Mollie Makes #73

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

Subscribe today and get a £10 John Lewis voucher or set of Mini Moderns mugs!

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

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All the trimmings Take inspiration from nature for this year’s table setting with Emily Quinton’s Christmas styling ideas

Subscribe at molliemakes.com

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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73 MOLLIEMAKES.COM 75

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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