Turning Japanese...

 ... oh yes I'm turning Japanese, I really think so!

Those of you of a certain age may remember this song by the Vapors. And it comes into my head as I consider my growing obsession with all things Japanese. Well as long as it's sewing related that is!

It started about 5 years ago when my husband bought me a book called Kokoro No Te 'handmade treasures from the heart'. I made a few items from it including this 'Tomato Cache' which I just dug out of a drawer for this post (seems a shame to stick it back in the drawer, maybe I should give it away to someone, or maybe to you lot?!!).

I went on to give a 'Fabric Origami' class at the first Stitch Gathering which included lots of embellishment techniques I'd learnt from the book.

And then there's the Sashiko. I bought my first Sashiko panel 2 or 3 years ago. Here is the latest one.

I love taking these panels on journeys as they are so portable and quick to do. I finished this on my recent trip to teach at Simply Solids in Huddersfield.

I now have 4 finished panels, and still the vague woolly idea that these will one day be turned into a quilt for my youngest son.

Meanwhile I now have a real life Japanese friend, Hikaru who has been helping me teach Sashiko at the studio. Hikaru has made this class extra fascinating by telling us all about the origins of Sashiko, the meanings of the patterns and showing her vast array of Sashiko samples.

And at this year's Stitch Gathering Hikaru will be teaching some workshops alongside me. Our 4 afternoon sessions have a combined Japanese theme so I think we will keep our classes close together.

I will be teaching Sashiko and also Origami Bags. I started making these earlier this year after my EMQG friend Tatyana showed our whole guild how to make the drawstring version above. I've just finished this one made out of lovely Dashwood fabric line 'Fly Away'.This is my fifth bag - they are such a fab easy gift!

But of course Hikaru knows lots of different ways to make Origami Bag and showed me how to make this 'water lily' version (I just gave it that name BTW, it probably has a different Japanese name).

Hikaru made the top one for a sample, then she made me the one on the left (with the beautiful hand stitching) as a birthday present, and I just made the last one to finally try it out for myself (seeing as I will be teaching it!) and as a birthday present for my son's girlfriend. We will be teaching both versions in the SG class.



Hiakru will also be teaching Clamshell Purses and Macaroon Pouches, both are proving very popular classes!

I first met Hikaru when she came to our shop a few years ago to buy fabric. She bought a lot of fabric and was very excited to have found us! Later she brought in some of these clamshell pouches to show us what she had used the fabric for. She had made over 70 of these for wedding favours! All hand stitched!

I tried one of these out a few days ago. I have finally caught up with all my magazine commission work (for now!) so I am relaxing with some 'frippery' crafting for the next few days!

I am thrilled with how this turned out (though I must admit that Hikaru prepared a little kit for me and basted the shapes - sshhhh!), and how well does it match my nail polish?!

And how totally adorable are these Clamshell Pouches? No wonder everyone wants to do this class at the Stitch Gathering!  Hikaru made both of these, I have yet to give this one a try.

Apart from being an exceptionally talented sewer/crocheter/knitter Hikaru is also a lovely kind pal who also made me this beautiful Sashiko pincushion for my birthday last month.

Did you know this shape is called a Biscornu? I have been calling is a doughnut but it actually has a proper name (though a very odd one!).

The other thing that Hikaru likes to make for everyone are these Japanese Thimbles. They should sit between the 2 joints on your finger. I had a very swollen finger earlier this year when Hikaru first made me the bottom one. Now my finger is much better so she gave me a new one (though it was hot when I took this photo so my fingers were a bit more swollen than usual - it should sit a bit lower down!).

I am hoping to learn to make my own Japanese Thimbles soon too, they are so pretty and delicate, which just about sums up everything I like about Japanese sewing.

I decided to add these little felt and bead 'cherries' to the ribbon end. These are something I learnt from the Kokoro No Te book, I used to make loads of them and add them as embellishments to the 'leaf needlecases' I used to make and sell in our old shop. I saw that Hikaru had made little fabric cherries for the ribbon ends on the bag she made me and (constantly inspired by her) I thought I would add some here too, they make a lovely finishing touch.

This photo was taken in our (almost finished) Japanese Zen Garden that my husband has been working on for the last year! Photo of the whole garden to follow soon.

See I told you I was turning Japanese! And it's catching!

Giveaway results and lovely gifts for me!

First of all let's get those results out the way! The winner of the Stitch Gathering Goody Bag is number 86!

Congratulations Gill!! I will email you privately to get your address :)

Commiserations to everyone else, but to make up for your loss let's look at some pretty things.

I wanted to highlight the bag made for me in the Stitch Gathering ticket Tote Swap.
This bag was made for my by Nikki who was one of my first students when I started my classes 3 years ago. Nikki signed up for 3 classes straight away 'basic sewing machine skills', 'basic hand sewing', and 'learn to crochet'. In other words she was a complete novice about everything!

But Nikki was a natural and was very soon making beautiful quilts and so much more.
I love how personal she made this bag for me. She's transformed the SG logo above (by very cleverly shrinking and printing it!) into a version of our myBearpaw logo, but with extra elements from one of my embroideries in the centre.

