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Welcome to the January Issue
Hello, January is traditionally the time to hunker down and sit out the winter months. Although the days are growing longer again at last, spring is still a long way off, though if you look carefully, especially during a mild winter, there are already the first signs appearing in the hedgerows. This month brings the 60th issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine - I can hardly believe that it was FIVE YEARS ago that I sat down at my (then brand new) laptop and began to put the first issue together. Things have come a long way since then and I do hope you’ll enjoy all that this sixtieth issue contains. As always there are six Bustle & Sew designs, including the first two in a new series of dog trophy heads (there’s a special pattern for cat-lovers coming next month), lots of hand embroidery and a cute little Suffolk Puff (or yoyo) bunny. Then we have interviews with three very talented designer-makers, articles, features and the first contribution from our new team member Debbie, who shows us how to make some lovely fragranced bath bombs - perfect for relaxing after the Christmas rush! I think that’s enough from me - just a quick reminder that the February issue will be published, as always, on the last Thursday of the month - in this case Thursday 28 January. So if you’re a subscriber watch out for it arriving in your inbox then! Until then, Best wishes for a very happy New Year 2016
Helen xx
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Between the Covers … January Almanac
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Keep Cozy Cushion Cover
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Fragrant Flowering Hyacinths
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Meet the Maker: Enhar Koc
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Lovely Idea: Thimble Necklace
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Naughty Pups Trophy Heads
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Nice and Easy: Freestyle Machine Applique
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Poetry Corner
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Fragranced Bath Bombs
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Signs of Spring Hoops
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Dream It, Do It: Lady Belle Fabrics
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A Little Look at Linen
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Baking: Champagne Cake
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Magazine Pocket
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Meet the Maker: Breezy Guerra
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Drifts of Snowdrops
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January’s Favourite Blogs
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New Year - Time to Blog?
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Puff Bunny
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Matchbook Needle Keeper
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Fabric Collecting
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Cup of Tea Hoop
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And Finally …
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January Calendar
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Templates
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Contributors Rosie Studholme Puts together all our lovely ideas and baking pages as well as researching & editing our features and interviews.
Enhar Koc Talks about crafting, creating and her online business, Love, Joy Create
Brooke Becker Describes how her dreams became reality, her hopes for the future and the inspiration behind Lady Belle Fabric
Breezy Guerra Doesn’t believe in following rules - just inspired creativity and having fun!
Debbie Thomson Joined Bustle & Sew in November and is keeping us very well organised, as well as coming up with some lovely crafting ideas.
January For many folk, especially in Scotland, the celebrations of New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay continue into New Year’s Day without a break. According to tradition, to guarantee good luck the whole year round, the first person to enter your house on 1 January should be a darkhaired male bringing gifts of coal and whisky. Such visitors are welcomed with appropriate refreshments and in Scotland people go from house to house first-footing. In the past overenthusiastic partying and lack of sleep on New Year’s Eve led to widespread absenteeism in the workplace on 1 January and in 1974 it was finally declared a public holiday throughout the UK.
The winter months are also a good time to see owls in daylight as the shortage of food forces them to hunt for many more hours than in the summer months. January 6 brings the festival of Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the Magi - the three wise men who travelled from the East to worship the baby Jesus, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In the Orthodox Church it marks the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist around thirty years later. Also known as Twelfth Day or Twelfth Night, this is the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas and is the date by which you should take down your Christmas decorations to avoid bad luck. On Twelfth Night at London’s Drury Lane Theatre, the cast of the current show are served with a glass of wine and a piece of cake by staff in powdered wigs and 18th century livery, courtesy of the actor and former chef Robert Baddeley, who died in 1794 and left money in his will to fund this annual treat.
Rather than stay indoors all day in January, tempting though this may seem, going for a long winter’s walk can be very enjoyable. Remember the old saying “there’s no such thing as bad weather just the wrong clothing!” I love to head out into the woods with the Newfies in January as there’s so much to see now the trees are bare. There are generally four layers of habitat in our English woods - a ground layer of small plants such as mosses; a field layer of flowers and ferns; the undergrowth of hazel, hawthorn (and brambles and nettles in the summer months!) and finally the tree layer or canopy. Many insects will be hiding or hibernating in the leaf mould or tree bark and you may be lucky and spot various species of birds hunting for them, including woodpeckers, wrens, robins and blackbirds.
