Crafts Fair....

Today my parents and I visited the Crafts and stationery Fair at the WTC in Mexico city.

OMG!!

Soooooooooooo many people..tooooo crowded....to much pushing, heat, hunger, tacky crafts, lack of oxygen...but also many pretty fabrics, yarns and such to pick from! ...

Here in Mexico is hard to get pretty cotton fabrics, so the quilting stands were my target.  Dunno if it's cause quilting is "in" now or what, but there were like 6 or 8 different fabrics stands, and believe me, that´s a looot here..jejeje.
Some time ago, I discovered this mexican yarn company that has really really nice yarn at quite affordable prices, so Filati was my other target. Oh yeah 600MXN in yarn. That'll make some nice bags: one  brownish-pinkish cotton-wool one, a blue cotton with fancy tape...nice pink-orange tape maybe with leather or fabric and a nice light scarf with a very fancy metallic blue w/ black tape.

Another treat for me was Olfa's stand.  I've longed a cutting compas for ages now and at laaast I was able to buy it along with a pkg of blades, a bit cheaper than in regular stores.   Ah! and I got a cutting board too Yipee!

I was going mental, had to restrain myself soo much, I already owe a big deal to my dad... but hey! It's an investment right? let's see how many things can come out from all these :D

Now I'm into planning so I can get the right number and color of zippers, brooches, snaps, etc, needed.





These are yummy colors!  I'm missing more blues, though.

I bought some felt and beads  some time ago but I still wanted to show them, hehehe. The aqua and the wine ones are specially nice. The beads were on discount, very good one indead: 10 beads for less than a dollar and they're somewhat big, more or less 2cm wide.

Mom's pillows

Till last week this was one more element in my UFO bag. I finished the embroidery some years ago (sic), and as I was going through my stash..well i just decided to finish 'em up. Why not?
So here are mom's new bed pillows.

St James cross belt pouch

I know this lovely minstrel who looves medieval stuff and above all Santiago de Compostela, (Santiafo-St James, same person) so last year (OMG time flies....) I decided to make a special belt pouch for him. Fave yarn shop, some nice woolen yarn, leather, red woollen cloth and off-white linen and off I went...jejeje

It's a simple bag a bit wider at the bottom and rounded on the corners...simple but pretty :) The effect I wanted on the bottom couldn't be achieve by crocheting in circles, well I couldnt't, sooo I had to do a front and back parts. After putting it all together, felting came along so the bag can endure the hard use a mistrel could give to it. When felting crochet, I always try to remeber that it'll shrink more horizontally than vertically...or ...how was it?

While the washing machine did her work, I marked and cut out the St James cross ( Cruz de Santiago) from beautiful red woollen cloth (dunno why but M'm head over heels for the texture in it)

I'd never done this before, so..well..my stitching didn't look as pretty as I thought it would, actually it's quite dreadful, soooo.....

I used those uneven horrible looking stitches to embroider a more even endging..better looking doesnt it?

The lining was something that took me a while. For some reason (dunno why????), I coudn't get it to be the right size...at the end it turned just fine buuut the first atempt ended up being a lavender sachet jejeje.

For the leather straps I got some help from the above mentioned mistrel. He lendt me waxwed cotton and the tools needed for making the holes (dunno how those are called), he even explained how to do it...hehehe of course he had no idea of what I was doing...or so I think ¬_¬

My fave is the little leather button, my mom's idea. She has a bag from morocco with that type of closure, so when I told here I hated how my store-bought button looked with the leather strap, she suggested I make this other instead....and It worked! ^_^

So, here's the finished pouch. It's has no synthetic materials in it.

my special proyect

I've been wanting a special wallet for myself for I dont know how long now. A wallet with enough room for all my credit cards, id, license etc. As a special treat for myself, I decidede to sew one.
Everything started with a: I want it felted. Bought some black wool and knitted a large enough rectangle to do the trick. The first idea was to make this pretty simple wallet with some ladybug buttons I love and some simple embroidery work, afterall I'm just a rookie. Keep it simple I thought.

As my mind worked on the idea..paisleys began to appear and ladybugs were sent into the button tin until further notice. grabbed some embroidery cotton...then some seed beads...metallic thread...till...well, I'm up to here:

the circular bag

Not posting bout it, doesnt mean I'm not into crafting....I can't go without crafting....I've got to do it, even if its only inside my mind...jaja

Last winter I knitted a lot of scarves, so my knitting is more even now. Practice makes the master. My next proyect is an easy lace scarf from lion brand patterns, or sothey say "easy" lets see how "easy" it turns out to be...jejeje

I crocheted a circular woolen bag...and felted it! Felting was a troubling issue cause I really liked the texture of the wool and how one dc looked next to the other...

still I planned to "half" felt it. My lack of experience...ended up with a small, pretty fully felted bag...jajaja While inside the machine it slipped out of the pillowcase and the pompons ended up messed all over the bag and the towel i tossed in for felting jajajaja I'm learning...jaja
Nonetheless I love my bag :D

So pretty it looked...oooh

Double crochet detail

before felting with its lovely pompons

After felting with its lovely beads ;-p

Bead detail

The wolf revisited

I had already forgotten bout this entrance, till...someone out there asked for the rest of the pics and story of this wolf stitchery... its been some time now hum?..well...I took pics of the everyday advances, though they turned out pretty bad..hehe.

Anyway, the thing is, back then I was looking for a project that could be challenging enough to fulfill my stitching urgency as well as easy to finish in a few days. So, while into that I found this long kept kit between my aida fabric...a wolf totem. Around those days, I met this guy who calls the wolf his totem...By then he had already become a very special person in my life, his sole appearance in it is special so, it was well worth the stitching as a present...

First day...

beginning of second

I think I'm getting better and better

detail of finishes stitchery

just an hour before finishing it

Totem: the wolf

The other day I was looking for something to satisfy my urge for stitching....took me 5 days to finish it all!!! Gosh..jejeje anyway Ill soon post the advances day by day. And the whole story, today I just wanted to show off with this deep eyed wolf n_n