Handmade Gifts are the Greatest Gifts

There was a big drive on social media during the festive season of 2014 to by handmade, to buy local and to buy from small businesses. I hope that more of you tried to do this, I managed a couple myself.

I was also lucky enough to receive a few things handmade myself.

 

I gave my mum these custom slipper boots from

The Purple Pea Pod.

Kindly modeled by on her sofa last weekend, they look pretty comfy to me!

 

I was also lucky enough to receive these gorgeous mice/meeces from Witty Dawn.

They are both made from the most lovely vintage fabrics and have found a home on my dresser with my 60/70's vintage china collection.

 

Purple felted cuffs from 'be styled by ConDiaMo'

 

 

And finally a gorgeous sparkly purple cherry blossom canvas painted by my Aunty Kate at Kate Fairbairn Art.

Did you give or receive any lovely handmade items last festive season?

New Year New Pincushion Challenges- Attempting to get in a better social media routine

Hello everyone, I accidentally dropped off the blogosphere, so sorry about that!

To be honest in the last few months all of my social media has suffered, I have been so busy and I have struggled to keep up. So I am going to make the effort to get in a better routine!

I shouldn't underplay the year The Violet Pincushion had in 2014 though, myself and mum have attempted to push it past hobby status and closer to a small business. We have attended the local craft market many times now, we have 200 more Facebook followers and I have lost count of the sock monkeys I have made. I have done all this while still maintaining a full time job as a pharmaceutical scientist, keeping up with friends and a minor World of Warcraft addiction.

I do love my violet pincushion, so here is to pushing forward in 2015.

Find us on Facebook, Etsy.com, Google+ and Pinterest.

Apple Picking and Cider Making

 

 I am very lucky that the house I rent has an established apple tree in the garden and this year it didn't disappoint! The variety of apple is 'James Grieve', a beautiful yellow and red apple with a good tangy flavour and suitable for cider making!

 

We picked over 30lb of apples (a massive crop this year) and encountered some beasties along the way! 

All the apples had damage, like bruising or coddling moth holes cut away and then we smashed them up using a large piece of wood.

 If you prefer you can freeze them before pressing to soften the apples but we didn't have enough freezer space to do that.

 We bought a lovely shiny new 18L fruit press, which was great fun and a lot easier to use, especially considering in previous years I have hand pressed apple pulp! I should think it will coming in handy again next year too.

When you have finished pressing and have a large amount of juice its a good idea to check the gravity with a hydrometer. This allows you to check the sugar content of your juice. Our juices' gravity was at 1.050, which is the top end of the starting range.

 

All the juice was divided between glass demi-johns, with 200g of sugar and a small amount of white wine yeast added to each. With an air-lock on the top of each demi-john, they have been left to settle, bubble and they should eventually clear.

This should take about three months, so just in time for Christmas/Winter Solstice celebrations!

Making cider is pretty easy if you have the right equipment and willing to spend you weekend picking and processing apples! If you are not lucky enough to have a fruit press then you can usually hire them or get a local cider/apple farm to press you apples for you.

In a few months time I shall share with you what will hopefully be a drinkable home made cider.

I've made a Denim Sock Monkey!

So my love of denim up-cycling and sock monkey making has finally collided and I have created (as far as I can tell by googling and searching on Pintrest) the first denim 'sock' monkey!

Here he is sitting next to the purple Nemesia in my garden. 

 He was made in a doll fashion using an old pair of jeans.

 

I have cut out three more to make as the first on worked so well!


 

He and the other are available to buy on the Etsy - The Violet Pincushion shop now!

Are you a Crafty Forager?

Last Christmas I carefully collected as many pieces of gold ribbon as I could off the table after the cracker bonanza. I was asked what I planned to do with it... well i didn't know but why let good ribbon just go in the bin? Surely it will come in handy? I mean doesn't everyone have a jam jar or two of ribbons? Oh just me then!?

