Making brooches

Red velvet brooch by Jenny Stacy

Close up of same brooch by Jenny Stacy

I made this brooch in the shop and I hope to make others in different styles and different colours. It's quite large and dramatic. The sort of brooch that holds a thick cardigan closed or that sings from a black coat. Red enlivens and cheers and I think of it as a lucky colour for some reason.
The velvet is made stiff by some of my handmade felt as background and I've hand stitched the whole thing together. I so enjoy experimenting that it's like a treat allowing myself to make when the shop is quiet. 

Knitting falls into a different category and I knit a lot puting it down whenever someone wants my attention. A baby's cardigan and a pair of baby socks  just need the seams sewing and now I've started knitting pale blue rompers which hopefully will look as good as the picture in the book! Those are for my grandchild to be but I would also like a lot more handmade baby clothes to sell in the shop. I'll keep you posted on that.

Can I just draw your attention to the word Comments under this post? I want to feel this blog is an ongoing conversation and I would love to know how you feel about anything I've written about or not written about. 
Just click on that word 'Comments', write your comment in the box and click next to Anonymous. (You can identify yourself in what you write.) Then copy down a couple of words/numbers in the boxes provided and click on Publish. As easy as that. Thank you. That's for people who haven't commented in the past. For everyone that has commented in the past: Thank you again I really appreciate it. 

The beautiful quilt!

Pam Dew's quilt. Fabrics designed by Kaffe Fassett

Pam Dew's handmade quilt hanging in Handmade Happiness

 I am thrilled to showcase Pam Dew's latest quilt in Handmade Happiness. I picture it over a double bed in an all white bedroom; white painted walls, white floorboards, everything white and this beautiful quilt providing all the colour you'll ever need.

Pam's expertise is in making patchwork quilts. (I have one on my sitting-room wall - geometric shapes, primary colours, I love it.) Can you remember her Amish quilt inspired handiwork for a customer last year? The customer was delighted with it.

Until it sells I will have the pleasure of staring at it. Thank you to Pam for making it so well and credit to Kaffe Fassett (a long time hero of mine)for his wonderful fabric designs.

Can you imagine sewing this?

A hand embroidered table cloth I bought at a charity sale

Detailing on the border

 I don't think many women today would be willing or able to spend months embroidering a table cloth like this. It is beautifully made and I think, should be recognised as the work of art it undoubtedly is. 

It is one of life's mysteries that people are willing to pay hundreds of pounds for some smeared paint in a frame that has maybe taken a day to create but unwilling to pay more than a few quid for an embroidered labour of love that has taken many months of eye-straining needlework like this cloth.

I remember older friends at craft fairs saying they were happy if they could make their table money and perhaps something towards buying new materials to make with. Lace makers, embroiderers, knitters. Sometimes you see the most exquisite work under priced. These older people have skills that the younger generation will not inherit. Why should younger people be interested in these heritage skills? They know there is rarely any money in it.

Until we are willing to pay a reasonable amount for the artisan's time and skill nothing will change. Talent must be encouraged. I know too many talented craftspeople who found it couldn't be made to pay. Once they take on full time work they find there is no time to be creative. 

I have a new patchwork quilt in Handmade Happiness. It is one of the most beautiful things I have seen. Made by Pam Dew for a double bed. The price is £385 . Not enough for the months of labour that have gone into producing it but we're getting closer...Picture next time. 

Making or not making

Flowers from the garden taken a few summers ago

 First of all - love to you on Valentine's Day. I hope you enjoy romantic love, family love and friends' love today and every day. If, and it's only a small if, you don't receive anything today may I suggest buying yourself the red heart tin of Lindt chocolates which would make an excellent sewing or bits tin. I expect these to fall to half price by the end of today or after the weekend!

As you know I've been making collage heart cards for customers to buy to give their loved one. I've also made cashmere lavender filled hearts which are quite large and needlefelted small hearts on chains as pendants and on string to hang.

I intended to make lace patchwork hearts; linen and flowery vintage fabric hearts and garlands of hearts cut from old music scores and sewn three dimensionally together. None of those happened.

