I make cards, and I also do water colour drawings/paintings....thats about the extant of my talents lol

Great way to use up your small bits of fabric making a Duvet cover Wyrd - looks like it's been dog napped too

My latest crafty addition is from the leather workshop I went to on Sunday, we learnt all about different grades of leather, cutting, dyeing, riveting & finishing.
This is what I made on the day for Tilly from a veg tanned hide & was quite pleased with it. I now a million new design ideas in a little box in my head & need to get some tools

Thought I'd post a few pics of my cross stitch. I know it's not designing clothes or making blankets but hey, I enjoy it

My sleeping Labrador puppies cross stitch. Excuse the state of it, Easy Jet decided to drown my suitcase on the flight to Germany and it washed out my gridding and stained the fabric Hopefully it will come out when the piece is finished and washed.


And my major work in progress. When finished it will look like this


After a month of working on it it looks like this

I make preserves, and also some cosmetics....

I do jams, jellies, curds and fruit butters - I have a repertoire of approx 20 different flavours, and am always on the lookout for something different. I've won a trophy this year for my jam

I can also make bath bombs, bath salts, soaps, solid moisturiser bars and salves - I tend to do this for Christmas gifts etc

That's lovely sarah1983 I think I would really enjoy cross stitch but hand sewing cripples me now


Love the colour of the collar and lead you made Tillymint I've still got half a hide of leather sitting up stairs doing nothing I use it occasionally for projects but it's the tools that are the killer with leather, they are so expensive.


My mother and I made our own jam and wine this year, we have a few wild plum trees by my horse field so we both went up and picked a few bucket worth of them. The wine isn't to my taste but the jam was lovely

A few more pics

How I found him last night when I went up to bed, he obviously likes the new pillows


Do you think I could use him to sell things, he makes a good display rack Here he is with the new pillows I made yesterday


I was having a 'crafty' day yesterday and found this piece of fabric so decided to recover my lamp shade with it. Was more fiddly than I thought to get the material to cover it, but just took a little patience and a glue gun.


Slowly but surely I am turning my house 'shabby chic'

I've made over 150 jars of jam this year, and I still haven't run out of fruit!!!

I know what you mean about the tools! They don't seem that expensive individually but when you add up everything you need it does & although you can make quite a lot from 1 hide, they are expensive too. I'm still compiling my "wish list" & comparing prices.
I love your shabby chic style things too they are fab, have they got pot pourri in? would make great Xmas gifts

They hearts are just filled from the filing of toys the dogs have killed I have bags of it so am using it up.

The leather workshop sounds good. Did you get to make the lead,collar and keying as part of the price or have to pay extra for it? They look great!

I crochet, cross stitch, make cards and other bits and bobs.