Feathered Comb

There's nothing like the electric colours of a peacock feather. The green that shimmers with a hint of gold, the brown and the bright blue. I decided to keep things simple with this comb setting of the peacock feather with a background of black. 

The feathers are individually attached to the top of a comb using thin black satin ribbon which is wound between the prongs of the comb and over each feather tip. 

Credits to Heber Hanly for his stunning photos. Thanks Heber!

Knitting For Natalie

This is a scarf that I knitted for my beloved Natalie back in the day when my knitting obsession was only just beginning to blossom. After a trip to Liberty of London, my bag was filled with beautiful Rowan wool. My knitting interest was fresh, my enthusiasm was overwhelming! This scarf was in fact my first ever experiment with purling. I must have ripped it at least ten times before I was happy with it! There are major disadvantages to being a devoted perfectionist...

I crocheted a little flower out of some beautiful Rowan merino wool. I must admit that I am pining for my pre-student days when I could afford to buy luxurious wool!

I gave the finished product to Nat because I knew that she of all people would appreciate the lengths I went to to get such neat knit and purls. Isn't that exactly what best friends are for? Haha!

When I saw her wearing it a couple of days ago, I thought it would be nice to put on our blog. After all, it's little things like this that are the reason we're blogging today :)

Photo credits once again to the fantastic Heber Hanly!

Love Brid x

Pretty As A Button

There was no particular inspiration behind this hat it more just happened out of messing around with some milliners fabric. 

The glass button which is the focus point of the hat is a victorian cut glass button I picked up in an antique shop at some point or other. 
The placement of this hat is crucial. It looks best place to the side of the forhead only just on the hairline. This means that the curls of milliners fabric stretch over one eye giving the hat it coquettish quality. 

Brid modeled for this hat, her beautiful short bob of red hair suits the hat to perfection.

Credits for these photos to Heber Hanly. Thanks Heber!

Natalie

xx

Miniature Top Hat With Peacock Feathers and Embellished Veil

First of all I'd like to say a huge thank you to Heber Hanly who kindly brought myself, Brid and our model Emma Hughes into IADT on Monday and gave up his studio time to us in order to get this set of stunning photos. Thank you Heber!

I trimmed the hat with brown velvet, cream organza (with a slight olive green tinge), dark blue satin and hand dyed gold silk ribbons. I fixed the peacock feathers in place at the back of the hat using a corsage made out of the above mentioned ribbons with a real Victorian glass button embellished with gold paint at the centre. The button belonged to my great grandfather's sister. The veil (which was my dads idea) I embellished with small black beads. This proved very difficult as it required perfectly neat sewing as noting is hidden from sight as the actual veil material is so fine. 

I attached the hat to Emma's head using a hat pin with brass top which belonged originally to my great great grand mother and can be roughly dated  about 1900 but may be somewhat earlier. 

The hat is inspired by the baby top hats of the music hall dancers of the late 19th century which have undergone a recent rise in popularity due to the resurfacing  culture surrounding burlesque dancers.

I have always admired Tim Burton's aesthetic and this mixed with the darkly edged world of Lewis Carols "Alice in Wonderland" has lead, of course to inspiring results in Burtons recent adaptation. I wanted to include some nod to this in the composition of the hat which lead to my choices relating to lines and angles. 

Watch this space!! Heber shot much more wonderful things for us in the IADT studios and I will be blogging about them soon.

xx

Natalie

Hippy Knit Hand-Warmers!

In-keeping with my current obsession with roses, I made these little hand-warmers for Yasmin who is kindly supplying her pretty face for the picture below. Our wonderfully talented friend Heber Hanly took the photos, sometimes it's wonderful to have a photographer who can take great photos even on my sub-par camera! I have to say that my chest swells a little bit with pride whenever I see her wearing them. Being my usual incredibly skint/thrifty self, I used wool I bought in a charity shop for about 50cent a ball. The red mohair for the rose was bequeathed onto me by a lady who was offloading her unwanted excess wool. The green was just lying idle around my house waiting to be transformed into a pair of luscious leaves.

I freelanced my way through them. No pattern, barely counting the stitches. It was complete and utter hippy knitting. I sewed them up leaving a little hole for the thumb. I am rather fond of the hand-warmers it must be said. The product of a night of getting in touch with my inner knitting hippy leaves me feeling a little warm and fuzzy inside. Usually I am a hideously-horrible-knitting-perfectionist, it was nice to know that I could throw it all out the window. Patterns were burnt, stitch counting was shunned! I must say that it was rather lovely to let loose and see what became of it...

I'm staging a knitters rebellion! Haha! Have a great day and let your inner neurotic knitter go :)

Bríd x

Craft swap painting!

The torture, toil, terror and tribulation that occurred on Panda night all seemed worth something when I saw what I was to receive in return. I am completely in love with the painting that Sarah did for me. Awesometastic does not quite begin to describe it...

When we planned this swap, Sarah asked me what exactly I would like on the painting. I said I wanted Chinchillas and Toadstools. Undoubtedly the most "unique" request Sarah's ever received for a painting. But as with all good friends, they love you for just how weird you are! Hee Hee. I love the tree and the little flowers done out of gold leaf add such a special touch to it.

This craft swap has set me salivating. I want to swap my little handmade goods for those of someone else. I want to have a collection of things made with the love and attention of my friends. I'm currently trying to negotiate a craft swap with a friend of mine involving an elephant tea cozy for a birdhouse. We'll see what comes of this... Oh the excitement!

Sarah is currently planning on setting up a blog and etsy shop so when she does, I shall post a link to it and you can enjoy more of her amazing art work. I love my oh-so-talented friends.

Have a great day everyone. It is one of those rare occasions where the sun is shining in Dublin. I think I'll just have to go out and soak it up! Make hay while the sun shines eh? x

Time For Tea For Two

This batch went to a friend Alannah's Dinner party and as Yui's birthday gift also. 

But not before Mum and I had stolen some and had tea for two. 

I tried out blue icing for the first time this week. I have stayed away from it until now as I really think there is something not very appealing about blue food. But these get away with it, there's sparkles and they're edible, enough said.
Ok I think i'm starting to OD on cupcakes. Too much of a good thing so I promise no more cupcake posts. Next stop wedding cakes. Watch this space! 

xx 

Nat