Ethel and Edmund

Meet my 2 new owl friends - Ethel and Edmund!

We just took delivery of a range of flannel (available now on our website) from Robert Kaufman and what better project to try them out on than a few more owls for my collection? That's Ethel above...

...and this is Edmund, giving you a cheeky wink. My dad's name is Edmund so this owl is named after him (not sure what he will make of that!).

These 2 have been made for a particular project which I will tell you more about in the New Year, when hopefully I will produce a pattern and a kit to sell.
Meanwhile I still have some places left on the Fabric Owl half day workshop next Thursday, 15th November, and until Sunday you can get 20% off this class!

Very much influenced by the lovely Kerry, I made this pincushion as a 'finish during the class' project for my Handsewn Patchwork workshop, which was repeated again last week.

Just 2 EPP rosettes joined together, stuffed (I added some rice to the base for weight), and a little embroidery and a button added for detailing.

Christmas shopping is in full swing at our real life shop, Avery Homestore, in Edinburgh. And Sarah and I have been having fun making up a range of gift cases. These mini, patchwork patterned suitcases are filled with lovely crafty goodies. Above is the Embroidery Starter Kit, complete with printed Mini Boris Portrait embroidery pattern.

Here's the Patchwork Giftcase and below is the Liberty Inspiration Giftcase, available in light or dark colourways. There is also a Fabric Lover's Giftcase. All of these are available on our website and make really lovely presents for a crafty friend. Or put them on your wish list!

 I've had our new member of staff, Barbara, helping me make these Kilner Jar gift sets.

 Each one has a combination of buttons, threads, fabric, wool and felt, plus a padded pincushion top!

The larger jar also has fabric and a pack of needles. Unfortunately these won't be available to my online customers (glass is too hard to mail order), but for all my local peeps the larger is £8.99 and the smaller £4.99.  I also sell the kilner jars if you fancy making your own!

Plus I will be taking them to the Country Living Fair in Glasgow in a couple of weeks time, where I will also be doing a demo every day - yikes!
More on this very soon!

Massive Giveaway and website launch!

It's Giveaway Time everybody!!

Look at this big pile of booty that you could win!!

But first of all I want to share some exciting news with you. For a while now I have been hinting at changes afoot in our Edinburgh shop. Earlier this year we started stocking fabric, wool and haberdashery to compliment the craft classes we embarked on last year. It's all been selling really well and now we have added most of it to our website! Now everyone can get a little taste of Avery Homestore, no matter where you are!

I have been selecting the fabric and wool that I like to use, and rather than stocking whole ranges I have picked out designs that I think are special and that I would want in my own stash. We also have some great fabric packs that we cut here in the shop.
There will be lots more to come as we are adding items all the time, but this seemed like a good time to get started promoting it.
So I am having a giveaway to launch this new Craft Supplies department on our website!

I have 2 prizes, a WOOL prize and a FABRIC prize. The wool prize has 8 balls of gorgeous Rooster Almerino DK wool. The fabric prize has 15 scrummy fat quarters selected from our stock.
And as well as these each prize also gets this pile of Sass & Belle ribbons and buttons below!

AND we are offering 15% off any orders for craft supplies placed on our website by the end of May! Just use this discount code when you checkout - LAUNCH (case not important). Hopefully this will tempt someone to give us our first craft order!

So how do you enter?
Well it's pretty standard really, just leave a comment saying whether you would like wool or fabric. But I would love you to pop on over to the website and let me know what you think too! So if you would like to put something else in your comment, like which fabric you liked best or what you thought of the look of it, that would be very much appreciated.
That comment gives you one entry to the giveaway, but here's how you can get even more entries:

 1. Sign up for our email newsletter on the website, come back and leave a comment telling me you've done this and you will get another entry.

2. If you are a follower, leave another comment to let me know and you will get another entry.

3. Blog, Facebook or Tweet about this giveaway, come back and tell me in another comment (with a link please) and get yet another entry!

So that's a maximum of 4 raffle tickets!
This giveaway will end in a weeks time at midnight on Thursday 31st May Wednesday 30th May - sorry everyone, only just realised I won't have time to post the results if I leave it till Thursday as I am off to FQ London Retreat first thing Friday!
It is open to everyone, wherever you are!
Good Luck everyone!!

look who just got back!

