Sunday, December 12, 2010

Licorice Loves to knit

My cat Licorice has been knitting up a storm yet again !!!
This time he knitted these colourful note book covers & he added a teapot button for a nice feature.

These woolen bangles were created by wrapping wool around wooden carved bangles.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Knitted Flags

I've got the knitters bug & there is nothing that I won't knit!
My mum is from England & my dad is from Greece, so I decided to knit the Unionjack & the Greek flag.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Cat Knits

My cat Licorice has recently developed a passion for knitting. He has a collection of different gauge knitting needles. He has a passion for flouro knitting wool & sparkly knitting needles too.
Licorice guards his knitting yarn with all his nine lives. Recently I tried to borrow his pink wool & he cat scratched my crochet hand.


Licorice the cat sneaks out at night & yarn bombs his favourite tree's

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Creatures of felt & yarn

I made this friendly little mushroom out of felt. I hand embroidered him with basic cotton embroidery thread & some sequins. Felt craft is fun & cheap & adults & kids can both do it!
This friendly little outer space rabbit was a lot of fun to make. You can buy cheap felt from any craft store & sometimes places like cheap as chips even stock it. I used teddy bear eyes from the craft shop.

This little alien has vintage buttons for eyes. Normally I would stuff my toys with craft stuffing which is available from places like spotlight crafts & sometimes Kmart. When I made this little guy I had run out of stuffing so I went to the bathroom cabinet & raided the cotton balls. Cotton balls make great stuffing provided that your felt friend is relatively small

This little guy is a friendly little monster. I used blanket stitch around the edges of this little crafty purple spotted creature

This little felt creation is a monster who only eats strawberries & apples

I crafted this felt apple as an homage to the plastic fruit that always lived in my Nana's fruit bowl

When I originally crafted this giant felt strawberry it was half the size, but it just kept eating the other strawberries in the punnet & it got fat.
Happy crafting illy

Friday, October 1, 2010

Garden Craft

My Garden is a total suburban jungle, which I am told is whats known as a cottage garden. I think when I began encouraging the weeds to grow & the geraniums to go feral is when my cottage garden tipped over the line into jungle. The fabulous elephant is handmade in thailand & I got him at a bargain price because he has a broken foot.

This is my front gate. I have decorated it with a strip of knitted nylon yarn


The art of randomly decorating the everyday environment with knitting or crochet is commonly known as YARN BOMBING.

I like to fill the garden with little treasures like teapots with missing lids, old bottles & mosaics


I decorated these bricks myself. I did the mosaic design on these ornamental pavers utilizing broken plates. I had a lot of fun smashing plates. These were fun & easy to make. Make sure you wear goggles or safety glasses whilst smashing plates & have some band aids on hand just in case.
Happy crafting Illy

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Craft changed my life


Craft is the best therapy I know! Whenever I feel sad or lack motivation I just pick up my knitting or my sketchpad. I have also discovered the joys of power tools which have allowed me to make wooden jigsaw puzzles & have aided me in making handmade shoes.
I love gadgets & I bought myself a badge maker which I used to make the badge pictured on the left.
I designed this jigsaw myself however I have also found some great jigsaw puzzle blueprints in 1970's craft books. 1960's & 1970's craft books are easy to buy on eBay & in thrift stores. Old craft books may seem daggy at first glance but a lot of them contain some great techniques that with a bit of thought you can use for your own contemporary art & craft projects

Stay tuned for my next update! over future posts I'll be discussing mosaics, garden art, knitting, shoe making & many many other inventive crafts!
Cheers Illy