emily quinton's christmas styling tips PAGE 52 cosy knit gift ideas
MAKE IT!
EASY-SEW
FLOOR CUSHION CHRISTMAS WRAPPING TIPS
JEWELLED
VELVET CLUTCH
EMBROIDERED
POLAR BEAR
FLORAL KIMONO MEN'S CROCHET
BACKPACK
TINY STOCKING FILLERS
&more..
Home for s a m t s i r h C ers ...winter wond pals & festive
CONTENTS
issue number seventy three
73
80 ON THE COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP SOWELS, STYLING: HELENA STEELE & BECKI CLARK, MODEL: ALEXANDRA FIA
Wrapping ideas
18
WINTER FELTIES
INTRODUCING... LIVING
The latest news from the world of handmade
Fill your life and home with crafted goodness
9 INTRODUCING…
43 LIVING
Handpicked crafty happenings
Our top picks of the most lovely buys for a hand-crafted, creative home
14 TRENDS Indulge in opulent luxe, then make your own beaded velvet party clutch
18 WINTER FELTIES
Textile designer Jonna Saarinen’s home is filled with colour and childhood nostalgia
Hang these cute animals in your home
52 FESTIVE TABLE SETTING
26 TEA AND A CHAT
Photographer Emily Quinton shares her styling ideas and makes for Christmas Day
Fi Douglas, owner of bluebellgray
33 CRACKER GIFTS
Talk to us!
46 HOME TOUR
Mini treats to fill homemade crackers – use them with your free gift
57 FLOOR CUSHION Comfy seating for impromptu gatherings
62 CROCHET BACKPACK Hook this rucksack for the man in your life
36 GOOD READ facebook.com/MollieMakes
pinterest.com/MollieMakes
4 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 73
@MollieMakes
MollieMakes
youtube.com/user/MollieMakes
The benefits of collaborating with friends and fellow crafters
67 PULL-OUT PAPERS EXCLUSIVE!
38 DRESSING GOWN
98 TEMPLATES
Sew for yourself or as a Christmas gift
All you need to make this issue’s projects
Seasonal painterly papers and gift tags
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE 24 Subscribe UK
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88 Subscribe overseas International subscribers save up to 40%
33
16
Cracker gifts
Velvet clutch
IT’S GOOD TO GIVE
38
Dressing gown
LOVING
Treats and treasures to fall in love with
62
One of my Christmas highlights is making handmade gifts. For me, it sums up what presents are all about: giving thoughtfully, with love stitched and sewn into every one. With that in mind, we’ve filled this issue with beautiful makes for loved ones. My favourite? Mount Royal Mint’s heirloom polar bear on page 76. You’ll be putting it out on your mantelpiece every Christmas. I’ve also been inspired by the amazingly talented Fi Douglas of bluebellgray – her honesty about the challenges in finding her creative path is refreshing. Read about her journey (and see inside her beautiful Glasgow studio) in our interview on page 26. Share your makes using #molliemakers – we wish you all a cosy, creative Christmas.
Crochet backpack
Cath Dean Editor
75 LOVING Beautiful things to adore and make
76 POLAR BEAR Sew this magical creature and give as a charming heirloom piece
80 WRAPPING IDEAS Create beautifully-wrapped gifts
83 KNITTED SOCKS Keep your toes cosy this winter
89 BABY TOYS Entertain little ones with this set of tactile shapes in pretty floral fabrics
83
Knitted socks
93 CROCHET TREES Mini decorative Christmas trees
106 BACK PAGE PROJECT Writer Momtaz Begum-Hossain on discovering crafts around the world Subscribe at molliemakes.com
er Turn the page to dirnscovto your free gift! Tu page 67 for your papers
INTRODUCING trends
THIS MONTH WE’RE OBSESSING ABOUT...
OPULENT LUXE Indulge in sumptuous fabrics and decadent shades of gold this winter
Combine metallics with rich velvet for tantalising texture. www.grahamand
PHOTOGRAPHY: MEL YATES FOR GRAHAM AND GREEN
green.co.uk
14 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 73
INTRODUCING trends
02
03
01
01
The only thing better
than animal print? Animal print and sequins, naturally. www.oasis-stores.com 02
Go bold with gold
leather tassel earrings. www.benumade.com 03
Luxe your living
room with sparkling metallics. www. atkinandthyme.co.uk 04
Look forward to
2017 with a gold foiled Rifle Paper Co diary. www.riflepaperco.com 05
Channel your inner
Harry Potter with a
04
feather quill pen. www. grahamandgreen.co.uk 06
Pretty up Christmas
presents with a roll of glossy satin ribbon. www.hobbycraft.co.uk 07
Add instant style
to an all-black outfit. www.topshop.com 08
Glam up last year’s
winter coat with a retro update. www. 05
accessorize.com
08
07 06
MAKE IT! TURN THE PAGE TO DIY THE OPULENT LUXE TREND Subscribe at molliemakes.com
73 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 15
PHOTOGRAPH: PHILIP SOWELS, STYLING: HELENA STEELE & BECKI CLARK. WARNING! NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN UNDER 36 MONTHS. THESE ARE NOT TOYS – CHILDREN SHOULD BE SUPERVISED AT ALL TIMES
Festive felties Spread Christmas joy with Anastasia Telegey’s kawaii-cute animal decorations
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USA READERS: SEE PAGE 75
Describe yourself in a few words. Colourful, fun, stylish.
