Stitched Up :: Nottingham Craft Group

Craft Volunteers Wanted

The Emmanuel House drop-in centre in Hockley, Nottingham works with homeless and vulnerable adults. They are looking for  volunteers with an interest in arts and crafts to help run workshops at their Art and Design Group or Womens’ Group sessions.

The workshops aim to provide drop-in centre visitors with a new and creative interest and help them learn new skills. The Art and Design Group is on Mondays 2 - 3.30pm and the Womens’ Group is on Fridays 2-3.30pm.

Volunteers will be supported by paid staff and travel costs reimbursed. Training opportunities may also be available. Emmanuel House will be grateful of any time volunteers can spare so if you’d like to get involved please contact Vicky Warren on 0115 950 7140 or email vwarrenemhouse@yahoo.co.uk.

Please do not contact the Stitched-Up group.

Lovin’ embroidery

Can I tell you how much I love embroidery? I’m not great at it, I’ve just started to learn a few basic stitches but I love it!

The fab thing about embroidery is the way you can contrast colours against a background and it has to be one of the most soothing crafts I’ve ever done.

Here are a couple of things I’ve made recently using embroidery. Both of them ended up being gifts.

Apologies for the quality of the photos, my camera seems to be in a bad mood all the time lately.

A birdie purse (front & back)…

and an owl bag made from a funky quilt cover…

Crochet ladies at Stitched UP.

Just in case you wondered what we did on a Wednesday night, I took my camera down yesterday and snapped these pieces by two of our Crochet ladies. Above is Lailas wonderful textural piece that has been coming together over the last few weeks.

This fun version of noughts and crosses is by Margaret who also made a set of Russian Dolls!! ( saw them last week but no camera , will try and capture them soon) If you fancy learn how to crochet pop into the Textile Workshop for the full course list. If you just fancy bringing whatever you are working on, call in on a Wednesday night, 6-8.30. We have members that stitch, knit, bead and make lace, basically all stitch/thread crafts welcome.

Lovely Lady Crochet Lumps

Whenever I see this brilliant piece of scuplture crochet I can’t help but think of that Black-Eyed Peas song “My Humps”. If you’re not already familiar with the song, check it out on You Tube (below) and you’ll see what I mean.

Just a week ago I sent Margaret, our Stitched-Up crochet expert, a link to a post by Julie on the Stitchify blog about sculptural crochet. I was very impressed by Julie’s work and knew that if anyone would be able to do it too it would be our Margaret - and she did. How great is this? I think this crochet lady should be our new Stitched-Up mascot!

Click on the photo to see a larger version.

Here’s the Black Eyed Peas video too… Enjoy….

Library updated

Just a quick note to let you know that the libary has been updated with a few new books, Quick & Easy Soft Furnishings, The Complete Book of Soft Furnishings and Making Gifts in Counted Cross-Stitch.

Visit our Library Page to see all of our current books.

Sack Hat

My RSI has calmed down a little bit, although my shoulder is still frozen solid, so I thought I could do a little bit of knitting. Boy oh boy have I missed knitting this last couple of months.  Anyway, I had a Debby Ware kit in my stash - the Sack Hat.  It’s knitted in the round on a circular needle, so is a really easy knit.  Although it’s a small project and was quick to finish, there’s no denying that it gave my RSI a tweak.  Evidently, I still have an issue there, so it’s back to sewing or crochet for a while longer.

Sack Hat

All the fun of the (craft) fair

Thought that I would post on this blog as I haven’t done it in soooo long. Mainly as I have been beavering awaytrying to get things done for the craft fair that was last weekend (it feels like ages ago already!).

Some of the other stall holders were moaning that there wasn’t much trade, and that the Beeston fair the week before was much better. All I can say is, it’s made a nice dent in the honeymoon fund, so I am happy enough really. I did, however realise that it really takes it’s toll on you being really nice to people who are picking your stuff over (some with an expression as if to say “you should be paying me to take your stuff”…) all day long. On the flip side, I met some really lovely people (mainly the other stall holders) and chewed the fat with them. I met a lovely old dear, who must have been almost 80 telling me how she used Camay soap as she’d seen an advert when she was younger with Katie Boyle (if you don’t know who she is - Google it!) and she’s used the soap ever since after she saw my make up bags with vintage adverts on them. The next fair I am at I will be theming it a bit - “Domestic goddess” - aprons and stuff for the woman in the home (tongue in cheek of course!) and the rest of the stuff I am going to stick on Etsy at some point. When I get round to it! Anyway, here’s a couple of pics for you - definately looked better the second day!

0311.JPG

0301.JPG

Ripple Clutch

Ever since I learned the ripple stitch I’ve done it to death. Somehow I never get bored of it. I think it’s because of the great effect it makes when you put two colours next to each other.

However much I love the ripple stitch it’s time to put it to bed for a while and do something new. This clutch bag is the last thing I made and just finished this weekend…

I got the idea for the colours from the series of Simon Henwood paintings of Roisin Murphy called ‘Sequins‘

The small pics don’t really show the colours properly but they are turquoise, orange, green and gold (the gold is metallic) yarns.

There’s a zip with a lining and as usual the zip was evil to put in but at least I got a chance to use my zipper foot for the first time. I have so much to learn.

Lace, lace beautiful lace.

I started to learn how to make lace in the early nineties and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, however my lace making adventure came to abrupt end as a result of a motorcycle accident. By the time I was able to consider doing this again, my interest had moved towards embroidery and I started to study for my City and Guilds qualifications instead. However I have recently dusted off the pillow and started to try and remember what to do and will soon be bringing in a spare pillow for people to try their hand at making lace.

As for the bikes, I continue to ride pillion around the Uk and Europe and hope to do so for a good few years yet.

Amsterdam, beautiful city of arts and crafts

I’m biased, I love Amsterdam anyway but visiting again recently for our honeymoon and getting a chance to look around the shops made me realise what a crafty city it is.

Of course, there are art galleries everywhere, large and small, which could provide me with years of endless entertainment but there are also crafts, antiques and vintage shops.

Just on the street of our hotel there was a lovely little shop which sold kitsch fabrics that you wouldn’t see in shops here, then there was the patchwork shop and bead shop and on it goes.

If you love to rummage through antiques there are no end of little boutiques with lovely window displays just calling you to go in. Here’s an example of one we found on the last day…

We also stayed in Brussels and in my ignorance I hadn’t realised that it was known for lace making, like Nottingham. In fact Belgium used to export lace to England.

What I did know is that Belgium makes fine chocolate and beer and now having tried it I can say its definitely true. I know its not strictly craft related but here is a photo of one of the really pretty chocolatier shops in the city. Yum!