Makers Month: Stitchsperation

So for our second chat for Makers Month we sat down with the lovely Charlie from Stitchsperation.   Sammy has long been a fan of her work and we just can't get enough of it.  So bright, colourful and all kinds of different to the normal cross-stitch kits.  So lets have a chat and see if we can find out a little bit more.

New in Handmade June

Here is your monthly round up of all the gorgeous handmade loveliness that has taken our fancy this month. We are lusting hard for these new offerings from our fave designer makers and this month we have some new additions to the maker party as well as new goodies from our mates.

Make it: Embroidered Palm Leaf Trainers

I have seen a bunch of gorgeous embroidered trainers and shoes around this season and you know I love a bit of embroidery. I don't normally wear a lot of floral prints in my wardrobe so I hadn't been able to find a pair that worked well with my everyday outfits. So I found a pair of plain trainers and sorted out some that would. I embroidered this pair of basic trainers with some simple green palm leaves. Here is how you can make some too.

Makers Month: Make it: Embroidery Jewellery by Messy Brunette

We are in full Makers Month swing now and so we thought we would bring you a Guest Tutorial from the very lovely Maura from The Messy Brunette who we came across on one of our many Instagram trawls.  We just love her crafty projects and she has a mean crochet hook to get through all those crochet projects.  For us, Maura decided to share how to make your own Embroidery Jewellery, which is a lovely simple and easy to do in front of the TV or sat in the garden project.  So over to her ...

Let's Meet: Floss & Mischief

Hello there everyone, and how are we?  Loving the sunshine I hope. It's time for our Let's meet series of course and so time for a cuppa and a sit down to look at some gorgeous work from Genevieve at Floss & Mischief.

Who's Who: The Fox in the Attic

It's back to normal this month with our Who's who, but that doesn't mean it is any less fun!  This month we are talking to Michelle from The Fox in the Attic, a great company that we first came across at Renegade last year.  Let's see what Michelle has to say.

Who are you?

I am Michelle Kreussel from The Fox in the Attic.

What do you do?

I make hand-embroidered soft-toy animals, cushions, pincushions, decorative items and printed tote bags.

How did you start?

As a child my grandmother taught me embroidery, and on a spontaneous whim one day a few years ago, I decided to start sewing and embroidering. I found I loved it, and quickly became more than adept at it.

What’s next?

I am currently working on a new range of printed characters that will coincide with the children's book my husband is writing.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back to the beginning?

Stop stressing so much! Everything works out in the end if you work hard and you love what you are doing.

The cushions are so cute, right! much more fun than the normal square ones and would look just as great in an adult room as a child's!

They make you smile just by looking at them.

H & Sammy

 Live, Love, Make, Like, Share, Follow, Tweet, Pin, Add, Enjoy. 

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Make it: Neon Tassel Sandals

When I was online the other day dreaming of a trolley dash at Modcloth HQ I saw these Tassel Sandals and thought what a cool DIY they would make. If you are a regular reader you will know how much I love a bit of neon, So you can imagine how happy I was when I found these neon yellow sandals in NewLook and realised I could combine my love of all things neon and tassels in one yummy summer tutorial.

You will need: Sandals, embroidery thread (mine were by DMC), scissors, gold thread and tweeters

Start by making your tassels, take your embroidery thread and wrap it around two fingers about 10-12 times leaving a small gap between your fingers. Gently remove the coil of thread from you fingers. Take a small length of gold thread and loop it through the coil and tie a secure knot. Take a second length of thread and tie it around the outside of the coil pulling it into your tassel shape. Once you have tied that securely you can cut the loops at the bottom of your tassel.

Trim off the ends of the tassel until it looks even and is all the same length. Repeat these steps until you have made enough tassels for both your sandals. Take your tweezers and poke them through the strap of the sandal and pull one length of the tassel tie back through the strap. Secure it in place with a few knots. Turn over the strap and trim away any excess ends, you could add a touch of glue to the knots for security too. 

There you have it, the perfect pair of summery sandals ready for your holidays. The best thing about these is that the colour combinations are endless! Neon, pastels, brights, all one colour or a mix like these, they add a cute detail to any basic outfit.