This got me thinking about foraging crafting bits and pieces. I carefully remove all the ribbon from clothes I buy, from gifts, wrapped stuff etc... I keep hold of broken beaded jewelery, old jeans and coloured paper envelopes.

What do you guys keep hold of? Or smuggle away so no one knows your hoarding?

I used the gold ribbon to tie up these glass purple pinecone decorations my mum gave me.
See it did come in handy!

Sock Creature Experiements

Hey everyone! I have recently shared a few pictures on my Facebook page of a couple of sock creatures I designed and made myself, thought I would share my designs and a few other pictures with you! Taking some inspiration from the wonderful 'Stupid Sock Creatures' by John Murphy here are my original concept drawings...

 They didn't exactly turn out as I originally planned, but then that's part of the experiment!

 I am rather a fan of this guys big red tongue, he can lick passersby and they won't know whats hit them!

This guy has lovely big green eyes and chunky face to match his big stripes!

I still haven't got round to making the one with the big mustache, but of course its on a long to do list!

Fancy experimenting yourself? Well dig through your sock draw and pull out the 'old and interesting' socks as I call them and give it a go!

Malmesbury Hub Craft Market

Afternoon everyone, I hope you are having a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon?

I just wanted to share with you some of the pictures I took yesterday of the Violet Pincushion stand yesterday at the Malmesbury Hub Craft Market in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. This is the 4th time we have had a stand at this fledgling craft market and it went really well! As an added bonus to the weekend we also reached 50 likes on Facebook today, may the page only continue to grow!

Here is my lovely mum, Gaby, manning the stall

Look at all the lovely monkeys, a few of them got to go to new homes. Lets hope they get lots of love <3

 

 All mum's lovely felt creations including a gorgeous new purple butterfly, were presented hanging on an open metal screen

Definitely going for a black, red and white theme here, on a newly painted little corner shelf mum found a few months back

The stand was fully of plenty of rainbow colour two, with vintage lace bags full of rose or lavender, felt kitties also filled with lavender and a tower of baby sock monkeys!

We are next at the Malmesbury Hub on the 19th July (we are doing it alternate months).

If you are interested in buying anything before then, just comment on here, TheVioletPincushion or pop along to the Etsy Shop!

Giant Upcycled Denim Floor Cushion - The Result

 As promised (some time ago I know) here is the finished giant denim cushion. The case is fully removable and washable!

 Pocket side up

 Stripy!

Since finishing the giant monster of a cushion cover I have made a more normal sized version. Its 16x16 inches, and has a lovely squishy insert, I had planned to sell it in the Etsy shop but my other half was rather taken with it, so its on our sofa now. Hopefully I will find the time to make a few more of these over the next couple of months as I do want to get some up-cycled denim into the shop!

Here are a few pictures I took while making it.

Big Project 1 - Giant Upcycled Denim Floor Cushion

I have called this post 'Big Project 1' as this is something I have wanted to do for nearly ten years now... and as part of my crafting resolution for 2014, I planned to start and more importantly finish projects I had always meant to start!

Here is just a small amount of the large collection of old jeans in my crafty room so I had plenty of material to work with.

Selecting several pairs of jeans I cut the pockets off, and ignoring the front and legs for now. 

Slowly but surely I sewed them all together to make the first side of my cushion cover.

So that was the first side completed, a little wonky, but I was happy with the different blues and blacks I used.

For the other side I decided on a diagonal stripe, corner to corner. For this I would use the pieces of leg I had put aside earlier.

The easiest way to do this was to cut open each piece of denim leg and lay it flat. I measured strips about 7-8 inches deep and as long as possible. Each leg resulted in about 7 or 8 strips of denim.

 

The giant cushion is 100 x 100 cm, so a single strip wasn't going to go corner to corner. So I sewed matching strips together initially and then lined them up to start sewing them together.

I tried to randomise the colour of denim as much as I could and line up the join in the middle.

 

So here is the second side of the cushion cover!

