Wednesday 31 October 2012

Happy Halloween



Our jolly pumpkins lighting up the doorway!

Chalcot Road seems to be the centre for all trick or treating in NW1! In an hour and a half we got thru 400 sweets! but it was lovely to see everyone in their costumes and especially well done for all of you ho made your own costumes. Next year I promise to come up with even more ideas!


I was commissioned to design a fun but not too frightening bunting for halloween and I am delighted with the result. I decided to use orange 3mm check and design 6 different shapes for each flag co-ordinating the felt colours. The bat, the ghost, the black cat, the pumpkin, the witches hat with green hair and the moon with a rather sinister dark grey cloud all add to the halloween spirit without scaring any member of the family too much! there is lots of work in it but once made it can come out again every year. This design with its instructions and materials will be available next year in the shop ready for next halloween!

Monday 1 October 2012

Location,Location,Location

For those of you who were vigilant watching Location, Location, Location last Thursday at 8pm you will had seen a brief glimpse of the shop window and some arty shots of me teaching sewing through the window! Not quite my 15 seconds of fame but it did remind me to post up my ideas for an Autumn decoration that I now have hanging in the window. Last Autumn was beautiful in Regents Park and I picked up my favourite leaf shapes, conquers and mushrooms to inspire my Autumn Bower.



I then made patterns from these shapes.


I then cut out the shapes in a variation of Autumnal colours in felt and then grouped them together in an attractive way using a strip of calico to attach the shapes on to.


Then I also used stitching lines to accentuate the leaves shapes and add movement and energy to the whole piece. I made an across row and two down rows as if it would hang around a fireplace.




You could use this principle to make all sorts of bower decoration and the great thing is you can put them away and easily get them out again next year.
Happy creativity! 
Here are my favourite Echino seasonal fabrics available in the shop today.