W.I.P

I have seen a few blogs with ‘works in progress’ pages so its appropriate I document and dedicate this long winded project to a page of its own. It started when my dad made for me this room box/shop. You can see the detail on the shelves and also I need to call the handy man [my dad] as the front door has come off the hinges.

It was many years ago and has been sitting first on my filing cabinet and now on my desk return for years. I have decided to make it into a mini ‘Spotlight’ or mini ‘Lincraft’ – a mini craft shop for those non-Aussies. I have made and bought a few bits for the shop. Please pop in occasionally I am determined to finish this.

Update #1

I am back to show you that I have made and bought a few things for the shop. So I first made some sinamay baskets to house my fimo buttons. I also made some cross-stitch floss – every colour under the sun, well OK every colour that I have in my cross-stitch floss collection. Some crochet yarn, althought look a bit too big for me. I am not going to be too fussed with scale, I just want my shop to be colourful and cater for all crafts.

So I will have a few sewing machines for sale in my ‘shop’ and a mannequin that I will need to adorn somehow.

Update #2

I made these cross stitch kits for my shop the other day. I just made these four to see how they looked. I will need to make some more but am pretty happy with these so far.

the back so you can see the floss included in the kit

and my trusty paper clip for scale

Update #3

The recent miniature show and my purchase has inspired me to add to my work in progress. Many years ago I purchased a pack of 20 10x10cm fabric swatches [rainbow shades]. This year I bought another similar pack, pastel rainbow shades. I always want to make some fabric bolts for my mini haberdashery. As I was prepping the pieces I was creating a pile of off cuts, destined for the bin but then I thought but jelly rolls. Then I thought fat quarter packs.

I cut some chipboard into rectangles {5x2cm, approx 2 inches by 1] and painted the tips white.

After wrapping the swatches and securing these with double sided sticky tape I ended with these cute colour bundles.

Gathering the long strips, I rolled them tied them and added labels [size 5 font!], mini jelly rolls. Folded smaller pieces, tied them and labeled these as well, mini fat quarters.

And here is the shop wall. It’s a start, I need to create more bundles of batting/wadding.

This wall will have more cross stitch kits. These buttons are from a while back made from fimo. The baskets need replacing. And some bunting to fill and decorate the shelves maybe.

And from the outside.

Update #4

My motivation is continuing with stocking up my haberdashery shop. I needed to make more baskets for my kits. I managed to make 3 from a bit of left over yarn. Crocheted baskets for my cross stitch kits [from update #2]. Tick. I then got side tracked and made some very cute bunting from 2.5 cm/1 inch circles for my shelf display. This led to creating some kits to make yo-yo [also known as Suffolk puffs] bunting. Kits are popular these days and so have decided to stock my shop with kits as well. I also made some fat quarter ‘mug-rug’ kits. I am happy with the brown paper bag and twine packaging. I also created some more fabric bolts but this time with cross stitch material or otherwise known as Aida cloth. Wrapped more batting/wadding.

A close up of my crocheted baskets, the kits and the yo-yo bunting.

Love the brown bag and twine packaging.

My shelves are looking  a bit more full. Next section yarn, crochet, knitting.

Update #5

Yes am working on the yarn, crochet and knitting section but got a little side tracked and wanted to make some hand bound journals [or diaries, sketchbook etc].

Each page is hand stitched into the spine. The journal is covered with faux leather and then a tie is crocheted to keep it’s contents and secrets secure. They measure 3cm x 2.5cm [roughly 1 inch] and they were fun to make. Might need to make a few more to fill the shelf.

A collage of one and a view from all angles.

Sitting on the shelf.

And what they look like from outside the store.

Update #6

As part of the #igneedlebookswap I received a lovely solitary hexie – it was the cutest. I asked my lovely Instagram community for any ideas and my lovely Instagram friend, Margaret, suggested I turn it into a miniature quilt. Perfect, that’s what I’ll make, a miniature quilt, so I can hang on the wall of my haberdashery shop. I drew some pieces, rectangles and corners, cut out pieces of paper and using the EPP method, created EPP so that I could ‘complete’ the quilt with the hexie as the main focal point. After sewing all the EPP pieces together I machine sewed the 6mm [1/4 inch] bias binding. I then finished the binding by hand and also added further focus on the hexie by accenting it with a running stitch. My father had made me some miniature coat hangers many years ago so this was perfect to hang my quilt on the back wall of the store.

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