Just a quick post to say - you'll know I'm an absolute geek for pattern. Likewise coluring-in has featured time and time again on this blog - I do genuinely find it soothes the soul and brings peace to a hectic mind. So imagine the joy of discovering that some of Charley Harper's divine illustrations of birds, animals and other stylised designs have been turned into colouring books! There's the Charley Harper Deluxe Coloring Book (above) or the Charley Harper Birds & Words Deluxe Coloring Book (below). They've probably been around for ages and are just new to me, but... Continue reading

Sewers and crafters around the UK have been cosying up every Tuesday evening to watch The Great British Sewing Bee where contestants follow a pattern, use their ingenuity, and tailor make a bespoke item each week. Reviews of the show among the sewing community are a little mixed, but mostly favourable. We (the discerning, sewing, viewing public) mostly agree that it's not quite clear who the target audience are; that the 'how to' making guides are ridiculous in many ways; and that we still love the Great British Bake Off, the big sister to this show, a little more unreservedly.... Continue reading

When I decided to crochet a baby blanket for a friend's little one, I had all the usual dilemmas. Sew or crochet? Which pattern? Which yarn. In the end I figured sticking with one colour and a simple stitch would get it finished with as little delay and angst as possible. After a bit of a mooch round Ravelry I settled on this. It's quick to pick up and adapt to whatever size or yarn you want. So off I went. I'm now 8 balls, 16 hours and 24,000 stitches in. Great! But... I'm not sure it's right. After much... Continue reading

Need a top quality card for Valentine's? No time to nip out or whip something up yourself? Ta-da look what I found from Jen and Floris at Love vs Design. Just head over here to download the proper pdf and print it out on some nice thick card. Job done. And it has a little secret - a bundle of valentine's vouchers. To put inside and offer the recipient... well that's on a need to know basis... Also it's beautiful. A quick, beautiful card that you made yourself (well you did, with a little help that's all). For all of... Continue reading

I'm going to start by saying this is not my tutorial, it's by the lovely Katbaro on Flickr who has been one of my longest standing flickr friends. For years I knew her as an amazing foodie then *ping* out of the blue it turns out she does crafts too. So when I saw this in my festive flickr stream I was instantly smitten, and utterly chuffed to find out she'd written a tutorial for it. Any credit goes to her, I'm merely sharing the love. So pop over to her blog post and get to work... Continue reading

The hard work from the Secrets & Codes project has all paid off. 30 ten year olds were able to show off their hard work in front of their friends, family and local community at the launch of the Hadfield & Padfield Heritage Trail. After a busy few weeks pressing, framing and labelling back at Tinkering Textiles headquarters, all the textile pieces were displayed alongside work from other schools in the village for the official grand opening of the Trail. The embroidered lines represent an architectural feature of a nearby Victorian school (forerunner to the children's own school.) The buttons,... Continue reading

For work, I was visiting some schools to look at the work they do across the artforms. At one junior school I was given a few sketches some 8 year olds had done. I was staggered. The intricate, complicated, beautiful patterns they had managed to create was way beyond any expectations for their years, probably even for a 15 or 16 year old they would have been impressive. It wasn't a fluke, there was page after page after page, from every child in the class. Something staggering was going on. It turned out the children had been using something called... Continue reading

London Landmarks at SeamStar Does what it says on the tin. Online stockists of some of the finest patterned fabric (by which I really mostly mean cotton) in the UK. I've picked out a few of my favourites below but there are hundreds of gorgeous options. Many of the sites also sell haberdashery, trimmings, patterns and stationery too. Enjoy! 1. Ray-Stitch 2. Fabric Rehab 3. M is for Make 4. Eclectic Maker 5. SeamStar 6. The Eternal Maker 7. Saints & Pinners 8. Celtic Fusion Fabrics Papillon at Ray-Stitch Busy Street by Summersville at Fabric Rehab Monsterzmash from M is... Continue reading

I've been planning to blog about this for, oh about a year now... Angie Lewin's Plants and Places is one of the achingly beautiful books I received as a present last year. I've been a huge fan of Angie Lewin's work since she very first began designing printed Dandelion themed fabrics for St Jude's quite a few years ago. It shares the process she goes through from quick sketches out in the countryside, to blocking colour in and transferring to paper and fabric prints. The book is available here, and you can buy Angie's fabrics here. Continue reading

