Happy Easter!

For those who celebrate, wishing you all a very happy Easter filled with lots of love, laughter, and of course, chocolate!



I made this duck embroidery a few weeks back - it is now hanging on the 'wall of hoops' in my sewing room. I must share a picture of that wall with you sometime soon! The drawing is a vintage one, from here.

I appliqued his umbrella, coat and the bird first, then back-stitched the outline of the duck, added a satin-stitch eye in bright aqua, and a few french knot flowers under his feet. The fabric is a gorgeous mint Kaufman Essex linen/cotton mix, a recent addition to my stash.




This was Easter Sunday at Down Grapevine Lane headquarters... we set the kids off on their first ever chocolate egg hunt in the garden. Heaps of fun! Alexander's favourite was the golden Lindt chocolate bunny, which took him quite a long time to spot.



Note to self: make a cute Easter basket for next year's egg hunt!

Bunch of bunnies

Is everyone in an Easter-y mood yet? I thought I would jump on the Easter bandwagon and share a couple of crochet bunnies I made recently.

Remember this bunny? She was the first amigurumi animal I made - a year ago! Look how little Alice is - she was only 6 months old here.



I just finished a couple more - another girl bunny with a flower and a boy version with a train conductor hat. The pattern is by A Morning Cup of Jo Creations.
 





The boy version is a gift for my friend's new baby, whose name is Riley - only a few days old and cute as a button. I couldn't resist adding a monogram to the hat. I winged the hat pattern - it was going to be a top hat but I decided to give it a cap brim at the last minute so it turned into a train conductor hat, which I think suits it better.





And these here are my two little bunnies, on a recent day trip to Victor Harbor. They are growing up too fast.




We are starting to get quite excited about Easter in our house - pre-kids it was just an excuse for chocolate, but with kids it's becoming something a little magical. A few days ago we explained the Easter bunny to Alexander - it went something like this:

Me: Alexander, you know it's Easter next weekend? Have you heard of the Easter bunny?
Alexander: No mummy, what is it?
Me: Well it's a very big rabbit, as big as your daddy, that comes the night before Easter and hides chocolate eggs all over the garden. And then in the morning, what do we do?
Alexander: We find the Easter bunny and eat him!

I think all he heard was "bunny as big as your daddy - chocolate - hiding in the garden", and he got a little bit excited. Don't blame him, I would be!

So this weekend we are going to have an Easter egg hunt in the garden. It will be a good opportunity to teach Alexander the Hot-and-Cold game, and Alice is pretty good at spotting hidden objects so I think she will have a ball too. Can't wait!

Little Red hoop art | Sewing Room in Homespun

I don't get much chance to work with felt these days (it's all sewing or crochet at the moment!), so I have been really really itching to find a good project involving felt... and something a little bit different. I was browsing Pinterest for some inspiration and came across some beautiful 3D felt hoop art made by the very talented Erica Catarina from one of the best felt blogs out there - Ei Menina. If you like working with felt and haven't discovered her blog yet head over and check it out. I love everything she makes, her attention to detail is simply unbelievable. It's in Portuguese but there is a translate button.

I decided to make my own version of Little Red Riding Hood, one of my favourite classic children's stories of all time.




I drew her up in Adobe Illustrator (it's crazy, I can't draw on a piece of paper, but I can do a reasonable job in Illustrator? I think it's the ease with which I can shift and angle lines, and erase any little mistakes).



I envisaged her as blond initially but when I got all my felt out and started picking colours, she clearly wanted to be a brunette - she just didn't look right with blonde hair.




If you like what you see here, then you will definitely like what I have in the pipeline. I can't share any details yet as it's a bit of a hush-hush project but one I am very excited about! Stay tuned.

In other news my sewing room has been published in Homespun magazine's March issue, as part of a feature on small craft spaces.




So that you don't strain your eyes, the text reads:
"Sedef Imer, from Down Grapevine Lane, is known for achieving elegant designs from simplicity - a rare talent. Her sewing space is no exception. With a budget of just $300 to create a workable sewing nook within a guest bedroom, she has managed to include everything she needs - desk, cabinet, shelf, drawers, Ikea picture frames and pegboard from Bunnings. Sedef chose to keep the guest bed in the room, not only for comfortable crocheting with her feet up, but also for laying out fabrics - oh!, and accomodating visitors, of course! Cupboard space is tight, but Sedef finds it perfect for keeping her current stash away from dust. Plus, she says storage constraints keep a lid on excessive fabric and yarn squandering. Wall-mounted pegboard, cut to the width of the desk top, takes care of scissors, ribbons, tiny tools and accessories, and is crowned by a shelf."

You can see more pictures of my sewing room in this old blog post  - in case you were curious about where I make all my stuff! Mind you it isn't looking quite so neat and shiny these days - when I showed the magazine to my husband he said "So that's what it used to look like when you could see the desk and the floor". It isn't so bad really, he is exaggerating (*cough*).