Crafting a Wedding

I'm finding that having tried my hand at almost every craft so far has been a blessing in disguise as it means I can turn my hand to having a go at making lots of things for the wedding.  I'm not sure if I've said it here before but I'm not having real flowers at the wedding as although I love them, they're expensive and I have the issue of a couple of hay fever sufferers coming to the wedding and I don't want the issue of pollen staining clothes or risk them drooping if it's a scorching hot day (finger's and toes crossed everyone for a fine day!) so I thought, if I'm not having a real flower bouquet or decorations why should the button holes be real flowers?

I talked to J about this and asked him what sort of thing he'd like to wear, I'm nice like that sometimes and consult him on something to do with our wedding! I gave him a few different options and he chose to have a needle felted flower in the same colours as my outfit.  It was the first time I'd needle felted a stem for a flower, but think it's turned out well.

Dark purple petals with a jade green silk self covered button as the centre and mid green felt for the stem and leaf with a light green for the veining on the leaf

I'm really chuffed with it, so chuffed in fact that I thought I'd make everyone at the wedding a button hole if they wanted one...I know I know what on earth was I thinking?  It must be the endorphins...

So with this rod for my own back I made my three nieces a pink felt flower each and I've been told they want them on hair clips.  I'm under strict instructions you understand, they've all got very specific ideas, my eldest niece (8 years old) on hearing the news that we are getting married announced 'I know the exact dress I'm going to wear!' THEN said congratulations.  Fashionista in the making methinks.  So all three are wearing the same dress, I did wonder whether there would be fights over who looks best in it but apparently they're having different shoes and cardigans to differentiate themselves from each other and that it's not a problem.  So nice to be told off by an 8 year old, 5 year old and 3 year old...

Three little button holes all in a row. They're a light sparkly pink, each with white stamen and self cover buttons in white and pink but each button is different.

Alas I cannot acclaim fame for the crocus in the background of the photo, this was taken in my soon to be mother-in-law's garden.  No one else has decided on an outfit yet so I don't know what colours to make them.  I get the sinking feeling that they may all want one at once...

I've also made good progress on my bouquet.  J and I sat round the table one day me wrapping the wire round the brooches, him wrapping florist tape round the wire; it was all very romantic...and then gathered them all together and popped them in a vase for safekeeping until I get the rest of the brooches and wire and tape them up, here's a sneaky peaky!

A mass of big shiny sparkly brooches in a vase

If nothing else it's a good discipline keeper as if anyone gets out of line they're getting a knock on the head from this baby and take it from me it's a fair weight!  I'm pleased with the overall effect, I've just got to get the last few pieces in and then tie a ribbon round the stems to keep them all in place and give me something non slip to hold as the tape is quite shiny.

If anyone wants a photo tutorial on how to do this bouquet I can make one or you can check out the ones on Pinterest. There's a few different options you can go for. I've probably chosen the most time hungry method but that was because I wanted the brooches on individual stems, you could get a Styrofoam ball and cover it in wadding and fabric and pin the brooches to it or ball up some wadding and do the same but at the risk of it being a funny shape if you don't evenly distribute the weight of the brooches. I've also seen people intermix real or faux flowers with brooches which is really pretty too.

I've started to think about the finer grooming details and had my nails done professionally for only the second time in my life yesterday.  I'm a wuss, the first time I had my nails done the girl sliced my finger open with the nail file and I bled all over the table and the polish smudged before I'd even left the shop so didn't want a repeat performance. I also find it hard to talk to hairdressers and beauticians as I find it just so weird to have someone doing something rather intimate like washing my hair or holding my hand and asking me questions that normally someone doing something so intimate would know.  It's also that I can sometimes tell they're bored with what they're asking me about and don't want the answers and I know I would bore them with things I'm interested in as hair and nails aren't something I usually take a great deal of care over and feel a bit of a fraud.  I also have this thing that when I have my hair washed by someone else I find it so relaxing that I'm on the brink of falling asleep at the sink. 