I am super happy with it, looks pretty effective and I think would make great smaller cushion covers to sell in the shop. All I need to do is sew them together now, think I am going to use the jeans buttons to fasten it on one side but I haven't decided yet.

So there you go my mega denim up-cycled cushion cover, think I used less than ten pairs, will have to get stuck into some covers for the shop now to make more of a dent in my old jeans collection!

Crafting Resolution

Happy new year everyone!

I am not a big fan of resolutions, as I don't work well under personal goal pressure, but the last few months have been pretty dire for finding time to actually do the things I want to do. Those brilliant project ideas you had five years ago, you collected together everything you needed, but never started and ever worse the half finished projects that stare at you every time you walk past... so this is my resolution, to find the time to craft everything that I want to.

A pretty simple resolution that starts with me tidying up the dumping ground that is my craft room. 

At least I have been collecting some inspiration; 

 

sew a little love 

Anazard.

Tinywhitedaisies

Dutch-blue

check out more on my Pinterest board The Perfect Craft Room.
Or Follow me here! Izzy Morden

Dachshund Draft Excluder Experiement

A few months ago, one of my family members asked if I could make a draft excluder that looked like a Dachshund. I do so like a challenge and with a three month deadline I worked on making the excluder in drips and drabs over the last few months. I decided to make a sock dog, that was low to the ground and with a long long long body. Here's how I got on...

The sewing of the back legs was my starting point. I made a long continuous tube out of another 4 socks and used the remaining pieces for the head, the ears and the tail.

I had intended on leaving it un-stuffed to aid its journey to Australia, however this soon become clear this would be impossible as I wouldn't be able to sew on the dogs features.

So I stuffed its back-end, sewed on the tail and then started work on the head.











 Dachshunds have a distinct head shape which I did my best to replicate. Looking a little wonky in this photo, I gave the nose a pointed look, sweet little violet eyes and longish hanging down ears.

Here it is...

...a lovely long Dachshund draft excluder all ready to be delivered to my uncle Richard of Richard Morden Illustration in sunny Australia.

In fact it was been carried over by my parents as they were visiting and should have been received by now! Hope you like it Rich!

Pursuit of Preserves - The POP up village in Sherston

A few months back I mentioned I planned on setting up a pop up stall for the pop up village event in Sherston, Wiltshire. Well yesterday was the main event, having spent the last two weeks making lots jams, jellies and a chutney.




I used plenty of ingredients from my own garden, like this purple sage. Other herbs included rosemary and oregano.

I made quite a bit Hot Chilli Jelly, as it was a big hit when I made it last year for friends and family.

I got apples from my own garden and friends to make the majority of jellies.

For the Blackberry and Elderberry Jam I used elderberries from my own garden and foraged blackberries from hedgerows. These hedgerows included my parents hedge, they grow a delicious thorn less variety.

I also used home grown tomatoes and courgettes to make a sweet chutney.

My full list of available goodies was:

Hot Chilli Jelly
Apple, Cider and Purple Sage Jelly
Rosemary Jelly
Red Onion Marmalade (Variants: with Oregano and Sage, and with Chilli)
Blackberry and Elderberry Jam
Tomato and Courgette Chutney
Apple Butter

I set up shop in my best friends garden, with a table cloth and dollies I did my best to make it look shabby chic!

Each jar was decorated with a fancy fabric top, and a PoP label attached with ribbon.

Each different preserve had a sample pot too so people could have a taste of each one.



There was a free fruity muffin (banana, apple or pineapple) with every purchase too to sweeten the deal even more!

With a funky milkshake bar happening in my friend's kitchen, The Dizzy Cow, we had over 100 people 'pop' in.

Having opened at 3pm, at 5.45pm this was all that remained! I have now sold all bar one jar of of Hot Chilli Jelly... and raised £120 for Sherston Primary School, Busy Hands Pre-School and Sherston Toddler Group, not a bad afternoons work!