Some of you may remember how sad I was when my eldest son, Felix, went away travelling back in September last year. I moaned on and on about it here.

Well last night he finally returned!

And this is what he looked like when we picked him up from the airport. Yes he really is wearing an orange skirt and bare feet! He came all the way from Delhi dressed like this (via Heathrow!).

Beside him is his girlfriend Emma and (far left) her sister Laura, who they met up with in India a month or so ago. Laura has been away travelling for nearly TWO YEARS! There was quite a tearful reunion when her mum and dad got there, as you can imagine!

Sorry about the rubbish photo, I was too excited and amazed to think about photos, but luckily Jonathan got this on his phone. I think he must have been a bit shaky with emotion though (or was it laughter?!).

Anyway, we are just so happy to have him home safe and sound! He has been to India, Sri Lanka, China, Tibet and Nepal. Wow!

Oh and he has a tattoo! It is tucked under his forearm so it's a bit secret, and he also designed it himself and it is very personal and spiritual. India and the Far East has certainly had a big effect on Felix, he has come back laden with books about yoga and spirituality, as well as little statues of Indian gods, and ideas about building a meditation hut in the garden!

The rest of his luggage was full of lots of presents for the whole family (he is a very generous boy). I got this beautiful pouch full of goodies...

A massive bag of shisha mirrors (I will have to show you all how to embroider these now!), 4 little peacocks, a ball of multi-coloured recycled silk, some gorgeous braid, an inlaid box made of real silver, and a whole bag of little painted wooden birds!

When Felix returned briefly at Christmas, he brought me a box with about 10 of these brightly painted birds, and I used 2 of them to make 'parrot pin toppers' for the pirate treasure chest pincushion in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap. Now I have a whole bag of them! With one tiny stowaway tiger (can you spot him?)! Oooh I am getting lots of ideas for these! Thank you Felix!

As I am writing this, Felix and his dad are busy stringing Tibetan prayer flags through the trees here at Shangri-la Farm. 

It definitely feels like Felix has brought quite a bit of the East back with him!

Scrappy pin cushion swap

Introducing the 'Fairytale Cottage Pincushion'!
This is my entry for the Scrappy Pincushion Swap, another Flickr group with a lot of the same lovely people from the Doll Quilt Swap. It has been a nice quick fun swap.

I decided to make a little patchwork house, and, of course, for me that means a proper working door with something behind it! So here is the Princess who lives in the cottage. She is cut from the 'princess in the pea' fabric by Heather Ross. I had a bit of trouble with fraying at the bottom of the door frame, hence the slightly untidy 'darning' there.
But the inside of the door can also be used as a mini needlecase!

Here is the back. A tiny matryoshka doll is peeping out of the upstairs window. I had a lovely time embroidering the 'creepers' on the sides of the house. It was very easy, just backstitch and tons of french knots. I must try to do more embroidery as I really enjoy it but I need more practice.

Here is the front again. Can you see the little owl who is upstairs too? He is from my favourite Alexander Henry fabric. And the little bird sitting on the (very bulgy) chimney? The bird is a hand made Fimo pin I bought from the quilt show on Sunday.
Let's not dwell too much on how these 3 came to live together (princess, owl, babushka). It's an odd house share but we musn't judge... Actually it would make a great sit-com!

Here is the full package going off in the mail today to....
This is another secret swap so my partner doesn't know this is for her and I don't know who is making one for me. I am just sending a few small pieces of fabric and some really cute fruit fabric paper clips that just arrived in the shop this week. We have been encouraged not to send too many extras in this swap. And as the pin cushions have all been so amazing (check out the Flickr group pool, you will be so inspired), the pincushions themselves are more than enough booty!

Stash, wildlife and an amazing old quilt book

We're back from our short holiday to the West Highlands (more on that later) and now I am starting my week off at home with, hopefully, lot's of time for sewing.
But first of all I was off to Glasgow yesterday to spend my birthday money, and also to meet up with the 3 lovely girls who worked with me in our, now sadly departed, Glasgow store.