Take yesterday for example, I end up in the back room of the nail bar as that's the only free space with the young nail technician and she's perfectly pleasant and polite but can tell she's just going through the motions and answering almost every answer I give her to her questions about the wedding with "that's nice" in that sort of high sing song voice you only reserve for when you're doing something else and not really paying attention.  I almost laugh out loud!  I'm slightly nervous as we're one on one with no other distractions and I'm dying of embarrassment as I'm 30 and this is only the second time I'm getting my nails done and I have no idea about what I should ask for or anything. I am umming and ahhing about explaining that I'm perfectly happy to sit in silence if she wants, until she asks me whether I have my dress.  I tell her it's purple. I tell her it's 1950s and it's got a lighter purple underskirt.  Her face is amazing! She's suddenly giving me all her attention and realises that I'm not going to be some bridezilla telling her my nails have to be done in this specific colour because it won't match the groomsmen's sashes or that it won't match the table decorations and things go on well from there, here's the result

Grey green sparkly nails

 It's a gel nail treatment thingy they tell me will last 2-3 weeks, the girl even explained I could go to the chemist and get the chemical myself to soak it off, she was so nice to me and my nails are perfect!  I booked to have them done again the day before the wedding!  I'm so glad I got over my little phobia with small chat and found a common ground!  I may even be brave enough to go and have my eyebrows threaded...wish me luck!

And just so that you don't think that all I talk about is the wedding, I've knitted some wrist warmers from a book my lovely friend in work gave me as a present 'for putting up with her' she said. It's a really comprehensive knitting book for beginners, although there are a couple of instructions on bobbling when knitting that I think I may need to have someone show me as even with the idiot proof instructions I can't get my head around it!

Two tone purple wrist warmers

Knitting with smaller needles now doesn't frighten me like it did at first and I've learnt how to do a rib stitch and they match and fit and everything!!!  I'm working on another pair for my soon to be mother-in-law but think I've knitted the colours the wrong way round to what she wanted so I'm going to knit another lot up and give her the choice.

My other non wedding related make was paper related. I was told once by my sister that if someone makes 365 paper origami stars and gives them as a present, the receiver gets a year of good luck according to Chinese culture.  As she's in desperate need of good luck I sat down last Sunday whilst watching two films and made 365 paper stars after getting a refresher on how to fold them off the internet.  I had sore thumbs from pushing the paper out I can tell you!  Especially since I started off using a rather thick white paper. I soon learned my lesson and found the thinnest paper I had in the house that wasn't tissue paper and carried on from there. At this point I will mention that I didn't cut the strips by hand, I used a guillotine and could cut five sheets of paper at a time.  Otherwise I would still be cutting them out now!

Here's the jar of good luck

multicoloured fluorescent stars in a jar

 It reduced her to tears which wasn't what it was for, but I've heard tell that she's very happy with it and my niece has made it very clear that she would like sole ownership of it because it's pretty!!

Today I shall be hand delivering the wedding invites that are too close to post, saves money and would be silly sending our parents their invites in the post when they only live up the road.  I'll probably get told off for wasting time and paper giving them one anyway...can't do right for doing wrong I guess!  The only things left now you'll all be glad to hear is getting the final quote for the food, doing a trial run of setting up the flowers for the background for photos, going through a trial run with my hair and make up and then paying for everything...boo hiss!  And of course the big day itself. So things should be getting back to normal round here pretty soon and I can show you more sewing and knitting things that aren't wedding related.  Hurray!

Felt addict

Ok, it's probably been obvious for some time now but I have a shameless felt addiction and it's getting worse.  Not only have I forced asked J nicely to buy me a felt kit for Christmas but bought myself a smaller kit as couldn't wait until Christmas and took advantage of a discount the shop was offering and bought a present for one of my nieces too, so it was practically forced upon me to buy it.  Then in a bid to support a new shop in a town I frequent quite often and to peruse their wares in an attempt to think of something spectacular as a present for my mother I may have accidentally bought a bit more kit and some felt sheets.  I may also have used my time to make something from said new kit using the other kit that I already had (J raised his eyebrows when I was opening this all up and I couldn't work out whether he thought I was opening somebody else's present or was thinking the same thing I'm getting to) used my evening to make a project; that although I'm happy to relinquish as a present, was made purely for my own gratification when I should have been finishing off the already planned Christmas presents.  I refuse to feel guilty about this.  

