SweetMyrtle

ideas for a homemade/handmade christmas #3

 

Morsbags

Have you heard of Morsbags?

 

Morsbags is a not for profit organisation set up in 2007  by Claire Morsman who was so shocked by the devastating effect plastic bags have on marine wildlife that  she decided to promote the making and giving away  free of reusable cotton bags to show that there really is an alternative to plastic.

I first learned about Morsbags through Emma and Rachel at That little bit greener  and in 2009 made my first Morsbag. I wrote about it here and i gave some away on my blog. i also made some for my family as Christmas gifts.

They are really so easy to make and the Morsbags site even has a great animated tutorial to show you how.

If you get addicted to making them you can even join together with friends and set up a pod to create and distrubute them within your community. Many pictures of bags created at pods can be seen here.

i shall be making and gifting some more bags to friends as gifts this year. (best get to it though as it's only 5 weeks till Christmas.. eek!)

the 'Love what you wear' project

I do love a challenge so i have joined Morwhenna from Bags of Love's

'Love what you wear' Project.

I have agreed to not buy any new clothes for a year from nov 1st  2012 to nov 1st 2013 (with the exceptions of footwear and underwear, although i shall attempt to make some knickers! and thrift some footwear)

So what does this mean?

• I shall  wear what i have and make my 'wardrobe' work harder.

• I shall look after and repair my clothes.

• when i need something i shall either buy second hand from thrift shops, car boot fairs and ebay, upcycle and refashion clothes i have or second hand ones i buy, or get creative making clothes from scratch. I am hoping to  use fabrics i have (i have a lot) but will buy new if neccesary and try to source more ethically produced fibres too.

Morwhenna has set up a facebook group and blog so we can follow  her progress. If you would like to join in the challenge then do share your journey on the facebook page too. About 20 people are now  participating in' Love what you wear', so there will be lots of moral support and sharing of ideas.

A group project inspiration board  has been started on Pinterest and also a board to add our future creations.

In the last few months i have been collecting inspiration pins on clothes refashioning ideas for a make do and mend course I will be running next spring so this challenge has come at the perfect time. I have always loved buying from charity shops and  can make clothes too (trained as a costume maker). My main concern is  that i often have little time, but i am determined that this is what i would like to do from now on so i am pleased that this project will give me the final push to start experimenting.

i hope that by participating  i will become mindful of how much i actually need, learn to be more resourceful ,  learn some new creative skills and meet some lovely likeminded folk too x

i think some swishing events may be involved too : )

 

november 1st & ideas for a Homemade/ Handmade Christmas

hello november!

i am thinking, a new month,  and a new start... back into blogging.

as well as being very busy with my home and working life i have been spending  my online time more on twitter and pinterest recently and haven't quite been able to have the mental space to write a blog post.

But today inspired by some twitter communication this morning with a new twitter friend Jen it seems that an idea has taken shape (partly) and will hopefully, organically transform into some blog posts.

Let me first tell you about Jen.

Jen has set up a blog to document a year of not buying anything new and will make do and mend, salvage, refashion, upcycle or source second hand all her and her family needs for the following year. She writes about her reasons and self imposed rules here.

Having been brought up in a very make do and mend family;  mum was a primary school teacher, think Blue Peter and dad is very handy with his hands and even made me a netball post  when i was younger, you will realise that i  love reading about these type of challenges. To me it's about resourcefulness, about being creative and valuing what we have. It's also a lot of fun and you can develop new skills which result in a great feeling of accomplishment, not to mention the pleasure sometimes of having saved yourself some money.

This morning Jen tweeted that it's first of November so Christmas is getting close. Obviously she has a challenge to make, find or upcycle stuff to create into gifts. We were chatting about suggestions  and i thought that perhaps my blog was a good place to share some ideas and to show some of the gifts that we as a family have made in the past.

Hopefully it will get me motivated for this years gift making too.

If you would also like to share your gift making ideas , please do email me with  gifts you have created or are creating and i will either add them into a post or link to your blog post.

What do you think? a good idea? would you like to share and join in?

i am not going to give myself any rules (you probably know i am not good with those) so am unsure whether the ideas will be themed or random.  I will however aim to link to some great tutorials and inspiration and also may even do a tutorial myself. Hopefully it will open discussion and also help us all get motivated. are you up for it?

thank you for reading and do let me know if you'd like to contribute and share your ideas.

Gx

today i have mostly been...

Shirring!

so simple and so much fun!

just to let you know there really has been a lot of creating and writing going on here, even though it may not seem like it as there has not been much blog sharing. i have seriously fallen behind with my blog posting haven't i?!

one of the reasons why this has been the case is that i have been writing a book. the final deadline of full manuscript delivery is next week too.

the book is a children's sewing project book and i am writing again with alice as with the previous two books.

it has been a tight schedule, especially with all our teaching commitments,  but it has also been great fun.  Devising projects for  children allows one to unleash their inner child and we have both enjoyed 'playing'.

