A Handmade Shopping Affair

If you pop by regularly you'd know that I sell my crochet creations on Felt and Etsy.  One of the things it has made me more aware of for myself is the want/need to buy handmade goods directly from the people who make them, just as I want people to buy from me. 

I've been incredibly fortunate recently to have bought some incredibly gorgeous creations (all for myself!) so I thought I might share :-)

A Bit of Mystery

Based in Huntly and is a great shop on felt that has loads of bags  from recycled mens ties, this is the one I bought, it's a perfect size, beautifully finished - I love it so much!
 

trash footwear

 Based in Raglan, all their shoes are made from recycled or upcylced material.  I loved it that he could tell me where the material for mine came from :-)  I got some ballet shoes in a lovely retro purpley flower material and some boots which have green leather (where the brown is) and a fab red and green tartan

 

By Nature

Based on Waiheke Island the lovely Mel is showing off a petticoat made from bamboo cotton.  Mine is black without the lace panel. Made to measure, it's the most comfortable piece of underwear I own!

Lavage Handcrafted Soap Boutique

Based in Wellington, and with a factory shop in Plimmerton, the amazing Jayne comes up with brill creative treats for your body.  A great fan of Lavage I use her handmade soaps and body mist daily. And fighting off my germs a few weeks ago, this eucalyptus soy Melt Me was great to burn in the room. 

These are just a few of my recent purchases.  Jewellery would need a couple of posts just for itself, what with the fab earrings, nose rings, ring rings, bracelets, pendants and brooches I'm a bit of an accessory nut! :-) Shamefully I haven't keep a note of everyone I have bought from from I strongly recommend having a look on www.felt.co.nz there is something to suit everyones tastes!

A Green Scene

A green scene for a lovely weekend :-)

Fab new boots bought on a trip to Tauranga, 

Beautiful bag bought in Italy as a present from my parents, (a pretty close match)

Spike my dwarf cabbage tree, liking his new home

 A great dew this morning. I hadn't washed my face in dew for a while, it felt great!

New poncho with gorgeous greens is coming along well 

The Christmas Presents

Since everyone I was busy making presents for have now received them I can show off some of what I made :-)

About half of the slippers

 

Crocheted and felted bags

The feedback was good, hopefully they weren't just being polite :-)

Cones & Crepe

To compliment the lights (which really only look good at night) and so it looks fab for Saturday we have begun Operation Christmas Up The Deck.

Back to our childhoods, we have gathered pine cones and spray painted them silver, and have started to make paper chains with crepe paper.  Andrew has the sewing machine running hot whizzing up this and that.  

It will either look fantastic or crape I doubt there can be an in-between!

Crochet hook is still going strong - all the pressies are made, hurray! I tried to make a little summer cardigan (tried being the important word!)I've also tried crocheting flax. I think it's a great idea, I just need to work on it... quite a lot!  And after cleaning out my yarn stash I'm trying a cotton beach/market bag, this one of the 3 projects looks the most promising :-)

Pegs as Angels

I'm loving the Australian Better Homes and Gardens Mag for stuff to do for Christmas!

I've spent the last 3 nights making peg doll angels - awww

As usual I thought I'd make one for the tree and now miraculously there is a whole family of them just waiting for their hair...

 I've also popped a couple of bags in the Felt shop - Yay for having the computer back and working properly :-) 

Felted bag

Bon Voyage Tzipi

For her last day we did a little bit of shopping; Tzipi is continuing on her travels with an extra bag (a girl can never have enough!) It’s a Kete which is a woven Maori bag.



And she also got some slightly kitsch kiwiana bag jewellery which consists of a kiwi bird inlaid with paua (shell) and a silver fern which is seen on lots of New Zealand sports team shirts.



We’ve loved having Tzipi visit and think that she has enjoyed her short time down under and we look forward to hearing about the rest of her worldwide travels.


On a totally different tangent, check out the Royal New Zealand Ballet - they have a great u-tube hit choreographed to Lady Gaga.

In 2 weeks we will be living south of the Bombay hills in-between 2 wee places called Mercer and Pokeno. We have found our country lifestyle only 45km from my new job. So we’re busy packing…… it’s amazing the amount of craft stuff and yarn that I have!

February'ness

Flying by!

I'm in the beautiful South Island with work for the next few weeks - the weather is lovely and not humid like the north which means I might get some crochet projects done (or at least started :-) )

The etsy blogger of the month of February is TiLT Creations - www.tiltcreations.etsy.com

I have a weakness for shoes and bags and TiLT is all about the bags.

I have to admit to spending a lonnnngggggg time oggling some beautful pieces.

I'm a bit of a spot lover........

Happy day :-)

The Humble T-Shirt

Is not so humble after all....

I was playing on the net recently and discovered Generation T

I’m probably quite slow at catching on to this since even Martha Stewart has recycled a t-shirt into a shopping bag.

If you click on the picture it will take you to the tutorial on how to make one for yourself

Anyway I ordered both of the Generation T books and am busting to make a few grocery shopping bags and I also want to crochet with yarn from old tee shirts too :-)

Googling ‘how to make t-shirt yarn’ brings loads of results, and I particularly liked how straight forward this one was:

http://www.craftpassion.com/2009/05/recycle-tutorial-making-of-t-shirt-yarn.html

Happy Crafting :-)

An old pair of jeans

What a lovely weekend :-) It started with a great day off on Friday, we went for a lovely walk around the Mount, out for brunch and then shopping. Today has been so lovely that we've had all of the windows open all day!

Yesterday was a great day for being creative. I started with an old pair of my jeans and made a bag out of one of the legs.

They were bootlegs so the bag is kind of a bucket shape. I sliced the rest of the leg to make jeans yarn and crocheted it with some ribbon yarn to make the strap.

And the same ribbon yarn has been crocheted into motifs and a kind of holster and attached to the bag to give it a bit of decoration.

For a first go I give myself 7 out of 10. The sewing is a little shoddy, and there is no clasp to keep the bag closed. A zip would have been ideal, but after the needle broke as soon as I pressed my foot on the peddle of the sewing machine, I decided that the smallest amount of sewing possible was the way to go!

I really liked the strap and so I cut up the other leg and crocheted it, now I have a jeans rope and I'm trying to think about what to do with it. Coiled up into a placemat? Cut into bits for hair bands? A skipping rope? Any ideas would be gratefully received :-)