Dr Who Knitting Needle Roll (Dr Who Swap Round 4)

this is the Dr Who knitting needle holder I made for the Craftster Dr Who Swap (round 4) here's the other side:

all wrapped up:

and a close up of the embroidery detail on the hoop:

It was really simple, I kinda looked at this tutorial by lupinbunny, decided I wanted to use some tardis coloured binding strip instead of hemming everything and  I just sort of filled in the gaps.

Have some in-progress shots:

 

these are my materials, I ended up having to use 2 skeins of embroidery floss because it was such a big design (if I recall correctly I used 3 strands) - and that's HOMEMADE binding strip :-) hell yea!

The measurements here are 18" wide for everything, all those numbers are the height's in inches, the last 4 inch one is what I used for the little pouch in the first picture.

This is the pieces put together, as you can see I intended to use the 4" tall length as a final pocket but I decided it was redundant partway through the project.

 This is me transferring the embroidery design onto the black fabric using white carbon paper

 and there's the transferred design, ready for stitching! I did the whole thing in backstitch, using a 12" embroidery hoop mounted on the embroidery stand I was so lucky to find in the charity shop.

This is where I did a lot of the work :-)

I also sent my lovely partner this very tiny embroidery hoop:

(I just noticed the big 'ole CHINA mark on the bottom of the hoop... hmmm... should have put that to the back... *rollseyes* )

Anyhow, hopefully you've managed to follow what I did there... hope you like it!

x G

Christmas Secrets REVEALED!!

So, here's one thing I've been keeping from you, my adoring public:

This is an embroidery that I did for my mam for Christmas *waves at mam*. My mother knows the ways of the Internet so I couldn't show you for rear of ruining the surprise :-)
The pattern is from Tipnut's library of free downloadable embroidery patterns... seriously you should go on there! there's loads'a stuff! fair enough, the site is basically a collection of links to other sites, but it's a good set of links, and if you're looking for pincushion patterns, apron patterns or things to embroider on your tea towels (??) then this site is really useful.

Of course, the text was added by me... this is the original pattern:

So many more things to tell you! make sure you check back soon, make sure you 'like' my facebook page to get real time updates on my crafty adventures!

x G

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Dalek loves toaster

I whipped this up this afternoon for a secret Santa for the Sci-fi meetup group I go to (don't judge me for going to a meetup group!) it was partly inspired by this pattern I'd seen on Mr X stitch's blog recently lookee here:

only cross stitch is rubbish, and I think Daleks would like toasters better.

x G

"Well Loved" Bear

 

I can let you in on this Christmas secret because it's for my mother in law, and the likelihood of her getting on the Internet and checking my blog is VERY remote! She doesn't do the interwebs!

To really get the full picture you need a bit of background story.

My mother in law is crazy about bears... they cover her house... REALLY... to the extent where we can't just 'pop' round, they need a couple of hours notice to tidy the bears off the couch :-)

I mean it's worse than this:

worse than this:

and worse than this:

infact put the three of those together, that's her front room, FACT!

How does she acquire these bears? well, like me she has a deep appreciation for charity shops, which means that the majority of bears she brings home look something like this:

 

So, I decided that the only nice thing to do was to give her a piece of embroidered art this Christmas to commemorate her love affair with all things stuffed and tattered. 

It's applique and embroidery, using blanket stitch, a smidge of satin stitch and chain stitch (I <3 Chain stitch) at some points using 3 stands and at others 2 strands of embroidery floss. The buttons came off one of Alex's old shirts that I cannibalised in payment for making some cloaks for his star wars action figures, the frame was 50p from a charity shop! All of the fabric I used I actually got for free form my beautiful sister in law XD

not very geeky, but definitely sweet :-)

x G

GEEKCRAFTS is GOOOO!!

CHECK ME OUT!

OH YEA!! getting all wordpressy with it at geekcrafts.com with my introduction post. Here's my bio from the 'about' section:

Samantha was born and raised in the North East of England, now “on tour” in Buckinghamshire. By day “Geeky Sweety” teaches Philosophy and Religious Studies to children between the ages of 11-18. By night she sews, embroiders, and upcycles. Her favourite things are 80s girl cartoons, anything Tim Burton touches, Doctor Who, Star Trek/Wars/Gate, Disney films (but only the ones based on fairy tales),cheesy Japanese kawaii culture and horrifically scary Japanese horror films. She also has a passion for Karaoke and occasionally sings in a rock covers band. Her husband custom builds star wars action figures, they havn’t counted them because they don’t want to get depressed, but good estimates place the total number at around 400. She believes only boring people get bored.

how exciting!

x G

So you think you can't upcycle.....

With this super sweet shirt to pillow transformer from Thinkgeek we can all live our thrifty dreams by recycling old, unwanted and damaged T-shirts (or just plain cool ones) into useful household furniture! I've thought about turning T-shirts into pillowcases before, but thought that the jersey material would soon get stretched out of shape if used for upholstery, this nifty item completely solves that problem and removes all requirement to sew...

... pure genius!

Kudos the the Thinkgeek guys yet again

x G