Sometimes you feel like making and other times you don't feel like making. The incessant rain can make you feel like burrowing deep and sleeping until its dry again!! I often find I'm too tired after being in the shop all day to do much making at night. But now the evenings are getting lighter and light brings energy.
When I look back to the days when I made myself make £60 or more worth of stock every day to make doing the Country Living show worth my while I wonder how I did it. But then I didn't have the shop in those days. Now I have a far bigger incentive than shows to make more stock. But I don't think I'm alone in finding these January/ February days the hardest days to be disciplined in.

I find it helps not to listen to the news very often. I don't want to know how much more rain is forecast. I feel dreadfully sorry for those whose homes have been flooded. It must be ghastly but seeing it all endlessly repeated on the news just gives me that helpless, frustrated feeling. You'd like to help but short of dropping everything, pulling on your waders and going to those places there's not a lot we can do. Except sympathise.

Sorry I got side-tracked. Happy Valentine's Day!

Six new cashmere cardies

Pretty in grey with chiffon roses by Seonaid Noble

Softest cashmere next to Kate Hackett's ceramics

Nice styling in brown with chiffon detail

Dove grey cashmere jersey with pink chiffon edging

Something new at Hobbycraft

 Seonaid Noble makes these cashmere cardigans from her home near Petersfield. When she brought them in to Handmade Happiness she was telling me that so often knitwear called 'cashmere' has only a small amount of actual cashmere in it. Her clothes are different as anyone who has felt them will agree. 

These beauties are larger in size than the six I had in the shop over Christmas. Everyone loved those ones but at sizes 8 to 10 most women longed for bigger sizes. These are size 12 - 14. There is also a rust brown style and a fashionable singing orange colour not pictured. By the way Seonaid's  name is pronounced 'Shawna' just in case you were wondering.

On Monday I visited Hobbycraft at Havant. I bought a sewing book that I'd had out of the library before and I was curious to see the textile yarn pictured above. I remember when a friend used to queue up at jumble sales waiting to pull from the piles all the cotton t-shirts she could. She would cut these into long strips to make rag rugs with to sell. Now the work has been done for her. New at Hobbycraft are these reels of what looks like t-shirt ribbon to knit with, crochet with or even to make rag rugs with!

Are we being spoon fed like this because women haven't got time any more to make their own raw materials for craft?  Looking round Hobbycraft there's a lot of 'spoon feeding' going on. Make your own cards but first buy all the little bits to stick on your cards from us. Try 'decopatch' but first buy your papier mache 3D shape and the squares of printed coloured paper to glue on to them. (Someone phoned up recently offering the shop decopatched dinasoars.) 

Craft has certainly come a million miles from war time thrift when everything had to be re-used from adult clothes cut down to fit children to laddered stockings and worn fabrics cut to make plaited rugs. Admittedly there was probably more grim satisfaction than fun in making things like that. 

But now when people want to find more time to  get back in touch with their creative side to make things both beautiful and useful, what is more satisfying and fun that tapping in to our own imaginations to come up with something as wonderful and individual as we are!

Making clothes for babies

Christine saw this on ebay and kindly bought it for me!

I am thrilled with this pattern I just received in the post. Christine, who makes the lino cut gift wrap and cards you see in Handmade Happiness found it. Thank you Christine.

It's marked 1973 and it's interesting to see that although fashions come round again some details don't look quite right for now. I would make the dress longer and leave off the lace insert on the nightie top left. I like the idea of the baby sleeping bag, bottom right but would that design allow the baby to kick freely?

I don't know whether my daughter's baby will be a boy or a girl. These fabrics are some I already own. I particularly like the brushed cotton (wincyette?) blue rosebud design. That one I think would look perfect on any tiny baby.

I was hoping to go up to London today but having just heard the news I think trains may be affected by flooding and impending flooding so I'll stay closer to home. If anyone reading this has been affected by floodwaters, my heart goes out to you. I hope and trust we'll get back to normal soon with warm spring sunshine and months and months of good summer weather not too far away.