Red felt rose with green felt leaves looking straight down onto the petals

Side view of the rose with the leaves on the left hand side

I do however feel guilty that I broke one of the felting needles from my new kit within 10 minutes of putting it all together and spent another 10 minutes looking for the sharp end that had broken off only to find that it had miraculously embedded itself into the foam block, crisis averted.  I may also have stayed up way past my bedtime finishing this project and then started another as it seemed such a good idea at the time as I also managed to imbibe a few glasses of wine.  (How any of the work I did is passable is anybody's guess and how lucky was I not to tip red wine over anything!)

Another view looking down but not so close up

Close up of side on view with leaves to the left

So, I think what I'm saying is, there may be more felt related posts - fair warning.

April Fool and Fabric

So, Me Made March is well and truly over with a mixture of elation and relief in spades.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and hated it all at once.  I enjoyed the community spirit that it invoked, I met some amazing bloggers (all online only sadly) and seen some wonderful and inspiring outfits.  I also put so much pressure on myself to sew sew sew that I didn't treat my body with respect and almost ended up at square one with the nasty RSI.  This I have to point out was all self induced and nothing to do with MMM creator or it's participants.  I just wanted to jump ahead of myself and I've realised I can't as it just took all the joy out of sewing for me.  Now I'm looking forward to Me Made May, well, I'm hoping there will be a Me Made May anyway, I am going to participate, but I'm not going to beat myself up as much about repeating items or whole outfits.  It's stupid really that I did this to myself as I constantly repeat outfits during a month normally.  So this is why I feel a bit of an April Fool.

It was very liberating in a strange way to wear something non me made today, it's still handmade, but not by me.  It's one of my all time favourite dresses, it's navy with white polka dots, little cap sleeves, pockets and a square high neckline but with a fake split down the front bodice edged in white.  It finishes just on the knee and has a good fit but not too tight.  I found it in a vintage/second hand shop in Bath when I was there for an 'It's Darling!' fair.  I love it, it gives me confidence as it's such a well fitted garment.  There'll be no picture today, it's April people...I'll show you all another time!

And so onto the fabric...I was a little naughty and wangled my way out of work an hour early and made a bee line for the fabric stall in the market!  I got the plain biscuit coloured poly cotton to do the back of my mother's long awaited cushions as I've been promising her them since November, whoops!  I also got some green cotton to help salvage the top I was making during MMM that went awry and think I'll make it into a dress instead of a top and will use the green bargain charity shop fabric shown in this post.

I also got my fabric for the Sew Weekly Sewing Circle UK meet up in May, as the theme is red, white and blue I thought this was a winner:

White background fabric with red and pink and blue flowers with green leaves.

Close up of the fabric

I'm thinking I might not do the Horrock's dress as it takes 50 pages to print off and then I'd have to up scale it two sizes and then there's the issue with the band across the bust.  I've heard there's been issues with it as it's not really suited to modern women's more ample bosoms so I may have a teeny problem there.  So not sure what dress I'll make but it'll be a nod to the Horrock's dress as much as I can.

I've also made some more felt flowers and here they all are:

Three rows of felt flowers

They don't all have their sequins yet and thinking all put pipe cleaners as the stems.  I think they look rather cheery!

So, what are your plans for the weekend?

Me Made March Day 30 and flowers

So since I haven't been feeling like tackling sewing any more clothes as I'm beginning to lose the will to live I've worn my favourite tunic to cheer myself up and I've been making flowers.

Me made tunic dress you've seen before, fav cardi with butterfly brooches and a better view of my new glasses

So since I've been wanting to sew but not to sew clothes, here's what I've been making:

Felt flowers with contrasting colour petals

There are more but this is the first batch, I'm thinking of putting on some sparkles in the form of these:

Spangly sparkly sequins....OOooooOOOooooh!

They shall adorn the centre of my flowers and I'm considering attaching them all to some oasis and making a bouquet from them for my Mother's Day present for my mum this Sunday as she'll be able to keep the bouquet forever.  And they won't need water.  I think I'm onto a winner!  What do you think?  I'm stuck for ideas as it's her birthday in May and don't have a clue for that either...eeek!