The last class Nikki took with me was Dresden Plate and you can see how well she did by this beautiful mini Dresden which frames some lovely vintage linen. Nikki knows I love vintage embroidery, she was one of my best customers when I used to make Vintage Linen Notebook Covers and sell them in the shop a few years back.

And then there's the beautiful embroidery on the back with those lovely words which I like to think Nikki was aiming at me :)
I am so delighted with this bag as I know how much work and thought Nikki put in to it, and I am also a very proud teacher.

And then I received another wonderful handmade gift from one of my students!
Elaine took Sheila's Mega Pinnie class at the Stitch Gathering and obviously loved making them so much that she made one for me! And one for my colleague Barbara who was a helper on the day!!

Did you see how amazing the wrapping was? And she used Essex Yarn-dyed and then stitched over it to get that checkered effect - genius!!
I absolutely love the fabric she used and the super cute flower pincushion on the top.

This totally made my day when Elaine gave it to me at a crochet workshop yesterday.
Thank you Elaine! I LOVE being a teacher!!!

A few wee makes

Do you remember a few months back I showed you a new magazine that featured my African Flower Crochet Bag? The publishers wanted to get pre-orders so had mocked up a cover showing lots of the featured bags.
Well here is that actual magazine, Creative Bagmaking, out just yesterday. And as you can see my bag didn't make the real cover, but my friend and one of our class tutors, Naomi's, zippy make up bags did! (She also bought that vintage ladies fabric from our shop!). The magazine is a special edition one-off magazine and available in all good newsagents of online here.

It's a really great magazine with some fabulous projects, 18 to be accurate, including a really fantastic pattern and tutorial for a beach bag from Katy. I am definitely going to try that one out soon.

But in the meantime I fancied having a go at this Storage Caddy project by Mandy Munroe.

I changed it slightly to use up some strip piecing left overs and then went a little crazy hand quilting it all over with perles, in a similar way to the spool block mini I finished recently. I love this kantha style quilting, and am so happy that I got a place on Lu Summer's Improv Workshop at FQ retreat this summer. She likes to cover her improv pieces with similar stitches and they are just devine.

I thought this caddy would make a fabulous gift filled with some lovely habby. But it has proved so useful for carrying around my perles and scissors while I quilted it that I am going to keep this one for myself and make another.

Here is a gift I did manage to part with. I gave another Cathedral Window workshop the other day and thought I would take the chance to practice my hand sewn pincushion version ready for the class I am giving at the Stitch Gathering.
I decided to try out filling in the 'openings' between the windows with a contrasting fabric. I ran out of time to do the other side (as I was going straight to a birthday dinner after the class and this was going to be my present!) but I did fill the window with a precious piece of AMH Little Folks voile I had been hoarding.

One of the ladies in my class suggested sewing buttons to the intersections. Well, as you all know, I rarely need any encouragement to add buttons to anything! I love the extra dimensions the buttons give. It's such a great idea I know I will use it again.

Yesterday I spent an hour or so making a pompom. I hadn't made one of these for years and it is still surprisingly fun! I used up some of the beautiful Araucania llama wool I used for this pencil case. And the finished pompom is really soft and weighty. It ended up a little misshapen (I'm clearly out of practice!) but still definitely a pompom.

And why am I doing this?
Well a little place near Stirling called Balfron is about to host a pom pom festival!

"As part of the inaugural FABFEST! in Balfron, Stirlingshire in June 2013, the Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival is going to cover the village in hand-crafted pompoms.  The brain child of artist, Gillian Cooper, these pompoms large and small are going to be hung from trees and transform the village into a multi-coloured sensory experience.  Each pompom will have a little tag attached with the maker’s name and website/email and also a single word, supplied by the maker and will be photographed and added to this PomPom Festival blog."

They want the pompoms by the end of May so if you fancy joining in you just have time to get pompoming.
Last night I went to see a friend who had also been making them. We sat in her kitchen and made some tiny ones by wrapping the wool round the tines of a fork, it worked surprisingly well and they only took about 5 minutes each.
I do hope some of you can contribute, and/or visit the pom pom festival in June. I am planning a trip on my birthday! Visit the website for more info on the event and where to send your pompoms.

A hearty Goodbye to 2011...

... and Hello to 2012! I am just hoping it will be an improvement on 2011 which was a pretty pants year as far as I was concerned, but it did have lots of good points too.
And look at all the quilts I managed to actually finish! I am very impressed with myself. Of course most of them are tiny doll quilts, and some of them involved glue, but there are 12!

I do like making mosaics, so I made one of non-quilting stuff too - bags, cushions, an owl (of course), and a surprising amount of dollies! I think that crocheted 'Roses and Daises' blanket is my favourite project out of everything I made this year.