 Maybe today I'll check out Hobbycraft - I haven't visited that store for months... I'll take my camera with me.

Fluffy chicks and bunnies

I am in love with these knitted fluffy chicks by Sue Inglis

Each bunny has been given a carrot this year. New from Sue Inglis

 Sue Inglis came in yesterday with lots of new knitted things. I love the fluffy chicks with their flappy wings. They also come in primrose yellow. £5-95 each for chicks and bunnies. Sue also makes striped mice and plain mice (pic to come) and I want to make a baby mobile by tying Sue's white chick, mouse, cat and rabbit to an embroidery hoop at different levels.

Sue's cats are pictured on the blog www.sistersister.me   which I've added to my blog list 'Nice to Look at.' The sisters, Maya and Freya are travelling round Asia. Locals will know them from The Natural Apothecary cafe in Petersfield where they worked until recently. It's the best cafe in town and Maya and Freya are the nicest waitresses you can imagine. Hope they're having loads of fun.

It's busy Saturday again. The weeks pass so fast. Enjoy your weekend!

The importance of yellow

Daffodils in the window of Handmade Happiness.

For years I didn't like yellow. I didn't want yellow or orange in my garden or in my home. But now I like them. Yellows look good with greys I've realised and now, when every day has grey leaden skies and rain a big bunch of daffodils is just what you need to bring a cheerful splash of colour.

Seeing daffodils in the shops also marks the beginning of the end of winter and the start of the beginning of spring. Joyful blooms. This picture is for Bee my friend in Australia. Where she lives in Queensland every day she says is much the same. Warm or hot. She misses the changing seasons and although we Brits moan a lot about the weather I think we'd miss the changing seasons too if we lived elsewhere.

Yesterday I tried only using landscape colours in my knitting. Blues and greeny-greys for skies and sea; sandy beige for sand and browny greens for land and hills. Strange how restricting ones colour palette to those colours of nature immediately made what I was making look more expensive. Note to self  - use these colours more!

Today and tomorrow my daughter will be with me in Handmade Happiness. I am feeling very lucky right now!

A beautiful sky

The sky at dusk last night - about 5pm

The chalk line through it made by a plane

The white streak looks like lightning but it's man-made

As I drove back from Chichester yesterday there was a dramatic white cross in the sky reminding me of the time I saw the Red Arrows doing their aerobatic display. By the time I could safely take a photo just one line remained but it reminded me of how the subtle beauty of the sky can be dramatically affected by man. Because we haven't protected the planet properly from ourselves for decades we are now suffering climate change. Maybe it's time to stop pretending that what we do has no long term effect and to confront the problem face on.

So yesterday I visited all the shops in Chichester to check whether anywhere stocked baby nighties. As I couldn't find a pattern in C&H fabrics I thought that maybe Mothercare or Next or M&S or H&M would have something I could take the pattern from. I am looking for a brushed cotton nightie with a drawstring hem. The sort that my mother made for my first baby. I drew a blank everywhere and was told that mothers prefer babygros now. 

I remembered Mothercare stocking them, admittedly a fair few years ago and the assistant helpfully pointed out the Jules Oliver range for Mothercare (Jamie Oliver's wife.) She has designed a nightie just like the ones Mothercare used to make with the addition of an elasticated hem but it cost £12... so I came home empty handed but not discouraged.

I think Pinterest is partly responsible for my determination that this baby (my daughter's first child is due in July) should have lovely things. On Pinterest you can see the best of everything worldwide. So I am looking at wool handknits from the States; cotton garments from Spain, France and Italy and felted wool from Scandanavia. Natural, breathable fabrics that we create from what nature provides. I don't want fleece or nylon mixes. That would be like drawing a white cross on a perfect sky.

