As you can see I have moved The Silver Thread here. This is because I decided to make my sewing and crochet hobby into something more serious, that is, I’m working on setting up a small business. There are many reasons why I’m doing that, one reason being that I really love the process of creating lovely things and know that I did that job. Another reason being the current economic climate where it is very difficult to find emplyment, meaning that I needed to use my imagination a bit more and find alternative ways to earn money. I’m not doing this solely to earn money, but most of all because it is something I would love doing, but didn’t think I would be able to do much because I expected to work full-time and never get the time to do the things I really enjoy doing.

As it is, I will get the opportunity to let my creativity loose, something I haven’t done for years. I will also be able to gain a lot of experience through running a small business by myself, with all it entails, such as book-keeping and budgeting, which is very good to have if I later decide to go into full-time work.

I am stilling looking for a part-time job to earn a stable income, but LisKat Creations will be my main endeavour. I really hope it goes well!

At the moment I am visiting family in Norway due to my grandmother passing away. I will be back in London shortly, however, and I have some projects to post images of once back. And then I have some plans in mind for some neat little bags that will be put up for sale

I have finished another project, but I’m not going to post the pictures of it yet because it’s a present, and I want to make sure the person I’m giving it to doesn’t see it on here first. So I will post pictures at a laster date

I just ordered another batch of fabrics today, that I hope will arrive early next week. There’s some lovely fabrics and they even have patterns like flowers and such on them! I must admit I’m usually more comfortable using plain fabrics, but I decided to become a bit more adventurous.

I’m planning to make a few more bags from these fabrics, and possibly a few other things as well

More to come later!

My second bag project was making a pretty bag out of purple corduroy. Again I used a pattern from Making Vintage Bags by Emma Brennan. I stayed pretty close to the original pattern in this one (unlike my previous project) with only minor changes. This one has a red and white striped satin lining and a satin rose decoration next to the flap. I really like this bag and I’m currently working on a pretty much identical one, but with different decoration and a little bit longer handle.

Here are the piccies:

Fluffeh took me to Hampton Court Palace a while back and while we were there we found this really cute kit for making a Victorian style cross stitch bookmark with a lavender motif. He wanted me to make one for him and got me the kit. It took me a while to do this embroidery, but it turned out quite well (though there are plenty mistakes in it that I only noticed when it was done).

Here are some pics anyhow:

This was my first bagmaking project after not having touched a sewing machine for nearly 5 years (has it really been that long?…), so it’s very far from perfect. It was a good practice project, though. Since I didn’t have access to a photocopier or scanner when I started making it, I had to draw the pattern by hand and scale it from the pattern I used in Emma Brennan’s book Making Vintage Bags by using a calculator. Of course I did some very bad mistakes, like making the top too narrow so I can only barely get my hand inside the bag (and I have tiny hands). At least that’s a very thief proof measure, since the thief wouldn’t be able to get inside it!

The bag is probably not going to be used, but I’m keeping it as a memory of my first ever bagproject.  It is made from very bright orange satin with red cotton lining and a couple of silver bangles as a handle. It also sports an orange bow on the front in the same fabric as the bag, with a red velvet ribbon as bow centre. The pattern is based on a vintage bag pattern in Making Vintage Bags that I mentioned above. Due to my choice of fabrics (really cheap scraps from a fabrics shop), I don’t think there is much vintage about this bag other than the shape. Here are a couple of pictures:

Yes, I know the pictures are nearly identical. I just had two, so posted both while I was at it

I got this little kit for making candles from Christmas last year and I’ve tried it out once. It was very fun and I’m planning to do it more later when Fluffeh and I have our own place and all.

Here are some pics:

They are very cute candles. Unfortunately one of these tiny ones don’t last very long at all since they’re so small and probably not very good quality. But I reckon I might be able to figure that out in the future I suppose!

So I decided that since I’ve become quite active with doing my hobbythings lately, I should have a separate blog for my projects. This is the result, and I will make some more posts of recent and current projects asap (just need to get some pictures transferred to this laptop).

I hope you enjoy