Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

If you should be so inclined you can click here  on this rad blog  Make it, Save it, Mend it  and see a lil picture of me (and my sister) at our stall on Sunday! And a couple of words about how great I am [insert pretentious laugh]! Hey don't laugh, that's my concentrating face y'all! Thanks to the lovely / very cool @knitting_nellie for her kind words!

The jumble yesterday was brillig! I sold quite a few things but more importantly met wicked cool people and found out about some vintage fairs coming up! Mmm... clothes! I'm planning to return next month, hopefully with more stock. That's the plan. I am fermenting ideas in the brewery of my mind.

I moved cities, it was bonkers. But enough about me! Let's talk about my craft! What have I been doing all this time?! Firstly I took part in the Second 50-50 Affordable Art Show run by Kooki Two Bit . I was unable to attend (due to moving priorities) and didn't sell anything but was still stoked to be a part of it! Secondly I made some Things for my stall: Various hairslides and bits of jewellery (including sweater guards!) Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Hamdbags! I will [hopefully] be selling these and much more at Rumble in the Jumble (Sixty Million Postcards), Bournemouth, TOMORROW! Anything leftover will more than likely be added to my Folksy shop . I'll also have handmade cards, more hairslides and badges! And that's (some of) what I've been doing!

A little recipe I came up with on Sunday night, just for you. Written in my own unique style... but I promise it really is a totally rad, delicious pie! Serves 3-4 (5 at a push) Ingredients: 7ish bigish potatoes 1 package of vegetarian chicken pieces (if you want to use real chicken then that's cool with me but you'll have to figure out how to cook it all by yourself) 1 large package of asparagus (sub other veg if you don’t like it) 1 bottle of decent white wine (chilled) 3 tbsp double cream 1 egg yolk ½ pint vegetable stock Butter Bit o’ flour Milk Salt and pepper (to taste) Bit o’ Olive Oil Optional cheese (any type, all cheese is good cheese) Method: ♪    Open the wine. Pour yourself a large glass. Drink some. ♪    Boil some water in your kettle or in a pan (whichever you find most efficient). Wash and peel the potatoes. Take them with your hands and cut them up into quarters. Put the potatoes into the pan with some salt and the b...

My friend Sally just landed herself her dream job as a librarian! Then it was her 25th birthday and next month she's moving home, so I decided to try and make her a combined gift for all of the awesome things that are about to happen to her! This is what I came up with - embroidered pillowcases! Had I had as much time as I would have liked I probably would have added a few more books on. Anyway, I love how they turned out. I used the Sublime Stitching Sexy Librarians sheet. Sally used to have pink and green hair until she got a 'real' job so I thought it would be a nice touch for these little ladies to have the same! Details, details, details: And that's about all I have to say about that!

Hey you guys, I am ill. Yet still I insist on slaving away over a hot blog and a cold mug of gazpacho to bring the craft to YOU! I finished off this t-shirt on Monday after initially trying to attach some weird collar of my own invention to it some months ago. Didn't work; project was left abandoned. I hacked off the old collar and finished it off with something much simpler. The fabric is that same soft jersey I bought on sale at John  Lewis and blogged about in April . I used New Look pattern 6483 and just adapted it for stretch fabric (ignored the side slits and darts and cut off the excess from the arm holes). The result is a slightly oversized but ridiculously comfy slouchy tee. Not the most exciting thing in the world but very adaptable! For the neckline I recycled the hem of my beloved old HMV uniform and just made a wide band over the raw edges. It turned out more fun than I thought it would! The buttons are from a local independent button shop (although I'm ...

After all the manic embroidering I've been doing lately I decided to take a break and work on some clothing reconstruction. My first project was 'prom' style dress to cute tulip cocktail dress. This is what I did (I'm hesitant to call it a tutorial as my pictures aren't great and my description probably won't be much better), click on the pictures for more detail: I've had this somewhat boring, frumpy dress lying around for years (originally from New Look); I'd thought about getting rid of it a few times but always held back because I am crazy about the fabric. I dug it out and tried it on this weekend and found that while the full on skirt and the length just didn't float my boat, the top half fit perfectly... and thus a plan began to form! First I figured out how much I wanted to trim off the bottom (5.5") and then undid the side seams to just over half way. Next I pinned the wrong side of the skirt into the shape I wanted - an angle fro...