New handmade gifts

Chicken cushion made by Petersfield textile artist Pam Dew £39.50

New spring flowers designs and bunny mugs by Kate Hackett

As promised here's a look at Pam Dew's latest cushion and Kate Hackett's new ceramics for spring. What is special about Kate's work is that she is an artist and a potter. She buys clay, throws it, shapes it on the wheel and creates her pieces. Then she is equally adept at painting her own designs on them.  These spring flower pictures are particularly pretty. Handmade Happiness also stocks Kate's handmade decorations - lots of new hearts, chickens, bunnies and chicks for Valentine's Day and Easter tree decorating.

So many new things in the pipe line. The talk continues about womens' clothes and baby clothes for the shop. I know the kind of thing I want it's just a matter of persuading someone a lot more talented than me to make things!

My idea for setting up a work table where I could create during opening hours has not happened. I was forgetting that January is tax month and I seem to have spent most of that month doing paperwork.  Hopefully February will be the time to put those New Year resolutions into effect.

 Let's use Valentine's Day as a signal to Be Kinder to Ourselves day. Yes, lots of love to nearest and dearest and to everyone that comes within our radar but also, sometimes we have to remember that if we treat ourselves well everyone else benefits! 

For example how many times a day do you hear yourself saying no to yourself? 'Yes I need some more shoes and those ones in the sale look fine but no, I'd better not spend the money right now.' Sound familiar? The silly thing is that the financial position is not likely to change. It's the attitude that needs to change. 

With Spring on the horizon I feel the urge to decorate the house. It would be lovely to rip out the kitchen that I've disliked since I moved here and re-design the space. But new kitchens cost thousands of pounds. Maybe a fresh colour on the walls and some extra shelves would be enough...Now I'm saying no again!

 I once read that if you truly believe you deserve to have money that attitude creates wealth. On the other hand if you believe you aren't entitled to have money your money will never accumulate. You will somehow self-sabotage your chances of ever becoming wealthy! Now all we need to know is how to change the attitude!!

Ceramics in Handmade Happiness

Colourful mugs by Kate Hackett; blue painted mugs by Jacqui Watkins; dog on porcelain mug by Ali Cooper; hearts by Eve Deary and knitted key rings by Sue Inglis.

Samantha Robertson's work

Ali Cooper's stoneware with 24 carat gold decoration.

 Handmade Happiness has a range of ceramics - porcelain, white earthenware, stoneware by four local potters - Roly Phillips work - larger vessels inspired by the colours of the sea, are not pictured above. Kate Hackett who makes the colourful flower and fruit decorated pieces is coming in today with fresh pieces for spring. (I love her mug, top middle of the first picture with its colourful heart.) A special mug or bowl makes a nice Valentines present...

Pam Dew, a textile artist who specialises in patchwork and applique came in with her newest cushion this week. I love it - it's of chickens - and I'll take a picture of it today for the next post.

Already its the last day of January. Winter is rushing out the door. I have a big bunch of daffodils on my desk in the shop, a reminder that spring is on its way. The milder winter has been good for the shop - when there's snow on the ground there's no-one about. 
Yesterday it was interesting to speak to a customer who has had a shop in another town for 13 years. She says last year 2013 was the hardest year she's known. I reckon if we can survive that we can survive anything! 

Felted Hearts

Three hearts made with my felt, red cashmere offcut and red blanket

...together with a lavender filled red cashmere heart by me all on Kate Box's lovely blanket.

Kate Box's knitted blanket - showing the fab colour combination

Late yesterday in the shop I had some fun on the embellisher using scraps and a handful of 'silk waste'. I was making silver coloured charm bracelets yesterday and I think I could make a smaller felted heart like these stuffed and stitched as a central charm on a bracelet or as a necklace on its own on a coloured string. Even as earrings if they don't prove too fiddly to do...

The red cashmere heart (thank you Shauna) stuffed with lavender smells gorgeous. I didn't know whether to give it a hanging loop or not. But actually I like the idea of putting it in a drawer just as it is to scent and (supposedly) to repel moths.

I look forward to making some more hearts today in the shop. Wednesdays are usually the quietest day of the week.