You may know I'm a huge fan of colouring in. It relaxes me, helps me feel free and childlike again, and polishes up my thinking about how to use colour and pattern. I recently came across a real grown up colouring book Garden Party! with a nod towards those fantastic 1970s vintage children's illustrations. There's a sample page show above, and 29 more inside. The publishers say it's "Set in a dreamy landcape of stylized patterns, this garden party buzzes with life. Whimsical and wild images of birds, frogs, bugs and other creatures populate flowery fields that pulse with psychadelic... Continue reading

I don't know a single person who crafts that doesn't love a good tutorial. No matter how experienced, enthusiastic, professional or skilled you are, there's always more to learn. Seeing how other people do those fiddly creative things can be so inspiring. I have lists of tutorials everywhere but I've finally hit on a genius way of keeping them all fresh, in one place, where I can not only find them but see them at a glance too. Pinterest is perfect for such a thing. So from now on I'll be noting them all there, on my Make This board.... Continue reading

It's only taken roughly forever, but I decided it was about time to have a craft page on Facebook. So here it is. Tinkering Textiles. Do head over there and like it. Here's five reasons why... 1. Because I still get that nerdy happy feeling when someone subscribes to a blog, likes a page or retweets a tweet. You can put that nerdy smile in my tummy. 2. This blog you're reading now will, as ever, have craft (and other) news of worldwide interest with some meat to it and my usual careful curatorial ways. But it takes a while... Continue reading

A whole four years (or more) ago I made this cushion. It was possibly my favourite vintage fabric ever bought. Thick dense durable crispy cotton in rich sumptuous colours and bold 1970s popping floral pattern. It sold on etsy and off went the parcel to the other side of the world. Imagine my surprise when randomly perusing Pilgrim's design lifestyle blog - in fact snooping around her house - when there was my little bold punchy much loved cushion. A double take and a few emails later confirmed that it was indeed the very same item. Such a heartwarming moment... Continue reading

So Secrets & Codes is nearly complete. After 8 or 9 workshops the pupils' works are almost finished. Soon I'll be framing all their textile pieces, and putting together some sort of interpretation booklet. In the meantime a consultation event will take place, sharing the work of all the local schools involved in the project with their local community. Here's ours. I'm so proud of them all, they've found parts of it challenging in different ways and have all wanted, so wholeheartedly, to persevere and get it done. But this isn't an ending, as my work comes to a close,... Continue reading

*Disclaimer - the above is not my list but lovely Laura of Cupcakes for Clara... I'm not one for looking back, or new year's resolutions and such. I try and be the person I want to be in small amounts ever day, and work out how to be better rather than deconstruct what's already done. But I saw this and it stopped me in my tracks. How often do we stop and remind ourselves how far we've come? How hard we've worked? What difference we made? Recently I learned the importance of saying things out loud; and a certain group... Continue reading

Last Friday's Secrets & Codes workshop was all about starting actual sewing, at last! After some prep for the children's artwork two days earlier, in which they began to draft their final designs, we finally moved on to cracking out the needles and thread. Firstly I must say someone has done an excellent job of this with them already as they were able to thread the needles beautifully and knew what a running stich was, which saved us all a lot of time. They were very excited about being able to choose the colour of felt for their Yoyo (as... Continue reading

I have a weakness for stationery. If you know me, you'll know this well. Come to think of it I always have. I was a prolific letter writer as a child and a teen, there's always been a treasured box of special paper and pens in the background. Now I'm older the lure grows ever stronger. I could write reams about the addiction and its finer points. For now, for those of you who have yet to discover it, let me introduce you to Washi tape. The gentleness of masking tape with the beauty of Japanese design. Its uses are... Continue reading

Session 1 of Secrets & Codes. After looking at a variety of visual codes and coming up with as many different types of codes as they could, we moved on to the preparatory stages of mapping and pattern making. The children (year 6 / Age 10) got into the gist of the idea well and start mapping some stories by thinking of a special place in their village, writing a story about it, then hanging a corresponding tag on the map where there story took place. Their knowledge of the village geographically, their ability to read maps and generate ideas,... Continue reading

Secrets and Codes is the name of a project I mentioned a few weeks back. I wanted to find ways to entice the children into becoming keen detectives of their local area, both geographically and historically. I'm employed as the resident textile artist for the project and will be working with them over nine sessions and curating an exhibition of the work involved (mine and theirs). We'll be using session one to start thinking about the hidden messages carried in visual codes, and how pictures and symbols can tell us more than we first see. I have a huge map... Continue reading