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In January we’re loving fragrant winter flowering Hyacinths
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“Do not look at what others do, do not listen to what others say, just listen to your heart & work hard!”
Meet the Maker
talks to us about where she finds creative inspiration, how she got into crafting and how she started her business, Enhar started her business from her home near Istanbul, Turkey back in 2012. When she became a mum she became a crafter and now designs and makes gorgeous homewares and quirky gifts. I was working as a Senior HR Specialist but when I had my child I left full time work. I became a stay at home mother but within a few months I got bored! I didn’t want to go back to working long hours so I decided to take sewing classes which is something I had always wanted to do.
Once I started sewing I ended with thousands of meters of fabric in my living room! It was a hobby for me until a friend of mine told me about Etsy. I started adding any bits I made, I had no idea about promoting my shop, I was moving
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with baby steps. Almost after a year I decided to concentrate more on my shop, I totally changed what I made, designed new collections and that’s how my shop has evolved into what it is today.
First of all I always collect memories; souvenirs, photos, tickets, maps, stones, flowers, drawings etc. All of these memories will be an inspiration someday! When I start to design a new collection or product, concept comes first. I start draft drawing by hand. Then comes the colours & I make the digital designs. And last I decide on the fabrics I'll use & get the demo prints to see the shape & colours on fabric.
Yes, I have a home studio. Although sometimes I dream of having a fancy artistic
This is such a wonderful idea – why not make one for yourself and another for the favourite stitcher in your life? You’re sure to receive compliments wherever you wear it! Pop over to Laura’s website for the full tutorial.
Look! a lovely idea -------------------
Thimble Necklace
Image & Tutorial: www.thewindandthesail.com 8
Nice and Easy ‌.. Freestyle machine embroidery/applique
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A Little Luxury -------------------
Fragrant Bath Bombs
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Bake! a delicious treat -------------------
Champagne Cake
A boozy cake for a booze filled celebration! What are all of you doing for the last day of the year??! It better be fun, no excuses. Pop over to Courtney’s blog for the full recipe. Image & Recipe: www.forktobelly.com
Read more on Fork to Belly - tales from a little kitchen in a big city! 12
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● Place your front panel on top of the back fabric and mount together in the hoop, making sure the bottom of your design is at the centre bottom of the hoop (3).
● Trim fabric to 1” beyond hoop edge, turn to back and secure with hot glue gun. ● Hang your magazine pocket, fill with your favourite publications and wait for compliments!
● Make sure they’re taut and tighten the hoop as far as you can. (The fabric will stretch a little with use).
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1. Jenny is a Londoner with 2 young children who loves making stuff. She likes to share the things that make her happy on her blog, The Gingerbread House
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2. Izy is a 19 year old Londoner who studies Food Science & Nutrition at the University of Leeds. She thrives on lattes, cycling around on pretty bikes, wearing her hair in messy buns or plaits (always) and eating cake batter straight from the bowl. Catch up with her at Top with Cinnamon 3. Rosie Tapping lives near Bournemouth with her husband and dog, Bodhi. By day she’s in HR, but by night (and at the weekend) she’s reading, baking, going on adventures, buying clothes and shoes and filling her house with pretty things – all which she documents at Rosie Outlook
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Collecting Fabric ….. I’ve been busy over the past few days tidying up my work room and sorting out my fabric collection … and while I was folding and pressing each piece to create nice tidy stacks on my cupboard shelves, I started to think about the variety of fabrics I have acquired and where I found One of my favourite sewing techniques is freestyle machine embroidery. It’s a great way to obtain professional-looking results in a short space of time - and is deceptively easy to master. But you do need a good variety of fabrics as the right choices can make or spoil your project. Luckily for us, fabric is very versatile and it’s possible to build an interested and varied fabric stash at very little cost - provided we remember to keep our eyes open and search for fabrics in all kinds of places.