On Monday I completed and sent my tax return! Yay! Such a good feeling to know that it's done for another year. So as promised I will give a free workshop next Wednesday(ie a week today) from 2pm in the shop. The topic is 'free knitting' and to take part you already have to know how to knit. Bring the yarns and needles you want to use and I will bring some wool and needles for sharing too. The idea is to create a crazy patchwork by using different colours and knitting stitches and to knit from the base or side of your work to make the piece look truly your own. This workshop is a lot of fun and what you make could become a cushion cover or throw or bag or just a piece of artwork. You be the judge.

The collage of Life

Valentine's card by Jenny Stacy

and another collaged heart card by Jenny Stacy

 I forgot that I collaged the kitchen wall of our dully decorated rented Paris house. Reading an old diary from the early eighties reminds me of things like that. It was lovely exploring that city. We set up house there when Amy was just 6 weeks old and Tim a little boy so the diaries are largely domestic - shopping, cleaning, eating, playing with and caring for children. 

When Tim started school there (at 3) Amy and I were able to 'lick windows' as the French call window shopping. It was in Paris that I first dreamed of having a shop of my own. One particular shop, la drougerie on rue du Jour was my paradise on earth. It sells beads, buttons, wools, and ribbons all gorgeously displayed.  I could see a British version being appreciated by British women back home. I clung on to that dream and haven't abandoned it even now. I have a lovely shop that sells creative peoples' work. One day I hope to also sell distinctive, unusual and beautiful beads, buttons, wools and ribbons. Watch this space!  

Softest baby blankets

Knitted blanket by Kate Box

If you're wondering why the photo today is of a better quality than usual it's because I didn't take it! Kate Box sent me two photos, one of which I've managed to send into the ether between email and Picasa and can't retrieve and this one.  This blanket which feels as soft as cashmere but is actually made with lambswool is in colours for a girl. Kate's other new blanket has navy and grey and pale blue in it - colours for a boy. 

I wonder if it's politically correct to say that. This is for a boy and this is for a girl. I imagine a baby doesn't mind what colours it's wrapped in or what colours it wears come to that but it must be at least mildly annoying for the mother if people keep guessing its sex wrongly judging by the colours it wears. 

I love Kate's designs. If I could afford to I'd buy both blankets to wrap my grandchild-to-be!

Talking of cashmere, Shauna Richardson delivered six more of her fabulous cashmere cardigans to Handmade Happiness yesterday. These are made with 100% cashmere, super soft and pretty. Sizes 12 to 14.  

Shauna generously gave me her cashmere offcuts to make with. These would make great baby toys - teddies, rabbits or mice and also serve as blankets in a toy's bed. Bed in a matchbox I'm thinking. Also cashmere hearts stuffed with lavender for Valentines, that would be nice too.

Colour and scent for a winter's day

I love the smell of these wafting through the house

 People often comment on the 'nice smell' in Handmade Happiness. It smells warm and cosy thanks to a fig candle from True Grace. In the summer I occasionally burn one that smells of flowers or the sea shore. But the best smell is from fresh picked flowers and I look forward to always having those in the shop once the weather improves instead of a candle. My garden is good at producing roses and I love, love, love sweetpeas for their colours and scent.

Of all the senses smell sometimes gets forgotten. Then a lady often of 'a certain age' passes in the street and you appreciate a waft of expensive perfume. Young men at night often overdo it and smell like they've splashed the whole bottle on themselves. But they do smell nice and I guess it gives them confidence.  

Certain smells take you back to a time and a place. My mother bending over my bed to kiss me goodnight in party clothes and jewellery always used Madame Rochas perfume - I don't think you can buy it any more. And doesn't your sense of smell get heightened when visiting a different country? The glorious smell of hot croissants passing Paris bakeries and the strong lavender smell of l'Occitane shops which are now in many High Streets over here.

Kate Box bought in two new knitted baby blankets yesterday. One in colours for boys and one in colours for girls. They are the softest feel you can imagine. Pictures to come. 

Watch this programme!

