Custom Silver Sock Charm

So, I was contacted by a very nice lady, who had seen my stripy derby sock charm on my blog, but wanted a pair of them and for the socks to be a little shorter as a present for her friend. My first ever custom order from a complete stranger!

And voila: This was my original...


And this was my custom...

Apologies for the dreadful photography - I had to take it on my camera phone with no stablisation.

It's the first thing I've actually soldered and made in my new workshop and the new space is a million times more comfortable than the old one!

Now if I could just finish my little skate charm...

The Make Lounge

As my sewing machine has been sat grumpily in the corner recently, throwing me occasional reproachful looks, and my friend Jennie hasn't even taken hers out of its box yet, we signed up for a cushion making workshop at the Make Lounge. I've been cycling past the Make Lounge every weekday morning for several months now, and have been meaning to go in, as their shop window is filled with lovely colourful things.

So, armed with nowt but our bicycles (everything you need to make the cushion is included in the cost of the workshop, hurrah!) we pottered off to Islington.

The hardest part was choosing what fabric to make the cushion from, as you can choose from the hundreds of lovely and quirky patterned fabrics in their shop. I went with a turquoise and green butterfly print.

The tutor was really good, very patient and helpful, as the course is aimed at complete beginners, who have never used a sewing machine before. Even though I have, I still learned loads and found it really informative.

And here is my cushion:

Cute huh? It definitely brightens up my boring old sofa.

And, with my newly acquired cushion making skills, together with an alrmingly large bag of stuffing that I ordered (it's sold by weight, I had no idea what the actual volume of the stuff would be!), I have also created this cushion:

It was actually supposed to be more of a pouffe type thingy, but dimensions and 3D visualisation are not my strong points. Still, looks nice, no?

Right, let's get on with it then...

I appear to have been somewhat lacking in motivation for shiny things since I moved house. Partly because I have been asleep rather a lot, and partly because I'm just enjoying hanging out with the boy. Also, my workshop is quite cold.

Anyway, no more of this nonsense! Let's have some motivation please...

I have booked into the London Jewellery School (happily now moved from Dulwich (miles away) to Hatton Garden (right near where I work and on the way home), this evening to re-fire my little silver derby skate, now that I've added laces to it. Also, I've painted over the Union Jack logo on the master copy of my crash helmet charm with silver clay, to (hopefully) make a plain crash helmet, which I will then attempt to master the art of etching on, so I can make tiny crash helmets with skate names/numbers on. Because they will be proper cute :)