I am excited but at the moment i am too close to it to be objective. we hand it over to the illustrator and design team next and then wait anxiously to see the first pages.

the book won't be out until Spring 2013 but as soon as i can i will share more details with you.

i'm off to bed now as i am teaching a workshop tomorrow on Shirring, so off to spread the shirring love.

goodnight  Gx

my 1940's girl

my sweet 11 year old is studying world war 2 at school. they had an activities/dress up day this week, with the school hall  set up as a mini community complete with anderson air raid shelter. They cooked wartime food, learned about rationing, danced the jitterbug and listened to eldery folk from the local community talk about their memories.

the children have all been working on their own projects about an aspect of the war that interests them. smallest has been finding out about the role of women in the war so on the dress up day she said she would lke to go dressed as a Land Girl. After dismissing the  uniform of jodphurs, sweater and hat we decided to go the more casual dungarees and pretty blouse look inspired by the film, 'Land Girls'.

so in true 'Make do and Mend' style i refashioned a pair of my husbands  dark taupe coloured jeans into some dungarees. Here's how i did it;

1. I folded his jeans in half matching up the inside leg and outside leg seams.

2. I folded a pair of my daughters jeans in the same way and laid them over the top matching up the inside leg and centre front zip edges to use as a size guide.

3. With tailors chalk i marked around her jeans with a new outside leg line, hem line and waistline. I then cut off the excess on the larger jeans (leaving seam allowances).

4. Using the cut off hem i refashioned the 'bib' of the dungarees and also the side seam plackets for the buttons.I used the cut off outside leg fabric for the straps and luckily had just enough.

5. i then stitched up the side seams, attached the bib, and straps and finished off with buttons.

I was really chuffed and so was she. We dresssed her hair (quite wildly) in 1940's style and realised that the archetypal headscarf would not go over the top so discarded that. Her green weelies completed the look but i was later told that they made doing the jitterbug quite difficult!

hair ornament

today we have been making hair ornaments and jewellery.

i am doing a workshop tomorrow so it is great to have some new samples to show the group.

i seem to be blogging daily, please don't faint. i  don't expect i will be able to keep it up but i  would like to  post a little more regulary and to share what we have been up to.

you may also have noticed that i have changed my blog banner. this was something i had been contemplating doing but after trying to make my central blog column layout a little wider yesterday i lost my banner. therfore it seemed like the right time to design a new one. i have designed a few and am still undecided which to use, if any.

the one up at present i feel may be a little too 'shouty'.. you know .. a bit too large?

here are a few more options... i would love to know your thoughts...

1.

2.

3.

 

maybe see you tomorrow then?

Gx

 

more useful sewing

a wee first aid bag whipped up yesterday to take on our Summer adventures out and about ...just in case.

Hope your Summer hols are going well. Message for Emily.... been thinking of you and your blueberries, hope you've been enjoying them, we've been loving ours! x

making me happy today

 No. 3 ~potato harvest

and  useful sewing.

 Wishing you a Happy Monday : )

Vintage in Farnham!

Hello: )  I do hope you have, like me, been enjoying the Springtime sunshine.

 

today i have been soaking up the suns rays whilst sitting blissfully in my garden embroidering. 

I am getting ready for the new Vintage one day Fair organised by the Farnham Maltings .

It takes place this Sunday 8th May 10am - 4pm and proves to be a great event.

there will be wonderful vintage items for sale, including, clothing, jewellery and furniture, exhibitions, demos, drop in classes and all round vintage fun. i am so looking forward to it!

I will be there with my creative friend Alice  as 'Alice and Ginny' and we will be selling a few hancrafted  items, our craft books and also demonstationg some traditional hand embroidery stitches. So if you would like to learn how to create lazy daisies, stem stitch and french knots, please pop down to the cellar bar, pick up an embroidery hoop  and join us!

for full deatils of the day please visit the Farnham Maltings website for further information here

tweet tweet!

my life  has recently experienced a new type of connecting... another online connecting, a tweety type of connecting...

...yes i have finally joined twitter and i have to say i have entered into a world of full of incredibly generous and warm hearted folk each connecting , sharing information and supporting each other & having fun banter too.

that is to say that not all of twitter i assume is like this but the folk that i am following whose tweets i receive are so very inspiring.

i am still a novice and finding my way &  i was caught by dodgy direct message scam in the first week of joining which was almost enough to put me off. i hung in there and have discovered that many of my old blog friends have been tweeting for ages.

i particulary like the'' eco tweeters' who link to fantastic  news articles almost daily and keep me informed of ways to live with more awareness.  the creative tweeters link to blog posts and new products and i have managed to get some clothing at a real reduction through tweety tip offs.

a lovely fellow tweeter Jackie Stewart from JS flower spirit  kindly invited me to contibute to her november newsletter which she writes in collaboration with brilliant  nature photographer jason smalley .  as you can imagine i am delighted to be included. you can sign up to receive your copy by going to this link.

my contribution is within a gorgeous Yule gift feature which links to special offers from nature related artists & suppliers, including the amazingly talented karen davis whose illustrations and painting i adore. please do pop  and check it out and also take a visit to  jackie's wonderful  website & blog.

twitter can be a distration, both good when i have time and not so good when i need to work. i do think i am hooked now though as i  find it's immediacy for sharing and asking questions excellent.  i tweet when i wish to inform others of workshops i am running or share images from flickr. and often when i have something random in my head which i wish to share.

are you on twitter? what are your thoughts? does it scare you or can you see it being fun? any advice or personal experiences on etiquette etc all gratefully received x

p.s. my new brooches dotted through this post are now up for sale in my shop