The first strawberry is the sourest

Two in a row to make up the time I was absent!

This craft was inspired by the acorn brooch in the last post. Last time I made a quirky dangling acorn brooch with crocheted acorns and belt buckle decoration. The craft in this post was made with the same theme: crocheting edibles.

A crocheted strawberry brooch!

I used:

red pearl cotton thread

green wool knitting yarn

white pearl cotton thread

a steel crochet hook size 2,5 (mm)

a recycled 1930's belt buckle

brooch pin

and a sharp darning needle

You can find many free crocheting patterns and instructional videos for strawberries online. They are very useful, but of course you must alter the pattern to suit your purposes.  I started with 4 ch(s) made into a loop and doubled them. Then crocheted my way towards the narrowing.

Here´s a few patterns and a video:

Pattern here

Pattern here

And here´s one for the flowers:

Again alter to suit your purpose!

More on Fimo madness

I´ve got a Fimo madness. Here are some of the results made by using the same technique as in the last post:

Nuff said.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. -Albert Camus

This post is all about flowers, which in this case really are late bloomers as summer has turned into autumn a while ago. 

Flowers have been a popular accessory since who knows how long, so it´s no wonder that flowers were everywhere in the 1940's also. They were attached to hair and hats, made into brooches and used to accessorize every outfit from literally tip to toe. Flower accessories were made of any material posibble: different fabrics like felt and velvet, wood, palstic, seashells and metals both precious and scrap. And of course you could use real flowers too. I didn´t find any specific info why the flowers were a big hit back then, but I assume it had something to do with the cheerful nature and beautiful colors of the flowers. Also you could find both inspiration and material for your flower accessories everywhere.

(From here)

 

(from here)

(from here)

 (sold here)

As a dedicated 40's girl I wanted something flowery myself. To make the accessory I needed the idea of a flower necklace and a huge portion of good luck. In a flea market I came across with this big plastic bag full of white plastic flower parts. These kind of flowers can be also detached from artificial flower bouquets or other similar decorational pieces.

To make the plastic flowers into a necklace, here´s everything else I needed:
- stick pins
- jump rings
- tiny stopper beads
-yellow wooden beads
- plastic chain
- a clasp
- pliers

First slide a stopper bead and a yellow wooden bead to a stick pin.

Then add the petals.

Twist the end of the stick pin into a loop with pliers..

..and add the jump ring to the loop.

Attach the flowers (I made nine flowers in total) to the plastic chain with the rings.

And tadaa! You´re done!

Or if you want to proceed you can do several with different colors!

Fringed tongue

The summer has been pretty lazy in here as well in my personal life. But that´s how summers should be, right? But now I think I will carry on revamping my shoes. The revamping in the last post was a lot work. Now I´m going to keep things simple and quick.

First, as an introduction, I must say that I absolutely love the 40's contrast colors, color blocking and two tone elegance, especially in shoes.

(From here)

 (from here)

  (from here)

(from here)

I have these lovable 1930's brown shoes that I bought in near mint condition. I have treasured them and worn them only in a few special occasions.

I adore them as they are but I needed a pair of simple shoes in solid color to test this easy way of modifying your shoes. I got an idea from this picture:

(from here)

On the shoe second from the top there is a fringed tongue. Fringed tongue is often associated with loafers that were also a popular look in the 40's. I thought the mix and match of rougher and sporty loafers and sophisticated heels looked kind of cool. So I went with the idea!

First I  dug through my supply of leather scraps to find a suitable piece and color. I ended up with forest green. Then I measured the front of the shoe and made a paper pattern. You can make the pattern in any size you want to, but I wanted to cover the lacing. Here are the measurements I used:

top: 4 cm/1,6"
side: 7,5 cm/3"
bottom: 5,5 cm/2,2"

I folded a paper in half and drew the pattern on the other side. The top of the pattern I drew on the fold so when I cut it out the pattern was duplicated and the duplicates attached from the top. I needed to make the pattern double so the leather would cope with piercing and wear. I shortened the back piece a bit. Then I drew the pattern on the leather and cut it out.