I LOVE these they will be perfect for the Hen party I am heading for in Las Vegas next month. How are you wearing tassels this year? I am also loving tassel necklaces, I am off to make one of those to match...

Sammy xxx

 Live, Love, Make, Like, Share, Follow, Tweet, Pin, Add, Enjoy. 

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Live it: Tea and Crafting Workshop

We all love to find a new creative space, right?  and that is just what we did when we got invited to a do a workshop at Tea and Crafting in Camden.  This workshop space is quite a new one and with so much on offer, it has definitely made its mark on the London Craft scene.  Jane, who owns Tea and Crafting is not new to us here, H took a class with her way back in 2012 for the infamous Loom Knitting post over at Craft Central.

But now she has very much branched out on her own in the vibrant area of Camden, inviting along with her a variety of tutors to give people the choice and inspiration that a craft space needs.  The workshop space is in the hub of Camden Market and is only up a flight of stairs - or lift if you prefer from the market entrance near the infamous Camden Lock Bridge.

The space itself is very much themed around all its classes.  There is a sample for everything they do, so that you can have a look at what you next want to do.  Each time they do a workshop the space is laid out differently and so you could never sit in the same place twice!  They run workshops from embroidery and paper cutting to crochet or Millinery, and so plenty of different things to try.

We were invited to try the Machine free motion Embroidery Class, which just happened to be run by another friend of ours, Nic, so good to catch-up at the same time.  I hope this didn't make her more nervous, it definitely didn't show if she was.

We started with a cup of tea and told to help ourselves to cake - they were already onto a winner with us!

Then, Nic explained what we would be doing, which was to applique on some fabrics onto a tea towel and then machine embroider over the applique to make it all pretty.

We had some templates sheets to look through to get an idea of what we wanted to do, you could also do your own idea, which Sammy did.  We then traced/drew onto Bondaweb and chose our fabrics.  I went with a rocket and rainbow theme and Sammy went for cameras.  We then Ironed on our Bondaweb, cut it out and positioned onto our tea towel before the fun could start with Machine embroidery.

We then got down to the serious business of learning how to Machine Embroider.  Nic showed us how to change a foot on a machine and what the foot looks like, so that you can have a little knowledge when you get addicted to it and need to go and buy a foot the very next day - just me then?  

The advice was fast foot, slow hands.  You need to keep the machine running at a fast pace and have smooth slow movements with your hands moving the fabric.  We all had a go on some scrap fabric first so that we didn't go wading into our final piece straight away.  Nic suggested we try and write our names and so we could get a really good feeling for what to do as it was such a recognisable image for us to do.  I was very impressed with my first go and my name was actually legible!

Then, down to the business of going around our image, choosing whether we were going to go once over each shape or over sketch the design.  I like the over sketch design and so chose this for some of my image.  Nic, then took us through some hand embroidery techniques, so that you could have a try at adding those too.  I was off on a machine embroidery whirlwind though and so kept it all on the machine.

What do you think to our efforts?  Sammy had done a bit of machine embroidery before, but I had not and so definitely got the bug for it.

We both really enjoyed the class, there was enough of the fun and informative to keep it really relaxed.  The space is really calming and inspiring, so it could keep you coming back again and again to try something new each time.

We would recommend Tea and Crafting if you are looking for a new workshop to try.  They also run crafty Hen parties and afternoon craft tea parties and so you can go with your friends too.  If you do go, let us know what you think and show us what you made via Instagram or Twitter using #livelovemake.

H & Sammy

Disclaimer:  We were invited to Tea and Crafting to try out one of their classes.  We were not asked to give a positive review, but it just so happens that it was really easy to give one.

Friday Favourite: Celebrating Friendship

This week has been very sentimental for us here at Live it. Love it. Make it. with H and I celebrating our fifteen years of friendship. Looking back over the happy and sad times we have spent together has made me feel so lucky. Friends deserve to be celebrated so I have dedicated this weeks Friday Favourites to friendship.

1. Book yourself and your friend onto a workshop, its a great way to spend some quality time together and create a little something to gift to each-other at the end of the class.

