Expanding....

Well, I've been a bit busy lately and haven't had chance to craft much. But now I'm home from my cruise ship and should have time to stitch and bake to my heart's content :-)

Until then here is a sneak peek of what I'm working on at the moment - I'm building a second section to my beer cap belt:

And here's a photo of how it currently looks:

More crafting soon!

They took lots of honey, and plenty of money...

Next week two of my friends have their birthday on the same day. It's going to be lots of fun, especially as we are in St Thomas that day and there's a crew party! For each person I have crafted a very personal present based on who they are and what they like/do. This is the first, for my friend Jonny Danger (yep, that's his real name) who we all call Tuxedo... he works with the kids, ok!

Tux is a poetry major and particularly likes Edward Lear so I stitched him a tie to go with one of his suits. He better like it, is all I can say because I had to use metallic thread. And we all know how difficult that is :-)

Thank the Goddess for thread heaven!

I'll post the other present for my friend Karlene next....

Beer Adventures...

Until about two years ago I didn't drink beer. I didn't like the stuff, you couldn't make me! Then, as with many things in life, I met a guy and that changed! He refused to buy me fruity drinks in the crew bar of our ship and introduced me to San Adams... and my love affair with beer began!

On my travels I have had the chance to try a lit of good and not so good beers. The New England/Canada run is the best for this, having been dubbed the Beer Adventure Run by my friends and I. To commemorate my achievements in beer drinking I wanted to make something that showed off all the beers I had tried.... and so the Beer Cap Belt was born!

I've been collecting beer caps since last October and I think I still need some more. This is going to be a continual work in progress as I find more beers that I like and want to show off the caps!

I started by laying out the caps in the order that I wanted to sew them. I cut out a strip of black denim, rescued from a pair of jeans I had used for another project.

Once I had an order I liked I used pliers to fold out the edges of the caps so I had something to Shisha around to attach them to the belt... yes, I shisha stitched every one!

Shisha stitching however pulled the fabric in more than I had planned so I may have to add another section... but that just means I have room for more caps!

The fastening is a button and a piece of chain currently, but I'm on the look out for something different... I just haven't found what I like yet...

And so, here it is! My beer cap belt! I love it!!!

Busy Busy Busy!!

I know, I know, I missed Share the Handmade Love on Wednesday! It's been madness around here. Ever since I got back to my ship it's been non-stop! I've been learning the ropes of working with the Nickelodeon costume characters and doing their slimy laundry (don't ask!) and after only 48 hours on the ship I had my hand up SpongeBob's butt!! I had to fix a snap, ok?!

The Nickelodeon stuff is a lot of fun actually. We have Meet & Greets and breakfasts and live shows. One (with the slime) is a full gameshow in our theatre which the kids love. There's a lot of laundry, but not more than I can handle and it's interesting to look after a different type of costume. That's a new special skill on my resume!!

In other news this week I got my first custom order! I'm very excited to be making a belt for the daughter of my new friend Deezie. They liked the belts in my Etsy store but they were all too big for her daughter, so I'm making her a custom one based on my Rock Belt (see it here). In honour of the occasion, here's one of my other belts!

I wanted to create another belt like my Rock Belt and originally wanted to make something a bit more feminine and floral. I used an old pair of jeans that one of my dancers had left for me and was thinking I would embroider on the denim outside with flowers, vines and butterflies. I tried sketching out some ideas but nothing looked right to me. I then discovered as I cut the waistband off the jeans, that the inside of this pair was lined with a white fabric printed with a floral pattern! I decided to follow this pattern and let the design develop organically, excuse the pun!! I started by hand embroidering over the flower shapes in the print with colours I consider to be floral – more pretty and subdued than vibrant, but bright nonetheless. I considered sewing butterflies and other gardeny items on to the belt but it didn’t feel right. I went for the simple approach and just used the original flowers as the focus. I added green vines to anchor the flowers to something, instead of leaving them floating on the belt. I added green beads to represent leaves and green buttons to continue the natural theme.

This a very feminine piece and will look good with outfits in pastel or pale colours – maybe for a wedding or a garden party?!

This belt is currently available in my Etsy Store here