A freshly made Valentine's card by Jenny Stacy

Vintage inspired Valentine's by Jenny Stacy

 Last night I thoroughly enjoyed a new tv series called The Great Interior Design Challenge.
It's on every night for two weeks on BBC2. The idea is to take three similar houses - last night they were Edwardian houses in Muswell Hill, London and get three assorted people to transform the same room - last night master bedrooms. 

It was fascinating to see how creative people can be when given a limited budget and limited time. It's that competitive adrenilin that gets ideas buzzing! Different rooms, different competitors, different style of houses every night. My idea of bliss! I think the programme will be very successful both here and in America. Whether your style is vintage, French country or contemporary there are ideas and rooms to suit everyone on this show!

Do you like yoga? For the first time in years I did half an hour of yoga this morning after my back gave me a wake up call at the weekend. And I feel good.  I remember getting weird aches and pains once before and it turned out to be nothing more than caffeine withdrawal as I'd suddenly decided to stop drinking coffee. I'm wondering whether trying to give up sugar as I currently am could have a similar effect on the body?

 Have you noticed how sugar has suddenly become the number one topic in the media? Sometimes carbs are the no-nos, sometimes saturated fat, now it's sugar. Yoga gets you to listen to what your body wants and doesn't want so maybe we should let our own individual bodies decide what is right for us as individuals? Agree? By the way if anyone can recommend a yoga class in Petersfield I would be grateful.

New pieces from Ali Cooper

Mugs and jugs by Ali Cooper in the window of Handmade Happiness pictured with birds by Michelle Green and bunny by Sue Inglis.

Bunny mug by Ali Cooper

Ali Cooper brought new pieces to Handmade Happiness on Friday. Porcelain hand thrown ceramics and some stoneware decorated with 24 carat gold lustre.

I feel sorry for anyone that suffers with a bad back. Yesterday I woke with back pain - not something I usually get and I crept around all day feeling sorry for myself. I hope none of the customers guessed I was feeling fragile. But today it's still hurting and you know how you get to a certain age and think, this is it, I'm falling apart, and you can't imagine being pain free again. I don't like taking pills but if I'm to drive to East Grinstead today to see my mum I shall have to take a pill... also the boiler is not working. That's two old boilers on the blink!

Enough moaning. You know we were talking about baby clothes? My daughter was lucky to find a brand new baby sleeping bag, white with faint blue stripes by Caramel baby and child in a charity shop together with one of Caramel's linen romper suits. Surely this is the ideal compromise - to find unworn luxury baby goods at charity shop prices!

Looking forward

Valentine's card by Jenny Stacy

Another Valentine's card by Jenny Stacy

Buttons before holes by Jenny Stacy

 What I'd like to be doing in the shop right now is making Valentine's cards and buttons. What I'm actually doing in the shop right now is sorting out tax before the dreaded January 31st deadline. But once I finish the tax thing I'll feel I have permission to be more creative!

Attention basket makers and dressmakers! I'd like to sell handmade baskets in the shop and natural fabrics (pure cotton/ silk/wool) handmade clothes for women/ children/babies. If you live locally to Petersfield and make these things come and see me! I'm pursuing all things handmade that are either beautiful or useful or ideally, both. Handmade wooden toys is something else I'd like to stock. Also I haven't found anyone locally knitting baby clothes  in cotton yarn or wool yarn. Again if you or someone you know makes beautiful things and would consider selling them I would like to meet them!

Now in it's third year Handmade Happiness gets better and better. I was thrilled to bits this week when a customer said she'd come down from London on the train especially to buy presents at Handmade Happiness because she 'knew she'd find what she wanted there'. She did and then left to catch her train back to London again. I honestly never thought anything like that would happen...

This time last year I did a workshop on 'Free Knitting' ie making a random patchwork of knitting (and crochet if you want) by knitting on the side and base of your work in different colours and stitches to create a really interesting arty piece. I'll do another to celebrate finishing the tax return in early February. Any takers? 

Displaying art in nature

Stones found on Cornwall's beaches at Ruth Ellacott's house

Same stones, different angle. The rug is one of many rag rugs made by Ruth and for sale in Handmade Happiness.

