This year's Christmas tree decoration

Each year I come up with a Christmas tree decoration and tend to make a whole pile of them to give in place of Christmas cards. This year is no different although the design is far from Royal Mail-friendly so they haven't been sent as far and wide as usual.

I did ponder how to make them 'flat-pack' but felt it was far too complicated, necessitating fiddly buttons and a full list of instructions for assembly to send with them, so they ended up 'fully formed' but with fewer recipients.

Made from felt in Scandi inspired red and white, they use different length strips fixed at each end to form a bauble. Really very simple yet, I hope you agree, effective.

Using a fabric roller cutter, a ruler and cutting mat I cut a series of felt strips, all 2cm wide. Each bauble needs one white strip 10cm long, two further white strips 14cm long, and two red strips 12cm long.

To assemble, take a set of felt strips and pile them up so that you have a 14cm white strip, a 12cm red strip, the 10cm white strip, a 12cm red strip, and a 14cm white strip. Line up the top edges and join with a cross stitch of red embroidery thread. Then line up the other ends and do the same. Add a thread loop to the centre of one of the cross stitches and - hey presto - you have a bauble!

I'm already working on the 2017 design but really do need to make sure it can be posted as a letter rather than a small packet!

Jam jar tea light holders

Last Christmas I was inspired by Kirstie Allsopp's Handmade Christmas to recycle some jam jars into gifts. And not by filling them with chutney, which is my usual festive make.

This time the project ditched the kitchen and instead I got busy with sticky back plastic, a shaped hole punch and can of glass frosting spray. Oh, and a selection of bottles and a (left) rubber glove!

I first cut a load of star shapes from the sticky back plastic and stuck these onto the clean jam jars in varying patterns.

The next step was to place a rubber glove on my left hand for protection (I'm very right handed), grab one of the jam jars with my left hand and a well shaken can of glass frosting spray with my right (I used PlastiKote) and head into the garden. I may have mentioned this in a previous blog but, whatever the spray can says about using at room temperature in a well-ventilated room and placing protective covering on all surrounding areas, your room cannot be ventilated enough and you'd need to work in a room entirely covered with protective plastic sheeting - all for a job that lasts a few minutes. The easiest and safest thing to do is go outside. So long as it's dry, not too windy and also not really cold I found the paint adhered very well. Just use a couple of really thin coats of paint to avoid it running or puddling in places.

Then, back inside, leave your jam jar upended on a bottle for the paint to dry before either applying another coat or, if you are happy with the coverage, removing the sticky back plastic shape.

You are then left with a decorated glass tea light which just needs a tea light...

To turn this into a lovely gift, fill the jar with sweets, pop a new tea light in the top, screw on the lid and add a ribbon, label and whatever other adornments you like.

Ta-da! Up-cycling at it's simplest.

And I've already been inspired for next year's little gifts. All I can say is that I'm on the hunt for cups and saucers so will be hitting the charity shops in the New Year!

Birthday Gifts

Last week was my Mum's birthday and her present involved two creative projects. The first was to make her a new apron. She had dropped a very heavy hint that she really didn't like her existing apron and rather liked the double-sided one I had made, firstly for myself, and then for a friend. With a lime green kitchen to compliment, I had been on the look out for some suitable fabric for some time and eventually found a lovely geometric bird print by Rose and Hubble in the Flo-Jo Boutique on Bristol's Gloucester Road.

Mind you, it took me three attempts to find a fabric to use to compliment it. Firstly I bought a lime green and white polka dot but the lime green only matched under very specific lighting conditions. I then bought a plain lime green fabric but had the same issues with that. In the end I went for black with white polka dots which made the bird print really sing.

The second part of the present didn't start out being a creative project. When we were out and about towards the end of the summer, my Mum spotted a cake knife set in the window of a local antique shop. It consisted of a bone handled cake knife and six bone handled tea knives. She was very taken with them and said how she no longer had a good cake knife and how her small knives were too heavy and kept falling of the plates whenever she was handing around slices of cake. Being a dutiful daughter I therefore raced back to the shop the very next day and snapped up the set.

It turned out that they were in the original box and that the knives had stood the test of time far more elegantly than the box had. It was broken, dusty and had signs of having been damp at some point in its history.

This is where this part of the present turned into a creative project. I began by reattaching the lid to the box and replacing the missing bit on the left hand side. I did this with masking tape.

I then raided the wrapping paper drawer but decided that brown paper was probably the best in terms of size and strength to cover the whole box, inside and out.

To add colour and hide a few joins, my next step was to add some coloured tape as a trim.  I also added a flap of ribbon to aid opening the box, since covering it all in brown paper had made the lid fit slightly more snugly than before.

The final step was to sort out the card inserts which held the knives in place.  I found some patterned craft paper which I thought added a feminine touch and perhaps also hinted at the original age of the knives.

