and aims to make the world a little happier by helping disadvantaged children and young people in our local communities.
For more information look them up on Twitter @IvyandLil or Facebook
When I first saw this being made, I remember thinking ‘surely it can’t be that easy to make’ but it is! The bowl makes for a great gift or for you to bring out on special occasion, as a centre piece or simply to just hold things, sweets, buttons, beads, money or like us fruit.
Equipment
1 Doily, fabric stiffen and 1 balloon
Blow up the balloon and fix/ balance it onto something sturdy. Note – When blowing you balloon up, consider how large or small you’d like your doily bowl to be.
Soak the doily into a bowl of fabric stiffen, leave to soak to ensure its fully obscured.
Stretch the doily over the balloon and mould it into the shape, you’d like – I’ve never used fabric stiffener but I’m guessing once it’s stuck into place there’s no changing it.
Leave the doily to dry on the balloon over night and then the fun bit – pop the balloon
We’ve been contacted by the craft retail chain, Hobby Craft . They’re looking for local artisans and crafters to give in-store demonstrations to customers over a 6 to 12 week period. This is a great opportunity for you to promote your products or crafts.
You may already have an online shop on Etsy or Folksy, but this is a unique opportunity to speak to and to promote to customers face to dace, you’re even allowed to sell your products whilst you are demonstrating. This is an agreement between you and Hobby Craft and currently they looking for all craft types as long as the store stocks at least 80% of the equipment/ products need to make the craft you are demonstrating. Currently this is just open to stores near to London – Croydon, Orpington and Crayford.
If you are interest, and would like to apply email a short description and an image of your product or if you’d like come information, contact Zoe – zoe@swcraftclub.co.uk