On Monday I went to Chichester to have coffee with my friend Anne, visit Ruth Ellacott and to look at baby clothes in the shops. 

I've written before about Ruth's house. I love the fact that art is everywhere you look. Not just the obvious paintings and etchings, the unusual pottery mugs and colourful jewellery but the bowls of stones, the rows of blue green ancient glass bottles lined up in the window, the shards of sea-washed patterned porcelain and smooth sea glass. Everywhere I put my eye there is something to wonder at and exclaim over! Her house is an inspiration. I was pleased to hear that this year Ruth will be taking part in the Chichester art trail. Not unfortunately in her house but in a church hall along with two other artists.

I looked in several shops that sold baby clothes and sorry but I was disappointed. Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned but I'd rather a tiny baby was a soft white bundle, comfortable and secure. I don't want to see slogans written across his/her clothes. Nor do I want to see bright colours.

 I remember my mother making little nightdresses for my first baby and I was touched that she'd taken the trouble to make them. Now I'm thinking of making little nighties myself. Brushed cotton with a drawstring hem maybe. White but perhaps little rosebuds on the fabric or tiny little cars?  Am I describing something that is actually for sale in one of the shops I didn't go in? Or am I just hopelessly out of touch with what mothers today want? I have started knitting a white cardigan buttoned up to the neck with a simple moss stitch border. It's  in  a soft pure wool that's machine washable - 'Superwash wool' - some things do change for the better!

New things and makers' energy

Zipped, lined purses by Carol Smith

Wrapped fabric earrings by Carol Smith

Carol Smith who writes the blog www.molebags.blogspot.co.uk came in on Saturday with these useful little zipped purses she makes. I particularly like the patchwork ones and I'm hoping she'll bring in some more shaped to hold i-phones. Carol was wearing some very unusual earrings and it was fun talking about other possible uses for her wrapped fabric beads. 

I like it when makers come into the shop. In fact I'm beginning to think there may be a strange link between the frequency of  their visits and the number of their things sold. 
Quality will always sell but for some reason makers who visit regularly to bring in fresh things they've made, to fiddle with their display or just to have a chat bring with them an energy that seems to have a good effect on their sales.

Handmade Happiness started out with the work of just five local makers. At the latest count there is now work from 49 makers for sale. And the people that take the most interest in how their work is selling -guess what? have the most sales. Is there such a thing as 'transferred energy'? 

I find the same thing happens when I re-arrange an area. To some extent this may be to do with changing what is in the eye-line of the customer. But I can't help wondering if it has something to do with re-energising a spot. I was never any good at science at school but perhaps someone can tell me whether this is a known phenomena?

Making buttons this morning

Handmade buttons by Jenny Stacy about to go into the oven

Apologies, first of all for the state of the baking tray. I only use it for Fimo and years of baked on paint and Fimo mean it is never camera ready! In fact if I'd known I was going to photograph buttons on it I would have given it a good scrub. The buttons will look a million times better in the shop against a clean white cloth! I'll just fetch them out of the oven now.

The worst thing about making buttons is softening the clay. That always takes longer than I think it's going to. So I softened clay last night ready to make buttons this morning. I have a dwindling number of buttons in the shop so I'm pleased to have made 44 more to boost supplies. They are all machine washable and cost £1 each. I have a request for brown ones and I'll do those next. I just feel in the mood for lots of colour right now.

I taught myself to make buttons about 20 years ago after seeing some beads made from Fimo in America. I wished later that I'd bought some but I still had the picture in my head and I was fascinated by them. Since then I've made and sold beads and buttons and given many workshops on how to make them. Buttons like those above are ideal for hand knitted jackets and cardigans, as decoration on cushions and quilts or to fasten bags of all sizes, make into jewellery or just to have as useful decoration in a glass jar.  