A freestyle project …
There is a bewilderingly large variety of fabrics available to the machine stitcher. Compare for example, a light-weight patterned cotton used for a summer dress, the thick tweed of a winter coat or the soft pile of a silky velvet fabric used for luxurious cushions piled on a favourite armchair. Notice how people use fabrics both in their choice of clothing and in their homes. It’s interesting to consider the ways in which different fabrics have been used and whether you like them or not. Look at the scale of the pattern - large or small? Is the colour appealing or is it too bright or too mute. Consider texture too fabric an be soft and warm, cold and shiny or even rough and hairy!
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Ideally you should try to have a large selection of fabrics in your collection so you always have just the right piece available for your current project. That doesn’t mean however that you need to spend a lot of money. Save all your scraps from dressmaking or quilting - they’re sure to come in handy and you might be able to swap, or be given pieces of fabric, by other stitchy friends. Jumble sales or village fairs can also be treasure troves. Look out for plain fabrics like linen tablecloths and napkins, plain curtains, skirts, cotton dresses with small prints - fabric salvaged from all kinds of garments can be used. A = Cotton lining fabric from old summer skirt B = Wool blend felt from local craft shop C = Vintage eiderdown fabric from eBay D = Floral blouse (with nice wooden buttons too) from charity shop
Your collection of fabric may well begin to take up quite a lot of space (mine is far too large!) so it’s a good idea to try to be brave and discard pieces that are never likely to be used in one of your projects. Over time you will become much more aware of which fabrics are likely to be the most useful. But don’t discard any pieces of firmly woven fabric that might make a suitable background - these will always come in handy.
A = Offcut of Harris Tweed brought back by friend from holiday B = Furnishing fabric sample C = Japanese Kimono fabric - small piece found on eBay D = Checked woollen scarf from charity shop
It’s much easier to keep track of your collection if you organise it in some way and many people organise their fabrics into colour groups, ie reds, yellows, blues, greens, dark neutrals and light neutrals. You may also find the following groupings useful:
Some interiors shops will hold sales of fabric off-cuts and remnants from time to time, and you can also sometimes acquire manufacturers’ fabric sample books at these sales. Fabric mills and other manufacturers will also sometimes offer parcels of fabric pieces on their websites, whilst market traders will often sell short pieces of fabric.
● Small formal prints and patterns such as spots, checks and stripes in cotton and cotton blends, viscose, and fine wool. ● Plain fabrics such as linen, canvas,
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And finally ….. We find ourselves yet again at the end of another issue. Here at Bustle & Sew HQ we have so much fun putting each issue together and I do hope you’ve enjoyed the contents too. But although we’re at the end of this issue, 2016 brings the beginning of lots of exciting new ventures to look forward to. The most exciting and eagerly-awaited new venture is of course is the arrival of Rosie & Dan’s new baby. He arrived over the Christmas Holidays and I am now a very excited grandma who is looking forward to sharing more about him in the weeks and months ahead! I’m also going to be teaching some classes this year. Rosie will be coming with me to Toft Alpaca in Warwickshire in April, and we’ll be showing attendees how to make French Hens and Pin Cushion Mice, so if you can possibly get along we’d love to meet you. If you’re not close by then don’t worry - I am also involved in Patchwork Posse’s Quiltalong in June where I’ll be showing you how to make my Woodland Alphabet Quilt.
I’m also planning more Bustle & Sew pattern collections, kits and books, and of course we’re now entering year six of this magazine! It seems so long ago, and yet only yesterday that I sat down with my little old PC to put together the very first issue. So much has happened since then who would have believed it!?! I’ll be back again next month with issue 61 - and if you’re a cat-lover then do watch out for a new feline-themed design. After all, as I’ve started a new series of dog faux taxidermy heads I thought it was only fair to include something for cat lovers too! I hope you have a wonderful start to 2016 - and if you’re a subscriber then please do watch out for the February issue arriving in your inbox on Thursday 28 January
Helen xx
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