Amanda’s Musings

I took some photos this morning of the hand stitching I’ve done in between everything else lately. I haven’t been listing anything in my shops over the last month and I have no idea as yet what I will do with these. With only a couple of days left of June, I still haven’t sold enough to buy 6 bikes for the Pastors in Ghana, my total still sits at five and a half. Thank you Stacey for your offer in the comments of the last post (I’ll be in contact!).

Anyway, here are the little things I’ve been hand stitching. The denim ones will eventually go into the shop.

And the Work In Progress:

This post is actually not about feelings but about actual felt. : ) I couldn’t help myself with the title. In amongst the madness of packing and cleaning for this weekend’s move, I still have time to blog. This is basically because I HAVE to sit down for an hour or two after doing anything due to sore hips etc… I think this is probably a good thing, normally I’d be rushing around like a crazy person getting everything done and instead I feel much less stressed due to these breaks.

So, back to what this post is about. I’ve recently started listing hand stitched felt items in my online stores and today I have added 6 new felt items to my Etsy store. The main reason I did this today was so I can pack these items away into the ‘listed’ box ready for the move as they’ve been sitting here ready to be listed for a week now. After listing them I took a few screen shots of my hand stitched felt section in my Etsy store and below are the shots. Don’t they all look happy and bright together! In the range below you can choose from plain luggage tags, luggage tags with a pocket on the reverse side, brooches and pincushions.

I’m still sending the profits to the work of SIM (Bikes for Pastors this month and next month). So far I’m still at 5 bikes but I’ve had a few sales over the last week so the number is slowly climbing. Praise God!

My final act of creativity before we shift house this weekend is this t-shirt. I’ve designed and created it for a competition on one of the sites I sell my polymer clay and felt items on called MadeIt. The theme of the t-shirt was to be around the letter ‘M’ so this one is named after Keziah and entitled ‘My Mischief’. The design came from one of my moleskine sketches as you can see in the picture below:

The stitching was done by hand and changed slightly from the original design but overall I’m quite happy with the outcome. I wanted to have a go at putting one of my designs on a t-shirt anyway so this was a good chance to have a go.

Ok, so here’s the finished product along with some little modelled shots by Kezi. She was a bit sleepy in this shot so she doesn’t look like the mischievous self that the t-shirt is named after!

I have started to stitch a couple of new things now that I’m on my way with the brooches and have completed the booties. A few weeks ago I did a survey to which over 50 people responded. I asked what people think I should do with my felt ‘patches’ and I had quite a few suggestions. One of the most common suggestions was to create denim jeans patches (those in the US called them blue jeans patches) and so that’s what I’m trying to do.

I’ve had to put this aside for a week until I complete my t-shirt for the madeit t-shirt competition but so far so good. Here’s a sneek peek:

I quite like them without any stitching on but I can’t help myself. I don’t feel like they are finished without the stitching. The back of these has the glue for ironing onto jeans.

I am continuing to send the profits from all sales to the work of SIM around the world (bikes for Pastor’s still this month). Sales have not moved a lot in the last week so feel free to spread the word!!

After being reminded about the free online pattern for cute felt booties (after reading Anna Laura’s blog the other day) I downloaded the Heather Bailey pattern and have completed a set myself. I’m really pleased with the result and it was fun to use the wool felt I got the other day. These booties are destined for little Amelia Grace who was born to a couple at our church a week or so ago. I can’t wait to make some for our own bubby except I don’t know if we’re having a boy or a girl so I might wait and see.

I’ve been stitching and stitching and have completed and listed a new brooch for the store. I think I would have around 12 or so of these in the pipeline and it also might be time to get another stamp made with a new design. I quite like the colours of this one.

You can also buy this one in my wahmania store.

As my sales for Camp La Joya continue I have listed some new items in my Etsy and Wahmania stores and also in my MadeIt store. At the moment the stats for each store are:

Etsy 145 Items
Wahmania 50 Items
MadeIt 15 Items

Etsy US Dollars - Price range - $2.50 - $50.00
Wahmania AU Dollars - Price range - $4.00 - $35.00
MadeIt AU Dollars - Price range - $4.99 - $16.00

Many of these items in the second and third shop are found in my Etsy store also.

Recently listed items include:

And a few more! The felt items above are what I call Art-stitch gift tags. They have a little pocket on the reverse side where you can put a little message. They work well as luggage tags too! Many other colours and styles in store.

Last year I mentioned that Suki from tamptation.etsy.com has kindly made me a stamp using one of the designs from my moleskine sketches. I had then explained that I stamped the design onto felt and that there would be pincushions for sale in my stores soon. My aim was to put them in the shops over January but seeing as I had the creative energy of a toothpick at the time, it didn’t happen.

They say that things pick up as far as energy goes in the second and third trimesters and for me its turned out to be true. If anything, its more a sense that once we move house and then the baby arrives, I probably won’t have any time for creativity or listing things in shops for a while.

In light of that, I have FINALLY gotten around to photographing and listing my hand stitched (not machine) and designed pincushions for sale in my Etsy and Wahmania stores.

So, here are some of the finished products. I have 8 listed and am also gradually adding some art-stitch gift tags that I still have left over.

The same thing still applies, ALL profits from my stores go to the work of SIM and for March and April it’s been Camp La Joya in Peru.

Here’s the pincushions:

Oh dear, I seem to have gone a bit mad with the fabric and pattern buying since starting six weeks ago. I’m one of those sorts of peopl who loves a bargain and can’t quite bring myself to pay full price for most things if it can be avoided. I’ve started buying a few bits of fabric and a handful of patterns off ebay and its so much fun getting parcels in the mail!! Here’s a couple of my latest acquisitions:

These patterns are huge, each one of those are larger than A4 (thats roughly 12×8″) in size and the patterns go from age 2-12!!! That should keep me going for a while!

This fabric will make a pretty little dress for Keziah - look out January, sewing sewing sewing!

Lastly, I have thought about buying one of these for a while now. Its hard to take photos of necklaces on yourself and this was an ebay bargain, under $10. If and when I decide to do any sort of market stalls this will be very handy!

I’ve been busy over the last few weeks sewing this and that but much of it I can’t show you here. This is mainly because they are Christmas and Birthday presents for people who are likely to see the pics!

What I can show you is what I made for Keziah the other day. Yes these are basic but I don’t mind, she loves them! She wouldn’t take them off when I was trying them on her.

This is for my mother-in-law for her birthday, she doesn’t browse the net so I should be ok:

This is for a girl from our church:

and I’ve gone a bit mad with the self covering buttons hair clips lately (oh and some polymer clay ones too) for Keziah:

After Christmas I’ll be able to put up photos of the other things I’ve been busy making. Theres a lot more to come!