…stitching

Posted in: Made by hand

You may have noticed … I have not been here … I have been doing this instead …

Large button shoulder bag

Large button shoulder bag

Reversible Shoulder Bag

Reversible Shoulder Bag

Cross body bags

Stitching up a range of hand made bags ~ working with the beautiful ‘stamped’ fabric by Ellen Luckett Baker ~ detailing with vintage buttons ~ lining with reclaimed and vintage fabrics ~ surrounding myself in the process.

Most of these beauties have now been posted to Church Street Gallery in Saffron Walden, in Essex, and will be available there in the very near future!

Three of the cross body bags are still with me, and will be appearing in my shop very soon … first I have to take some more photos!

The process of planning and producing a ‘range’ of bags has been full of learning and has also given me lots of time at the sewing machine to ponder the process of becoming a ‘maker’. It is just eight months since I launched the lemon loves shop … and every step has been about testing and learning … testing and learning in terms of my skills, my creativity, the market place, the production process, my mindset, materials, pricing, marketing … the list goes on.

The pondering has led to an idea around a series of blog posts to explore and celebrate the whole process. And maybe in June … or even July … I hope to get time to start putting my thoughts into words.

Watch this space.

And thank you for reading!

 

… feel good friday :)

Posted in: Made by hand, Out and About

This is the post I prepared to upload last Friday ~ before our wifi started to misbehave ~ we now have a new router … it is sitting in it’s box in the dining room! It has been a busy busy week for both Mr P and me, and the window of opportunity to swap the routers is yet to present itself … so I am hoping the dodgy one allows enough cyber waves to reach my remote laptop so that I can finally get this post to you!

It has been a little while, and here are some of the places I have been since I was last here …

~ at the sewing machine ~

cross body bag prototype

vintage fabric bins

~ walking the land ~

cropped field

woodland lane

~ at the flower stall ~

white tulips

white tulip

I have some fabric baskets in the shop, some have sold already …

I have stitched up a prototype cross body bag which looks fab …

I have an heard from another gallery who wish to have some of my bags and baskets …

I have made an apron by special request … and have been pacing the floor awaiting the delivery of cotton webbing tape to make ties for said apron …

I have been pulling fabric off the shelves and mixing and matching it for new stitchy projects …

Yes, I have been busy … and it is all good … until, following a delightful wedding last Friday I suddenly found myself exhausted … you know, flaked out, wiped out, fit to drop, pooped!

And so I stopped, and realised that it was the first time I had stopped since the beginning of April … I had been ticking off day after April day without stopping. And I noticed that in trying to set up a business from home it is very easy to never take a day off. And so I switched off the computer, put away the sewing machine and took myself for a walk – that walk up above down the beautiful woodland lane … an old favourite of a walk … which ended with a cold cider in a pub garden, because it was probably the first day this year that it has been warm enough for a pub garden. And it was glorious.

Perhaps I will do the same this weekend!

Wishing you a restful and renewing weekend, whatever you may find yourself doing!

 

… new bags!

Posted in: Made by hand, News

In the shop now ~ very excited about these little beauties as I have been working for weeks on the design, producing a prototype, sourcing the perfect fabric and buttons, and finally stitching them together … and here they are!

lemon loves bags

lemon loves bags

lemon loves bags

lemon loves bags

lemon loves bags

I used a beautiful linen and cotton mix fabric for the outer, and the lining, pockets and trim are detailed in vintage and reclaimed cottons and linens. All the buttons are vintage, either from my own collection, or sourced specifically for these bags. I have loved making these, especially hand stitching the detail onto the button loops and straps.

I uploaded them to my shop this morning … and have had a sale already! So happy that someone else loves them as much as I do!

Wishing you all a happy week ahead.

 

… fabulous fabric finds!

Posted in: Home Life

Just popping in to share some recent goodies that I have added to my growing fabric stash …

Vintage Barkcloth

… I found this today, at one of my favourite hunting places, Echo, it is a beautiful barkcloth, in fact two pieces of vibrant, abstract, beautifully textured fabric, which I can’t wait to transform …

Vintage Barkcloth

… the texture of barkcloth makes me so happy, luckily, I recently found this piece too …

Vintage Barkcloth

… gorgeous autumnal colours in an abstract leaf print.

I have also found a couple of pieces of reclaimed fabric with a vintage feel, first up, this teal and turquiose rose print, which was a skirt for sale in a local charity shop … it is now two lengths of lovely fabric …

Fifties style cotton

… and this brightly coloured abstract print – again from Echo … brighter than my usual choices, but I think I am going to enjoy working with it!

Fifties style cotton

Finally, I have found a couple of pieces of reclaimed linen … one of my staple fabrics to work with …

Reclaimed linen

… love that weave and texture!

This weekend I am hoping for a day of stitchery, and also some brightness so that I can set up a photo session for my completed bags …

… hoping the weekend brings whatever it is that you need too!

 

… two happy things

Posted in: Made by hand, News

Happy thing one:

~ you can find a little bitty about lemon loves at the Response Exhibition over on the Arteria Shop blog … I am very excited about this … it all feels unreal and really very real at the same time, and it makes me smile!

lemon loves at Gallery 23

Happy thing two:

~ I have finally finally finally finished the four bags I have been working on … it feels like it has taken me forever, but then I had to remind myself that the whole ‘design and make a new bag’ project was put on hold by the ‘make four bags and fifteen baskets for the Response Exhibition’ project … and so, with that in mind, I’ve actually done quite well! And here is a little sneaky peek …

Vintage buttons on lemon loves bags

… I’m hoping to photograph them properly at the weekend, and if all goes to plan these will be in the shop next week!  Yee~ha!

 

… the bright side

Posted in: Home Life, Out and About

It seems I can’t do everything ~ although, secretly, I do believe that with an extra three days in each week, I would come close!

So my blog has been abandoned for over a week ~ the lemon loves facebook page is sitting idle ~ my sewing machine experienced an unprecedented ten consecutive days of neglect ~ and my camera has a backlog of more than a months worth of unedited photos … my heart gets a little nervous about all of these things …

… however, my nephew came to stay over for two whole nights ~ some long-loved friends rented a nearby holiday let for the week ~ a much delayed mate-date eventually came to fruition ~ I squeezed in some extra hours at work ~ and yesterday I caught up with one of my favourite girls for some brunch and a woodland walk … and it has been marvellous!

Queenswood, Dinmore, Herefordshire

The past eleven days have been full of family, friends and food; laughter, love and friendship; woodlands, hilltops, streams, sticks, mud …

… and even a peep of Spring.

And now … I have two bags to complete stitching, some baskets to make, photographs to edit and stock to photograph and upload to my shop …

… one step at a time, keeping an eye on the bright side all the way!