2. Create a personalised embroidery, you could use their favourite colours and their name or initial. 

3.I love this Personalised cake tin from Not on the High Street, great if your buddy likes baking.

4. This Friendship Poem print is a sweet little keepsake, this one is from Not on the High Street, or you could create your own.

5. Order your friend a little crafty kit, we love the range from Check My box, order one for yourself and you have handmade friendship jewellery.

6. Get your bestie a magazine subscription to her favourite title, a lot of the publishers do great deals like £5 for your first three issues. 

7. You don't have to spend lots of money to show your friendship, how about just buying a cute card and writing a heartfelt note inside. I love this Random Card from Not on the High Street.

8. Another idea that doesn't cost a lot of money is a handmade coupon book, H made me this one for Christmas last year.  It had cute little vouchers in it that entitled me to things like a cinema trip, a wardrobe de-clutter and a picnic.

9. There are loads of crafty/beauty/cake box monthly subscriptions around at the moment, why not sign your friend up for a trial offer. 

10. I love the sentiment that accompanies these pretty knot Friendship earrings.

11. Why not do what we did and treat each-other to afternoon tea, we had such a lovely time chatting, catching up and eating cake!

I hope that has given you some ideas on how to spoil your best friends. They really are worth spoiling you know.  I am so lucky to have some very special friends in my life and I know H would say the same.  It really is a bond worth celebrating.

Have a lovely weekend.

Sammy xxx

Make it. Embroidery hoop art

Last week we did our monthly Craft Club down at Norden Farm and this time it was all about Embroidery. We took our little group of participants through a few basic stitches and then showed them how to make their own artwork. We love embroidery, I (Sammy)  like free hand embroidery an H is partial to a bit of cross stitch. We thought we would show you some of the examples we showed our students last Thursday.

I really enjoy the freedom of free hand and the flexibility of using any fabric you like. Most of the designs I stitch I end up leaving in their hoops, but you can always take them out and frame them up too. 

 These are four of my favourite  pieces, they show a range of different stitches on different fabrics.

This stag picture is done in basic back stitch on teal taffeta with a gold metallic thread. Sometimes the simplest things make the best pictures.

This Hello beautiful is taken from an idea I saw on Pinterest , I used spot cotton fabric, chain stitch for hello and back stitch for beautiful.  For the love hearts I used lots of different stitches to appliqué some red fabric hearts and stitched love with chain stitch.

 This little guy is one of my favourites, I love using long and short stitch to give texture, it worked so well for this foxes fur. I used some fabric, a lovely blue and black tweed used to be part of  a jacket that was my Dads.

A few years ago my Mum gave me a great stitch leaflet she had kept from the seventies. It is falling apart but I still use it as a reference when I am stitching. I love the drawings that accompany the descriptions. Here are some of the basics from the leaflet.

As well as the leaflet, I have a few books that I use for ideas and for learning new techniques. These are my favourites, Adventures in Needlework by Jessica Aldred and Emily Peacock, Love Embroidery by Future Publishing (the guys behind Mollie Makes) and Doodle Stitching by Amiee Ray. 

Love Embroidery has great projects to use your embroidery on as well as taking you through the basics.

I adore this Brooch from Adventures in Needlework, I haven't made it as a brooch yet but I used the template to stitch a piece for a friend of mine as a birthday gift a couple of years ago.

Doodle Stitching has a great selection of cute templates and it comes with a DVD of all the images so you can upload them to your computer and print them any size you like. There are a few more books in this series to try out too.

We had such a fun time last week and all our ladies went home with the start of hopefully a fun new hobby.

Our next two Craft Club evenings will be released for booking shortly over on the Norden Farm website. We are making ribbon rose corsages at the end of May and creating Button Jewellery at the end of June. We will let you know more as soon as the booking goes live. 

Sammy xxx

Don't forget the closing date for the Company Magazine #StyleBlogAwards is this Saturday! 

So if you haven't already voted for us, Pretty please pop over and cast your vote now. We are up for Best Blogging Duo and Best Craft Blog. If you have voted, Thank you so much and keep your fingers crossed for us!