Finding your way with...
BLUEBELLGRAY Textile designer Fi Douglas shares her journey from daunted art student to owner of a successful print studio and homeware brand Words: LARA WATSON Photographs: CARO WEISS
Glasgow-based designer Fi Douglas is best known for the beautiful, bold watercolour designs she creates for her brand, bluebellgray. Painted on a large scale by hand, her work on paper and canvas is then digitised and printed onto textiles, homeware, ceramics, and now, her first wallpaper collection. Fi’s confident growing business tells a very different story from her artistic beginnings 16 years ago, feeling lost while studying Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art. “It was a very tough ‘throw you in at the deep end’ kind of 26 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 73
course,” says Fi. “I was an 18-year-old kid, fresh from the Highlands, who loved colour, drawing and making beautiful things, but the art world was different then and pretty intimidating.” Fi’s best friend, studying Textiles in the design department, was key to her discovering her path. “She was always saying, ‘Fi, you’re a textile designer, I just know it!’ So I transferred my course.” Now with plans to open a showroom, we caught up with Fi to find out how she built bluebellgray from scratch, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.
How did you learn your craft? Once I found my path at Glasgow School of Art, I quickly fell in love with print as I discovered digital printing and started translating my watercolour-style paintings onto textiles. After graduating I worked in the industry for a few years before taking the leap to set up on my own. Every day since then has been a learning curve and with every collection I push my designs further – it’s a cliché but it’s amazing what experience teaches you. Without even realising it, you’re learning all the time. What does a typical working day look like for you? I have two young boys so the morning is mostly a blur of us getting out the door. I work in a beautiful, colourful studio space in the west end of Glasgow, and my days are really varied. Most days I start with emails, then it’s about catching up with my team. We might be pulling a fabric range together in the final stages of sampling, so I’ll spend all day tweaking colour options. I’ll catch up with our graphic designer and marketing team, then I might have a meeting with one of our suppliers – one of my favourite parts of the job is working with all the amazing people
INTRODUCING tea & a chat
‘It’s amazing what experience teaches you – you’re learning all the time’
02
01
who manufacture our products. I also catch up with the team who deal with our finance, sales and customer service – an important part of running the business is understanding which products are selling. Tell us about your creative process. It’s taken me years to fully understand it, but I’ve realised my creative process takes a while. I find inspiration in so many places and am always absorbing the world around me, so thinking time is the most important part. For a new season collection I always
have a feeling emerging of what I want to do, then I travel with my team to officially start the project. We go somewhere new, and get immersed in it. We’ve just come back from Marrakech, and the season before, we stayed in a pink hotel in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. I drew some of the designs in the collection while outside on a very windy Scottish hillside! I take the sketches back to the studio along with lots of photographs and pin everything up on the walls. It’s vital to have these visual references all around me, so
03
01
Fi’s studio is a
02
The bluebellgray
beautifully styled
garland hung
interior dream, with
behind Fi’s inviting
her Aria and Lycia
coffee table is by
rugs, Big Rothesay
Paper Street Dolls.
fabric, Sanday
03
Fi’s current
Cerise throw and
sketchbook. “This is
Rothesay duvet
how I test colours
cover all on show.
when I’m painting.”
73 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 27
Winter wonderland
PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP SOWELS, STYLING: HELENA STEELE & BECKI CLARK
Create an air of seasonal magic with Mount Royal Mint’s enchanting heirloom polar bear
76 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 73
73 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 77
52 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 73
All the trimmings Take inspiration from nature for this year’s table setting with Emily Quinton’s Christmas styling ideas
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73 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 53
LIVING home tour
Textile designer Jonna Saarinen fills her home with childhood nostalgia Words: LARA WATSON Photography: FIONA MURRAY
Jonna Saarinen has a “phobia of white walls”. The colour-filled home she shares with her musician husband, David, near Crystal Palace in London is a fearless mish-mash of vintage and modern, layering patterns and pieces from different eras with “anything that makes her laugh”. Their 1920s semi-detached former wreck has been lovingly restored over the past five years in a way that’s sympathetic to both the original features (including the serving hatch
46 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 73
LIVING home tour
This page: Jonna’s love of Moomins is evident all over the house – this vintage East German Moomin poster is from Thorsten van Elten’s online store. Opposite: The fridge is decorated with Jonna’s magnet collection. The kitchen tiles are original (circa 1920), and the enamel pans were her mum’s.
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73 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 47
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LOVING
73
OH, YOU PRETTY THINGS! MOODBOARDS & MUSINGS TO INSPIRE US Dreaming of an Anthropologie Christmas? Us too. This delicate glass bauble is filled with a miniature snowy scene that’s guaranteed to earn it pride of place on your tree. Plus, you’ll feel happy unwrapping it every Christmas for years to come. www.anthropologie.com
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PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP SOWELS, STYLING: HELENA STEELE & BECKI CLARK, MODEL: ALEXANDRA FIA
Lazy mornings Lounging around has never looked so glam with H & Sammy’s dressing gown
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MAIN IMAGE STYLING: HELENA TRACEY, PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP SOWELS
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