Keeping warm and dry

Handmade Happiness' window this week

I put some big woolly scarves and knitted socks in the window this week. Just looking at them makes you feel warmer! What would be even more weather appropriate would be to have some big handmade umbrellas in the window. Now there's a thought:

You could buy an umbrella from the 99p shop and strip off the fabric. Then using the opened wires as your framework you could crochet between them; or you could knit panels or sew in handmade felt - nuno felt would maybe look good; or how about weaving? Would weaving work if the wires are the base you weave between? Actually I think you'd need to keep the boring black umbrella fabric on because it would provide the right tension. If you sewed into it and used it as the base you could cut some or all of it off once you'd applied your surface.

This handmade umbrella could never be closed nor would it be any use as rain protection but as amusing window display to bring a smile to passers by, yes, it would do nicely.

Talking patchwork

Close up of Ruth Ellacott's big square patchwork hanging in the shop

I've never tried patchwork but I'm fascinated by it.  How do people get it so neat and even? This large unlined square mat is backed by a sheet and would, I think, make a brilliant play mat for a baby. Because Ruth Ellacott is an artist she lays out the colours and patterns just so. She also makes the rag rugs I sell in the shop and she does beautiful botanical paintings.

I saw a dress made from pieces of knitted sweaters patchworked together. It looked lovely and warm. Upcycling at its best. What Americans call a jumper (pinafore) made of jumpers.

I'd also like a tea cosy made of Victorian style crazy patchwork. A bit of velvet, a bit of embroidery and nice fabrics all randomly stitched together in un-neat patchwork and then padded and lined. I'd be more capable of that 'crazy' kind of patchwork. It reminds me of the free knitting and crochet I do where the piece grows patchwork style when you knit into the sides or base of your piece in different colours and stitches. Lovely stuff.

Pam Dew does fabric patchwork. Last year she made a wonderful Amish pattern patchwork quilt single bed size for a customer. Can you remember the picture of it? Traditionally women would have used every scrap of saved fabric from worn out clothes to use again in quilts for the family. Now when patchwork has become more of an art form than a necessity women will buy the fabric they need. But I prefer the idea that every piece has a story.  A bit of baby's first dress here and her Dad's worn out shirt there. A lovely thing to look at to bring back memories as we get older.

Turning old magazines into carrier bags

Ready to be filled with shop purchases

More waiting for handles to be attached

Yesterday was a bit quiet in the shop what with the rain and it being January so I made carrier bags. I've always made these out of old magazines. Five pages for one of these and just one page for a folded little bag that practically every purchase goes in. It means I don't have to buy bags and people like the look of them and the fact that it's recycling.

 My preferred magazines are Vogue or Harpers for the carriers and Country Living or Country Homes and Interiors for the little bags. Certain lovely customers have been bringing in their old magazines for me to use so I always have a good supply. And if I ever get a World of Interiors magazine (which has thicker paper than other magazines and beautiful pictures) I can use the pages for both carriers and small bags.

I took out a lot of the Christmas decorations yesterday. Monday is the deadline for removing Christmas displays as you know. But I am a bit confused as to what to celebrate next shopwise. A friend who had a shop in Chichester advises not to celebrate spring too soon (which had been my intention) but to have a couple of months with a winter theme. She reckons fresh spring displays will look a bit jaded by the time March and April come around. Maybe she's right. But I do find spring flowers a lot more inspiring than winter frosts.

In the mood for making

Notebooks by Christian Lacroix

New Year new start on making fresh things to sell. Recently I have made a bit of this and a bit of that, all kinds of things that I think will sell. But looking back at past notebooks I am reminded that what sells best of all for me and what I enjoy making most is jewellery. Unusual, quirky pieces that say something about the woman who wears them. I am determined to keep more of a 'finger on the pulse' of fashion and to observe and research  what women really want (which is not necessarily anything to do with fashion.) 

May all your dreams come true...!

Liberty prints

It's 2014!
A great and special year for you. Gather up your confidence and make this the year that all your dreams come true. 

When I was young I used to think that if I waited patiently good luck and opportunity would fall into my lap. Now I know that life is what you mould it to be. You make things happen in your life by your own actions. And if you don't wave your own flag and chase your own goals nobody is going to notice you. Sorry but that's the truth. Take it from an old timer like me who, God willing, will become a grandmother in 2014.