I was proud of my efforts and my Mum was thrilled with both gifts, although did admit to having absolutely no recollection of ever coveting the cake knife set. However, they did come in very handy when serving her birthday cake. May there be many more birthday cakes to come!

Preparation, preparation, preparation

I was ashamed to realise that I've not posted a blog for a month but then swiftly decided to cut myself some slack when I looked back over that time.  I've worked two weekends, had a cold, almost lost my voice and generally felt pretty exhausted. I have also completed a few creative projects but, in the interests of present secrecy, can't possibly share them with you just yet.

As for the rest of the Christmas preparations, I am feeling a strong kinship for Santa's elves right now, who must also be frantically busy planning and making.  My elvish story so far goes a bit like this...

I have completed the construction of the majority of this year's Christmas card substitutes - at least the non-edible ones - but do need to either think about labels or some other sort of device that informs the recipient that the non-Christmas card is from me. Without this essential bit it's hardly a Christmas card substitute is it?!

As for the edible ones, they are planned and I'm awaiting delivery of a critical piece of kit but have have yet to turn the list of ingredients into a shopping list. [Note to self - write shopping list!]

I've ordered some yarn to make something for a friend. Hopefully that will arrive very soon since I think I may be being a little ambitious and under-estimating how long it's going to take me to complete. It's a crochet project and the first line says "chain 670 stitches". I rather feel I'm going to be locked in a room with no distractions for quite some time if I'm to keep count, let alone produce an even pattern on all subsequent rows, of which there are many. Perhaps this may make a better present for 2017?

I've been getting creative with jam jars, sticky back plastic and glass frosting spray. Whatever the directions for use say on the side of the spray can about using at room temperature and covering all surrounding areas, the simplest thing is to take it all outside. No matter how much newspaper you spread everywhere you can't get away from the hideous fumes. I'm also not keen on having a frosted cat and, if I'm outside, she prefers to watch from behind the safety glass of the back door! However, this does rely on the weather being dry and not too cold so, thanks to storm Angus currently battering the UK, that job has also been put on hold.

Mind you, this means I can put my feet up with a cuppa and start perusing the recipe books to work out what to cook for Christmas Eve - my responsibility this year.

I guess I'd better go and put the kettle on!

A glut of green tomatoes

This year's tomato crop was late to get going, in spite of being planted out at the usual time. The first ripe tomato didn't appear until the end of August although I've enjoyed a steady stream of lovely home-grown fruit since then. However, with the days getting shorter and cooler, I couldn't put off the inevitable any longer and so decided to call it a day on this year's crop.

Before I could turn the plants onto the compost heap and use the soil from the pots to mulch the raised beds, I had to harvest the remaining fruit, which ranged widely in colour from green to red.

The full range of colour

...but mainly green!

After tidying up the garden I turned my attention to the tomato crop. The question was, what to do with the final harvest? I still have pots of Green Tomato Chutney from last year, and even a pot of Spiced Green Tomato Chutney from the year before, so this really wasn't an option. Instead I turned my attention to the internet in the search for recipes that use green tomatoes.

I soon learnt that, so long as you cook them for a good time, you can substitute red tomatoes for green ones in most things. I began with a batch of Green Tomato Dal.  This involved cooking a cup of red lentils in 5 cups of water for about 30 minutes. I then added 4 cups of diced tomatoes, ranging in colour from green to very pale orange; a chopped chilli; half a teaspoon each of ground fenugreek, ground coriander and ground cumin and cooked it all for a further 35 minutes.  I then seasoned it with salt, pepper and lime juice to taste before serving it with brown rice and steamed broccoli.

Riding on the back of that success I surveyed the contents of the fridge and store cupboard and realised I had the ingredients to make Ribolita - a very hearty Italian soup made from white beans, cabbage and tomatoes. I used a Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall recipe, substituting the 400g tin of tomatoes for the same amount of chopped fresh tomatoes - all at different stages of ripeness. This recipe calls for the soup to be cooked for an hour before the cabbage is added which gave plenty of time for the green tomatoes to soften into the soup. The result was one of the most delicious soups I've eaten and, with more cabbage in the fridge and still more tomatoes to use up, I think a second batch could be on the cards.

I've also been making Roasted Tomato Sauce which involves placing a layer of chopped onion on a baking tray and covering it with halved tomatoes, cut side up. Sprinkle the lot with chopped thyme, salt, pepper, a tiny bit of brown sugar, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some olive oil before cooking for about 45 minutes at 190C or gas mark 5. The addition of a bit of sugar and the balsamic vinegar means you can get away with mixing in a few green tomatoes. Once cooked, blitz with a blender and use in place of passata. It can also be frozen so that you can enjoy that lovely summery taste in mid-winter.

I am tempted to continue in my green tomato recipe quest but with a bathroom floor to seal and a pair of wool trousers to line, I should really turn my attention elsewhere. At least I'll get to enjoy a few lunches of Ribolita this week.

