Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

I was recently blessed not only with the gift of a wonderful friend named Laura, but also with the gift of a wonderful friend named Laura who gives wonderful gifts of BIG BAGS OF VINTAGE FABRIC Big Bags Maudella 5443 And as I had previously been blessed with my friend Helen over at  Nellys Treasures  who recently gave me Maudella vintage pattern 5443 I decided to put these two elements together and came up with this: Faux Vintage But Also Really Vintage The brown squiggly one on the left I made for myself and the bluey greeny forresty one I made for Laura as a bon voyage present as soon she will be moving to Qatar to be a teacher. Nooooo! As for what else I've been up to; I've re-stocked my Etsy shop , am getting mentally prepared for uni (kinda) and today I attended my end of year exhibition for my Level 2 City & Guilds art course: Yup, that's me That's my work that I'm pointing the pointy at and also the lacy one above it. Yup! And her...

Well in all my excitement at blogging about Nothing New yesterday I forgot that I do, in fact, have Something New to blog about! How silly! It's actually technically not new either since it's a refurbished second hand garment; unfortunately I forgot to take a 'before' picture but here's the 'after': Suits you sir Now you will have to use your brainbox to imagine this shirt with no collar at all; just a plain round neck. Retro-a-go-go, but not terribly flattering. My mum made this shirt many moons ago (I don't ever remember seeing her wearing it); she'd even hand sewn all of the hems; and earlier this month I found it shoved in a 'to go' pile! Whuuuut! Obviously I was not going to cut this bad boy up, so a collar was the only option. I confused myself totally with the button / placket situation, so I made the collar finish short of that area and then created a bow tie effect to fill in the weird-looking space. I am really pumped with h...

Today my sister and I decided to head down to the local library to check out the craft club which meets weekly there. I've never been to a crafty gathering before so it was intimidating for me, but we had a brillo pads time!   I started to make this psychedelic needle book, inspired by my love of all things 60's and swirly. I added my own flower shaped buttons and I might work on it some more at home seeing as we're starting summat else next week (not quite sure how we're going to keep up with the others, eeeeeep). I think it will be cute when it's done. Keep the faith.

Update in point form! Since I started doing all these crazy craft fair / jumble sale type thingys people keep asking me for business cards, so against my better judgement (and even though I don't consider myself a business by anyone's standards) I have ordered some! I have taken everything out of my Folksy shop temporarily while I rethink / restock / brainstorm. Just in time for Christmas because I am a crazy kid like that. I have heaps of new ideas but a lot less time and am therefore 'employing' (dragging to my depths) new 'staff' (my sister) to help me create more 'stock' (junk to sell)! I have been listening to lots of 60's garage. fin