Just room for one more mosaic, this time looking forward. This is an Inspiration Mosaic for the first Flickr activity I have signed up for in 2012. I just sneaked in as they were shouting 'Last Call' on the ORBC 'Around the Bend and Across the Pond' Round Robin. This is an offshoot of the main Old Red Barn Co Quilt Along group, where 4 different groups are taking part in different versions of a Round Robin. I am in the 'round' group where we each make a middle and send it to the next person who makes the next row and then sends it on. At the end we each get sent a completed quilt top, AND it will be a surprise (somehow). There are 'row' groups and 'free form' groups. I am super excited about this and so was the first to get my mosaic made.
It's great to have happy stuff planned already for the New Year. What about you lot out there? What's your next project/swap/bee?
I hope you all have happy stuff to look forward to as well and A Happy New Year to you all!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Autumn 2011

Welcome! Today I am taking part in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. This is the 5th BQF I have taken part in and it is a real highlight of my bloggy year.

Usually I have a lovely new, full-sized quilt to share with you all, but I have had quite a challenging 6 months and so have nothing major to show. Instead I thought I would shamelessly steal Lynne's great idea from last BQF and curate a gallery of mini quilts I've managed to finish instead.

First up is this all-solids affair which I made for Ethne in the Doll Quilt Swap round 10.

Ethne likes quite contemporary, arty quilts and her inspiration mosaic had quite an organic flavour. She also liked maroons and purples. For something that looks pretty bold and simple, it certainly took a lot of sewing! I foundation pieced the blocks and was really going for a wonky look (honest!). You can read more about how I made it here.
I love a bit of hand quilting and really went for it on this one. The thicker quilting is done with sashiko thread and they are meant to be stamens.

 

I know this is all about the quilts, but I thought you might like to see the pincushion I made from my abandoned trial block. I have to say that Ethne has been my most enthusiastic and grateful quilt recipient yet!

This next one was made for our inaugural Brit Quilt Swap (and I was a very proud Swap Mama!). Seeing as I like to make life hard for myself I decided to make a mini kaleidoscope quilt for my partner Teresa.

For some reason I prefer the photo of the finished top over the one of the finished quilt, the colours just look sharper.
I was really trying to get that wonderful, optical illusion effect on this quilt, where the circles really pop out at you.

But I just didn't plan my values well enough and, though it's a really pretty quilt, it doesn't make the most of the kaleidoscope design. Still, a good practice piece for when I make a full sized one (!), and Teresa really liked it.
 
More hand quilting, this time with perle 8 cotton, and lots of buttons as Teresa loves them!

I really didn't have enough time for another round of DQS, but they lured me in with their 'back to basics, quilts for a doll's bed' round.
And just to make everything a little bit more challenging (I know, I know...), I decided to make a really teeny, tiny English Paper Pieced star quilt.
 
The little 60 degree diamonds are just over an inch in length. This was, again, a good practice piece for the full sized one which I have now started here.
 
Here is the top finished, again I like the look of this better than the quilted version - maybe I should stop quilting these!

Here is a close-up, with quite restrained hand quilting, for me! I really enjoyed fussy cutting the different diamonds and the effect that created.
Unfortunately my partner, Littleloops,  has gone totally AWOL. Nobody has heard from her since July and she hasn't acknowledged receipt of this quilt or made her partner one, and has completely ignored the Swap Mama's communications. I just wish I knew what had happened to her and this little quilt, it is quite worrying.

Well I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my mini quilts. Thanks for stopping by, and now off you go back to the Blogger's Quilt Festival for more gorgeous quilting inspiration!

Too Busy to Blog - Part 2

Phew! I have finally got to the end of my mammoth sewing and crocheting marathon!

So here are the next batch of projects completed for my Bearpaw Craft Classes venture.
Do you remember the Sleepy Owl Pyjama Case I made last year? Well here is his big brother Wide Awake Owl Doorstop!

I thought this fella was so cute I couldn't help photographing him over and over again as he flew around the garden!

Here is another Pillowcase Dress for a class I am taking in September. Once I have finished the class I will send the dress (along with another I will make as a demo) to Louise for her wonderful appeal. She is collecting dresses for the 'Dress a Girl Around the World' charity. Louise has received 140 already and 100 have been sent off to Malawi! If you would like to join in just head on over to Louise's Sew Scrumptious blog. Hopefully some of my students might donate one of the dresses they make too!

Patchwork Tote Bag - you have seen plenty of these here before!

And these! I have renamed this 'Patchwork Cottage Pincushion'.

If anyone would like to make one of these (and can't get to Edinburgh to take a class!) then I have a tutorial here.

A crochet hook roll from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilting Gifts book (that really is a great book!)

This can be made for knitting needles or coloured pencils too.

And, last one in this batch, a Log Cabin Patchwork Cushion.

This will be the first class I take in 3 weeks time, a real beginners patchwork course with a little hand stitching thrown in. I really like the colour scheme I picked for this cushion, quite an unusual one for me.

Well we actually had our Launch Day yesterday and it went very well! We took lots of class bookings and everybody loved our new studio, in fact one of the classes is already full booked! So I am feeling very positive about this new venture and maybe it will have been worth all the hard work (though not sure you can call sewing and crocheting hard work!).
I will post some photos of the studio very soon, along with the last 2 projects I have been working on, one of which is an actual finished quilt!