A Cosy Cup

I try to make my friends in Wellington a wee prezzie mid year if I get a chance to catch up with them.  This year I've made them cup cosies which will work for either for hot or cold drinks.

Made out of a lovely soft cotton, they have roses for the girls and our bloke has a dickie bow and a moustache.  

I made all of the embellishments removable so they can also be used as a badge or brooch too.  Talk about multi functional :-)

(I'm also playing with the scheduling tool on Blogger so I can publish this at the same time as I'm giving them their cosy - now that's pretty cool in quite a geeky way :-))

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!

Indulge me....

I've opened a new 'not totally crochet' related shop on Zibbet (this is just a Gill shop - I think I'm addicted to craftyness) and a new blog to match it, if you fancy a visit :-)http://broochnbauble.blogspot.com/ and I promise not to cross contaminate too often (I was going to say 'ever again' and changed my mind.... just incase!)

Also if you have a moment I do like this blog because she lets me say random stuff, and also check out her shop

this is not a teamy thing - just that Rebecca seems like a really cool chick and makes very funky gear that I'm crochet jealous of even though she hasn't been exposed to Dr Who

Cycling gloves, zips and perculated coffee

Yesterday I perculated my morning coffee on the stove for the first time and just wanted to share that it tastes way better than when it's plungered :-)

Here are the prototype cycling gloves...

It was harder to sew the leather on the palms than I thought, a sore finger and my lack of patience with sewing showed in the end result... not quite as tidy as I'd have wanted...

The holiday starts tomorrow..... we'll see how they go!

Yesterday I spent time on the interent looking at crafty stuff. I've more more than enough ideas ping ponging around in my head I really shouldn't do that :-)

I had picked up a couple of cool looking zips at FASH the other day one which got transforned into a brooch....

The other brooch I though was quite fun and I've added it to my felt shop.

I really need to used up some more of my buttons, perhaps inspiration will come whilst cycling :-)