It was wonderful to see Sarah, Gemma and Jen again and enjoy a very chatty lunch at the Butterfly & Pig restaurant (most unusual menu language I have ever read!). Jen and Gemma have both found new jobs, which is wonderful. Jen's is in the Glasgow School of Art shop (Well done Jen, who  just graduated from there with a 2.1 in Product Design - way to go Jen!!). So after lunch Sarah and I wandered over to say hello and I found this amazing bowl of ceramic buttons for sale (see top). I couldn't help purchasing the 3 buttons above, and jen wrapped them up so beautifully with the cute GSA birdy sticker.

Next stop Mandors, which in my opinion, has the best selection of fabric and haberdashery in Scotland. The fabrics in the bottom left are all from the craft selection, with the pile to to the right from the dressmaking. I love the sribbly yellow flower one on the top. Also there are 4 Liberty designs amongst that pile, all at half price (£13.99 a metre). I always pick up some of these discounted Liberty fabrics at Mandors - worth going there for that alone. The 3 fabrics at the top are also from dressmaking and I loved them so much I bought 20cm in each colourway - they look so good together!
The 'rat-tail' cords are for the button hole loops I make in my cushions and also some extra wool for my 'African Flower' crochet blanket.
What a haul!! All bought with birthday money from Jonathan (well almost, I may have gone ever so slightly over budget, shhh...).
I also managed to get Sarah started with fabric for a log cabin cot quilt for her sister. This will be Sarah's first quilt so I expect the 'quilting hot line' will be busy soon. Sarah and I have a deal - if she doesn't get herself signed up with some recruitment consultants this week then she doesn't get anymore help with making the quilt - tough but fair!
Also I would like to thank our lovely assistant, Devin, who was very patient with me while I piled up bolt after bolt of fabric and dithered over cutting instructions. She even let me talk about this blog and promised to have a look later!

Ardnamurchan, where we had our short break last week, is an amazingly remote place. Hardly any shops at all and single track roads with 'passing places' (which had my nerves in tatters!).
So imagine my surprise when I discovered a leaflet for Loch Sunart Yarns & Buttons in a tiny place called Salen. Of course I had to stop by for a look...
Emma Moss runs a mail order business selling the yarns she spins and dyes herself as well as natural buttons she has sourced. She also has a super little craft shop selling lovely gifts.
When I got there Emma was stting in the sunshine spinning Alpaca wool on her lovely Dutch, 'barge painted' spinning wheel. Unfortunately, the photos I took of her and the shop have got corrupted on the stupid disk thing in the stupid camera, but if you click on the link above there are plenty of photos on her website.
Although I am not usually so interested in neutral colours, this wool was so beautiful and soft I knew I would find a use for it. The 3 skeins to the left are a silk/alpaca mixture and the one on the right is a camel hair mix! The blueish buttons to the left are made from mussel shells - how cool is that?! They are really beautiful.

The best thing about our holiday was all the wildlife we saw. Over only 3 days we managed to encounter:
otters, seals, basking sharks, dolphins, puffins, guillemots, cormorants, razorbills, gannets, skuas and a golden eagle! I felt like David Attenborough!!
I have to point out that not all of this was available on the mainland. We took a day long trip by boat to the Treshnish Isles to see most of it. It was a 4 hour trip out to the Atlantic (in my mind I was half way to Nova Scotia!) and had a wonderful, magical time walking around amongst the puffins, who were very relaxed around people and also incredibly cute, especially when they fly and land.
Jonathan took loads of great photos but unfortunately, I can't share them with you as he tells me none of them are 'ready' yet so I will have to save them for a future post.

I would just like to finish this unusually long post by sharing this lovely old book that I also got yesterday. Jen picked it up for me from the GSA library where they were giving away books for free! I am very grateful to Jen for thinking of me when she saw it.

It was written in 1985 and shows a large collection of quilts from the Mennonite community as well as a short quote next to every quilt from it's maker or owner. For instance the 'electric fan quilt' above (1939) says, "I found this pattern in the Kansas City Star, dated April 28th 1938, and liked the pattern so much that I made the quilt, long before we had electricity. The scraps came from the family sewing."

