Guest post: Awesome women of craft

Hi Things to Make & Doodlers, my name's Kirsty and I blog over at The Leopard Anchor. I'm just dropping by to share with you some fabulous women who are rockin' the craft industry.

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First up is a lady who is one of my craft idols, Jenny Hart, founder of Sublime Stitching. Jenny is responsible for making embroidery cool, with her rock 'n' roll patterns and her superb stitched artwork.

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Sublime Stitching was born in 2001 and it completely revolutionised embroidery, with the tag line 'this ain't your gramma's embroidery', Jenny ain't lying.

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You can find Jenny's online shop here, her artwork here and some work produced from her patterns here.

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Katie of Skunkboy Creatures make the best plush animals I've ever seen, she has made cuddly toys cool again.

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One day I will own one of Katie's plush taxidermy (below, far right), I think her creatures are so beautiful.

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Katie writes a great blog here, her online shops can be found here and here.

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Sunni of A Fashionable Stitch first came to my attention when I was on the hunt for sewing notions. She sells the prettiest tailor's hams, seam rolls and pincushions, better yet - she makes them herself! In her online shop, Sunni also sells fine & vintage haberdashery items, patterns & belt-making kits.

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On A Fashionable Stitch you will also find Sunni's blog, which is a really excellent sewing resource!

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You can find the A Fashionable Stitch blog and shop here.

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I credit Sarai Mitnick for my instant love of dressmaking and early successes. Her company, Colette Patterns, is WONDERFUL. The designs are spot on, and the instructions are jargon-free and easy to follow.

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Also present on the Colette Patterns website is their fantastic blog, it has a great mix of behind the scenes peeks (my favourite), tutorials, tips and general sewing goodness.

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(^that's me, in the first dress I ever made - thanks Colette Patterns!)

Find the Colette Patterns website here, and Sarai's personal blog here.

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I've actually just written about Kirstie Allsopp on my blog. I'm not obsessed, but I do think she is a fantastic ambassador for crafts.

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Kirstie's new craft program, Kirstie's handmade Britain started last week and is showing every Wednesday at 8pm on Channel 4. In this series she'll be entering craft competitions across the country, after learning the skills from some of Britain's great craftspeople.

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Kirstie's website is here, her books can be found here and here.

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And there they are, who are your favourite craftswomen?

xo Kirsty

Week as I am

Good morning everyone, it's time for the statutory weekly roundup post!

I love the building across the river. The sign i's kind of retro. Walking by the river again - gotta love crisp Autumn days!

Warning up with a chilli

My birdie brooch gets an outing

Pumpkins!

Breakfast at Castle Howard.

It was my week off so the food's been a bit indulgent! Lunch at GBK.

I love the glass coke bottles. And the tomato bottle!

I seriously have a thing for taking pictures of food, not sure why. Doodle-Dad came to visit this week and everything I ate I photographed. He thought I was bonkers, and he's probably right! We also ate a lemon drizzle cake I got from the farm shop at Castle Howard, but that was gone before anyone could even think about getting a camera out!

I hope you all had a fab week. And if you head over here tomorrow morning you can check out a marvellous guest post from the lovely Kirsty.

Slight return

Hey there lovely people, long time no see!

Since I was last on, I've been busy eating stews, making autumnal things, trying a spot of embroidery and, as usual, eating plenty of biscuits (see above) and drinking copious amounts of tea. I have missed you all and need a good old catch up! I can't believe September is almost at an end. It's been one of those months where work is insane, and any downtime has been spent staring at walls or the gogglebox because my brain has been unable to engage. It really stifles those creative urges you know!

In other news, I have written a little guest post which you will find over at The Leopard Anchor this morning. The rather fabulous Kirsty has allowed me to run rampant on her lovely blog which was very kind of her! Do go over there and check it out, hopefully it'll go some way towards reassuring you all that I haven't completely lost my creative mojo!

I hope you are all well.

Recuperate

Hello everyone, it's been a while. I've not been very well recently and everything has fallen by the wayside! This includes but is not limited to: going to work, cleaning the house, washing (I don't just mean laundry) and obviously keeping up to date with everyone's latest adventures in crafting, creating and cooking. I feel very out of the loop!

Today, though, on a mission to Tesco to get a slow cooker (the call of Autumn gets louder by the day, and I felt I needed one to get me through!) I got my grubby hands on issue five of the grail that is Mollie Makes. It reminded me that I was out of touch with you all. So I'm back on to say that I'm still alive, to say particular thank you to Little Dotty Bird who chose me for a blog award (especially wonderful since I've been MIA!) and to say hello to all the lovely new people who've taken the time to read my inane ramblings! Oh, and to remind you MM is out, in case you didn't know...

Issue five of Mollie Makes is out! Hurrah!

My afternoon treat - a lemon curd muffin. No I didn't bake it - silly!

I hope you are all well. ♥

Treats, and trying something new

Good evening everyone! I hope you're all having a productive, stressless and creative week! Or at least I hope you haven't been saturated too often in these heavy storms. I have so far managed to dodge them!

Anyway, an unexpected few pounds appeared this week, and although I am saving right now I thought that I might like a little treat! Here is what I got:

Of course I raced into town after work today as it's Mollie Makes day! I intend to subscribe at some point, I hope I haven't missed the offer they had. I am a notorious 'I'll do it at some point' type! So this is my evening pretty much sorted!

I also got an A4 exercise book, a glue stick, and some beautiful Staedtler Triplus fineliners in pastel colours. I have been lusting after them for a while now! They were half price in Ryman (with student discount on top) so quite bargainous really. And I had a bit of change left over, too. (Which I somehow resisted spending on chocolate!)

Anyway, the new thing I want to try is journaling. I have been reading a fab series of posts about journaling at the lovely Her Library Adventures. There were lots of tips about journal keeping, and links to some lovely journalers, and I wanted a piece of the action! Hence the book, glue, and beautiful pens! I wanted a thin, exercise book type journal just for doodling and putting creative ideas in while I'm at home. I already have a beautiful leather (look) A5 journal I'd like to use as an 'anywhere, any time' type journal - it's gorgeous.... and I haven't used it since I bought it, which was like two years ago now. Crazy! So it's about time I showed it some love! That link there takes you to the introduction post, and there are five or six others more recent, all of which are fab and have really inspired me!

Do you keep journals or idea books? I know Pinterest is a big deal right now (I'm not on it myself, not yet anyway) but do you like something tangible to keep your ideas in? I have Virgo rising and am an obsessive list-maker, so I have a great many notebooks I'm not using. I can't wait to get some things down on paper!

Excited!

You might ask why. And it's because I am joining the Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt! The idea is that each month there will be five themes on which you can take photographs, then at the end of the month we can all share our pictures and see everybody's ideas. It's going to be fun coming up with things to photograph and choosing my favourite pictures, and also seeing how other people interpret the categories. Very inspiring, and brilliant for getting the creative juices flowing!

Kirsty from The Leopard Anchor is masterminding it all, genius that she is, and if you are interested in joining in then click on the link above or the button in my sidebar and you can find out all about it and see the categories for this month! (And even if you don't want to join in you can follow the link to check out Kirsty's gorgeous blog!) How many exclamation marks can I squeeze into one post?!!!

Happy snapping!