Door stops

Last autumn I gave the bathroom an overhaul (new bath panel, new floor, a lick of paint, new towels and bath mat, and a new shower curtain). With a slightly different colour scheme, a new door stop was needed. The one from the study was a perfect match and so got moved to the bathroom, which worked perfectly well for the first six months since the study door tends to be kept closed when I have the central heating on.

However, the advent of summer had the study door being propped open with nothing too attractive and a mini flood in the bathroom last month somewhat ruined the door stop there - I can't remember what I had stuffed it with but, oh my goodness, did it smell when it got wet!

Fortunately, a rifle through the materials box unearthed some more of the same fabric - off-cuts from making the Roman blind for the study - so I was in business for an afternoon of crafty activity with the monthly craft club gang.

Each door stop used a piece of fabric just smaller than a sheet of A3 paper, which was folded in half and sewn across one of the short sides and the long side to make a pouch.  I then sewed diagonally across each corner to make a sort of gusset to give the pouch a decent sized base. Into the pouch I poured 1.5kg of cheap rice before turning in a generous top hem, popping in a fabric handle, and sewing across the top.

The rice filled the pouch about two-thirds full so the remaining fabric and handle just folded over. The idea is that you can grab the handle to lift up the door stop to put it in place and the simple sewn seam at the top will be easy to unpick should the rice need topping up, or even emptying entirely for the fabric to be washed. Well, I guess there could well be another bathroom flood to contend with.

I repeated the process with a second piece of fabric to make another door stop for the study.

This was all done in a few hours, which left me with some time to kill at craft club. Although both door stops were nice they did feel a bit plain. I had been considering some sort of adornments but couldn't make up my mind before leaving for craft club so had brought nothing suitable with me. My friend very kindly came to my rescue, putting the button tin that she inherited from her Mother at my disposal. It was a treasure trove of buttons and fixings from the 1940s to about the 1970s. In the end I chose a set of ten coat buttons for the study door stop. They add a bit of weight to the top, enabling it top to flop over beautifully. They also hide a less than straight line of top stitching!

As for the bathroom door stop, the walls of the bathroom are painted white with bits of silver glitter embedded in the paint, so I couldn't resist a bit of 'bling'. I chose a sparkly buckle which I just slipped over the fabric handle.

All in all, a very successful afternoon's work!

Manus x Machina

When in New York recently, I was lucky enough to see the Manus x Machina (hand x machine) exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This was an exhibition that looked at fashion in an age of technology and it really was a fabulous show.

Traditionally, haute couture was classified as being hand made, whereas ready-to-wear was all about the machine and mass-production.  However, as technology develops this line is blurring and the show explored how the top designers are embracing machines and technology in new and wonderful creations.

However, I think it did more than that. It showed the enormous creativity, imagination, dare I say the genius of the top designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. But also the exquisite craftsmanship of the people they work with who seem to be the unsung heroes of their time. Not that it was always the case. Apparently, in the mid-1700s the crafts were placed on the same footing as the arts and sciences, being listed in the Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts (1751-72) and this exhibition demonstrated, to me at least, that this should still be the case in 2016.

The crafts showcased in the Manus x Machina exhibition were embroidery, featherwork, artificial flowers, pleating, lacework and leatherwork. Excuse the poor photographs but here's a small snapshot of what these master craftsmen and women can do (as well as the creativity of the designers that employ them).

1950's Dior & 2010's McQueen

...and again

Feathers? No, plastic drinking straws!

White plastic drinking straws

Artificial flower dresses, 1920s to current

My favourite piece: Raf Simons (Dior) 2015

Over-dress embroidered by Broderies Vermont

Under-dress embroidered by Atelier Montes

Pleating from the traditional to the 3D-printed

The pleating and folding genius, Issey Miyake

The above dress when not worn

Issey Miyake: this becomes...

...this.

And this...

...becomes this.

Doesn't Issey Miyake make you think about construction and shape in a whole new way?

Exquisite, hand-made lace

3D-printed 'lace'

The exhibition has made me think a lot about the value we place on the hand-made and the machine-made:

Is one better than the other or should we better value creativity, imagination, and the ability to use the tools of your trade - be that pencil and paper, needle and thread, or computer software and robot-controlled machine?

Is the sub-heading of my blog 'handmade stuff in a manufactured world' redundant?

Shouldn't crafts be reinstated on an equal footing to arts and science?

Rhino homecoming

Last week I delivered my last crocheted animal toy. Well, the last for a while anyway. The final furry friend was Austin the rhino. Perhaps more pot-bellied than furry, but cute nonetheless.

He began life in Bristol....

... but soon travelled with me to New York city where he found a very happy home amongst friends.

Lots of friends!

When I left he was looking very much at home.