Some of the quilts look so modern and 'designed' that you can't believe they were made by such a sheltered community and just with scraps! This one 'Flying Geese' (1960) says, "Mennonites could not, and often still cannot, bear to see waste of any kind. During the late 1950's, there was a dress factory at Hillsboro. My mother used scraps from that factory to make this quilt. The size of the scraps determined the size of the pieces. "

This one reminds me of a crochet blanket and is called 'Many trips around the world' (1945). "Quilts were used as gifts for many occasions. This qult was a gift from my husband's aunt. We visited her in her home in Hesston shortly after our marriage and she let us choose a quilt from several she had on hand. Being just new in the family, I hesitated and, since she was my husband's aunt, I let him choose. She let us knew later it was her favourite quilt, but she felt proud that we cherished it."

The book is full of charming, moving passages like that, which really bring to life how important and central quilts and quilt making was/is to this community. There is a nice history of the Mennonites too. I didn't know much about them as they seem to have been slightly overshadowed by the Amish in quilting books.

Just one more.
This one looks So modern! The sort of quilt I expect to see on Red Pepper Quilts blog. And yet it was made in 1930! 'Dutchman's Windmill', "Quilting was a winter activity for my Nebraska grandmother. Piecing was done during the summer in spare moments between chores, gardening and canning and, often, field work for some women. A scrap quilt doesn't have to look like a scrap quilt. My grandmother tied this quilt together by purchasing the blue for the border and the backing. This quilt is very special to me because I never got to know my grandmother. She died the very day my parents were married."

Looks like the book is out of print now but there are still some used copies around on Amazon and I would definitely recommend it for the inspiration.
I am going to feel ever so slightly ashamed as I start cutting in to my new fabrics, the Mennonites would definitely NOT approve!

Santa came early!

I got a lovely surprise in the post yesterday - all the goodies pictured above!
You may remember a few weeks back when I took you on a tour of my local area as part of a giveaway on Adventures in Quilting and Sailing blog. Well I didn't actually win anything in the giveaway (story of my life...) but Magueritte very kindly sent me all this lovely stuff anyway!!
Thank you so much Magueritte! Did you make the heart by the way? The panel came all the way from Holland. I will have to think very hard about what to use it for to make the best of it. And I just can't enough embroidery/tapestry thread at the moment! I might even crochet with those shades...
Last week we had out staff night out and, of course, Secret Santa. Look what Santa bought me! Lovely sirdar wool, a crochet hook and this gorgeous button!!
Santa must know me very well! Thanks Santa.

I have already got to work with the wool.
Making these lovely corsages. I just love doing these and making each one a bit different.
If I don't get a chance to post again before Friday, HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all my lovely readers and followers! I hope you all manage to get some 'crafty time' in between all the cooking and making merry!!

New York!

Well I'm back from NYC! And what an amazing city it is! We had a wonderful time and I was really upset to leave. I'm usually always pleased to get back to Edinburgh, but not this time.
I managed to just about fit everything in that I planned. All the usual stuff, Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, 5th Avenue, Ellis Island... all fascinating and awe inspiring. And I loved riding the subway!
I did manage to make time to go to the Purl Patchwork shop in Soho. They have a fabric shop and a 'yarn' shop (called just Purl Soho) just a few doors away. I didn't dare go into the wool shop as I had spent so much money on fabric! Above are some of the beautiful fabrics.
And here is some sashiko thread and needles - look at the size of the needles! I will be using these for the quilt I started a few weeks back.

Here are some beautiful goodies from the best shop in Manhattan (in my opinion) 'Anthropologie'. I was actually I wee bit disappointed with the shops as there was so much expensive designer stuff (which does nothing for me) all of which you could buy here. But then having my own shop means it takes quite a lot to impress me! Anthroplogie was an eclectic mix of gifts, homewares and really lovely and unusual clothes. I couldn't afford any of those but bought this little selection of 2 adorable xmas decorations, gorgeous mug and retro childrens book about New York. The illustrations, by M Sasek, were the inspiration behind the Saks Fifth Avenue Xmas windows. I loved looking at all the big store windows, Saks' were probably the most imaginative but I preferred Bergdorf Goodman - Alice in Wonderland inspired and very 'handmade'.
Here is the shop window of Purl Patchwork. Inside, I kept recognising things made for the 'Last minute patchwork and quilted gifts' book, such as the colour wheel quilt and the tote bag. This is a great book written by the owner of the Purl shops. I will be trying out some of the ideas over the next few weeks as I attempt (finally) to get on with some handmade Xmas presents. Take a look at the Purl Website
You can see the colour wheel quilt hanging at the back of the shop in this shot. And all the lovely fabrics. The step ladders are needed to get to the top shelf but there isn't really enough room for customers, staff and step ladders!