When the leather piece was cut I made some detailing to the bottom with croppers.

Next it was time to cut the fringes.

And the last step: punching the holes for shoe laces that keep the tongue in the right position. I used a leather punch too for piercing the holes. (Okay, okay. My boyfriend used it. I couldn´t press hard enough..) I folded the duplicate piece back to make even holes.

Then I pulled the laces through the holes. The duplicate is again folded back so it will strenghten the tongue.

I also found this Etsy-shop where you can buy these tongues ready made and another blog post with a DIY instructions for a bit different fringed tongue. Those findings were helpful in this project!

From the other side of the world

Flea markets are great places for finding something useful for craft projects. It´s amazing what you can find by simply digging through boxes full of miscellaneous knick knacks. Knick knacks like these pretties:

I really don´t know what is the purpose of these trinkets, but I´m guessing they are some sort of a souvenir. Maybe from Spain? I love vintage souvenier accessories. I have scarfs and jewelry from around the world. One thing I am certain about is that these lovelies are old, perhaps from the 40´s, 50´s or at most from the 60´s. The material is painted (only from another side) wood and the figurines hang from peculiar hooks. Here´s the whole bunch of them:

I took the hooks off and attached an extra jump ring to each one of the figurines. The figurines I attached to the plastic chain (that I use a lot) with my trusty pliers. I like the kitschy look of the chain and figurines together.

And here´s the finished product:

 I have already worn this to work. I work as an elementary school teacher and especially the smaller kids tend to like big and colorful jewelry. As the day goes by, there is always someone who comes up and turns these figurines around, as they often turn the wrong side up.

I felt like it.

I´ve been reading this great blog called Land Girl 1980. The writer calls herself a retro dresser and a history lover who is obsessed by the 1940's and history in general. The reason why I mentioned this blog is this post:

 Picture from her blog.

I got so excited by her post I went and bought a hair rat of my own! Now I´ve made a back roll almost every day this week. I usually accessorise it with some store bought flowers, but today I wanted to make an alternative for them. 

First I dug through my crafts box to find pieces of felt and some hair combs (bought from here). Felt is such an easy material to work with and I like the naive look of felt flowers, so I decided to try them as a hair accessory. Here are the felts (minus a brown one I also desided to use) and the patterns I used:

Then I cut out 3 big flowers and 3 small ones in different colors. Next step was to make them look more natural and real:

I stitched through every petal using straight stitch and made sure the thread ran freely. It should do so as you should be able to tighten the thread by pulling it after the last petal. The yellow and peach ones are in the making and the white one is ready.

I also cut some leafs as you can see.

 

After stitching every flower I attached them to the hair comb with Epoxy glue. I advice not to get glue on your fingers as well (like I did) as the glue is pretty strong. You can also attach the flowers with thread or string or maybe even with wire.

And here´s the finished product:

The leafs and flowers would also look nice with some yarn or bead details and decorations.

Less yapping, more embroidering!

It´s finished! And by it I mean the felt embroidering I started here. Pattern of embroidering changed a bit along the way when I found a volume of an old Finnish crafting magazine (Omin käsin) from flea market. Magazines were from the year 1938 and one of them contained a great felt embroidery pattern (below). Lucky me!

To duplicate the pattern from the magazine I needed some  tissue paper. You can also use parching paper or some other see through paper.

Then I cut out the pattern and pinned it to a piece of felt. Felt is easier to cut with small and sharp scissors.

I did some "sketching" to find a place for every piece.

 When all the flowers and leaves had found their place I pinned them to the sweater. The flowers were easily attached by stitching. With every stich I slipped a yellow seed bead to the thread.

Then it was time for the leaves and stems. They are attached the same way as the flowers.

 And voilá!