They only open at 12, I got there at half past and the door never stopped opening. The poor staff did seem slightly harassed though very friendly and helpful. They had a great way of cutting the fabrics on the cutting mat - piling them on top of each other and then slicing through them with a rotary cutter.
Well now I am back to reality with a bump, but at least I have the wonderful memories and all the lovely fabric to play with!

Danish braids

We have been stocking the gorgeous rabbits and other toys from Danish Company 'Maileg' in our stores for a number of years now. Due to an increased interest in all sorts of haberdashery (from staff and customers!) we have branched out into their braids as well.



These beautiful ribbons come on a wooden spool in their own wooden box with metric measurements on the side so that we can easily sell them by the metre. This is great fun! I love cutting the braids and looping them round my hands before putting them in a bag (harmlessly pretending that I actually have a fabric shop!). Braids? Ribbons? A long running argument between Sarah and I as to what to call them. What do you think?
I have also been using the braids myself on a few projects I have going in the Sewing Room at the moment (more on that at a later date).
I wanted to make something for display purposes to show the braids off and inspire customers to buy some themselves. So here is the 'tubular' pin cushion I made (no rude jokes now). I just love pin cushions so any excuse to enlarge (oo-er) my collection! Sorry about the slightly 'carry-on' tone, it's just Jonathan compared the pin cushion to something unmentionable and now every time I look at it...
We planned to make a corsage with the ribbons and a bit of crocheting but have been too busy in the shop so far. I'm sure a quiet, rainy day afternoon will present itself soon!

Buttons!

Sarah and I had our annual trip to Harrogate this week to buy for the shops.

Harrogate is everybody's favourite Trade Fair, the sun is always shining, you get to eat lunch outside accompanied by a Jazz Band and, of course, Betty's Tea Shop!
And now something else to add to the list of Harrogate attractions - 'Duttons for Buttons'!
We came across this amazing button shop on our way from the station whilst keeping an eye out for a shop that sold crochet hooks.
Yes, I have another new recruit to the crochet sisterhood! Spend any amount of time with me at the moment, especially on a train, and I will teach you to crochet. I'm not forcing anyone, I'm just sharing!
So as the train pulled in to Harrogate and Sarah had completed her first few rows she was (literally) hooked and wanted one of her own. And Duttons for Buttons even sold crochet hooks! But we were mesmerised by the floor to ceiling displays of buttons and agreed to come back after we had completed our work on Tuesday afternoon (and after Betty's of course). We got there at 4.55pm, in a panic in case they closed at 5. But it was ok, we had half an hour of button love ahead of us. Oh joy! Sarah proclaimed it as one of the happiest times of her life and got so excited by the time we were ready to pay she was practically hyper-ventilating (effectively O.D.ing on buttons!!).
The lady in the shop was lovely, had a daughter in Musselburgh, and said she wished all her customers were as enthusiastic as we were! She then took and extortionate amount of money from us for a tiny paper bag full of buttons. We also couldn't resist these lovely tins which contained 4 reels of gutermann thread (and you could choose your colours!). Sarah had her buttons in the tin as soon as she got on the train home. I waited till I got home and took the photos above.
We finished the day crocheting our way back to Edinburgh in an empty carriage (the small one where they keep the food trolley man) and, after a couple of mini bottles of wine each, singing a selection of classic tunes (total eclipse of the heart, champagne supernova...) to the trolley man!
Duttons for Buttons have a mail order service, you can send them a swatch of fabric or wool and they will send you a selection of buttons that match for you to choose from. They also have shops in Ilkley and Leeds.
http://www.duttonsforbuttons.co.uk/html/contact.html