Summer Holidays

How is it possible that we are reaching the end of the school summer holidays already here in England?   They seem to have flown by even with all the strangeness that surrounds us at the moment.   Usually our holidays are filled with wonderful days out with groups of friends to local attractions, we are very lucky to live in an area where there are bountiful choices of child friendly places to go, but for obvious reasons this year has been slightly different!   We have almost treated it like we are still in full lockdown and stayed in our family bubble for the majority of the time but even so we have had some lovely days out picnicking and paddling in local woods and even a couple of trips to the family static caravan in Flamborough.   

On the days when the weather was not so good we made some things for Chloe’s bedroom: We transformed a cardboard box and leftover wallpaper into a wardrobe for her teddies clothes; and an old duvet cover into a den.

Because of all of this, I haven’t had that much free time for sewing, which is why this is my first post for a while.   But when I have had time, I have been making a few face masks for the family and even a couple of birthday presents (but I can only reveal one at the moment!):

I have had lots of ideas for new products and modifications to my work over the summer which I hope to share with you very soon.  When I’ve managed to grasp a few moments with my sewing machine I have been experimenting with a few things to broaden my embroidery and appliqué  skills and  I am looking forward to getting back in front of the sewing machine on a more regular basis to expand on these - I’m quite exited, watch this space!

Something a little different

After the success of Freddy the Frog my Dad asked me to do another piece for him, this time from one of his ex-work colleagues.   I don’t normally do pictures by adults but I’m always up for a challenge so I thought I should give it a go.   The story behind the picture is that it was drawn while Dad and his colleagues were on one of their work team-building trips to the south of France.   One of the days they were split into teams and had to do tasks throughout the day.   This drawing was the final task and won the contest for my Dad’s team.   The colleague who drew it gave it to my Dad as a memento and he has always treasured it, putting it in a frame in his home office.   So, he asked me to make a textile piece from it so that he can send it to the original artist.   Here is the result:

Starting to turn my craft hobby into a small business

Over the years I have thought about starting a business from my passion for crafting and making.   When I have made things friends have often said that I should be selling them but more often than not the things that I made would be other peoples patterns or designs - we all start out like that right? - that is how we learn, begin experimentation and then finally create our own ideas and designs.   But, especially for me, this is a long process!  I am not the fastest worker, am a perfectionist and, until now I hope, could not settle on a craft to pursue and focus on.   Also, it is hard to find an item that people want to buy.   I would rather make things to order than have loads of stock hanging around that I will never get rid of!

I had a small breakthrough about 6 years ago, I had designed some Halloween bunting which then led on to some Christmas bunting and decorations.   I was working in an open plan office at the time and so took some of my makes into work and displayed them on my desk.   Soon I had people asking if I could make some for them and as a result sold quite a bit that Christmas. But then life got in the way again, we moved and then had our daughter and making went by the wayside for quite a long time.   

Then a few months ago I read an article on the Martha Stewart website about a lady called Inez in Singapore who makes hand embroideries in hoops from her 5 year old daughter’s drawings and doodles.   This was like a revelation, I had been amassing all of Chloe’s drawings - there are a lot, she is very prolific! - and so I had a go, first at hand embroidery and then free-motion machine embroidery and appliqué which I have always wanted to get better at but found working with a hoop on the machine to be tricky.

Then the second revelation hit - I found work by a textile artist called Katie Essam.   Rather than using a hoop to stabilise her work on the machine she uses a thicker base material, calico, stabilised by iron-on interfacing.   The hoop is now a thing of the past in my studio and my work has been totally transformed.   I absolutely love my new way of working and hopefully this shows in the work that I am now producing.

I then thought that maybe other people would like their children’s artwork to be transformed into textiles too and so I asked some of my friends if they would mind me working on some of their children’s drawings. They happily agreed and I have been overwhelmed by their responses and the praise they have given for my work. Here are some examples of these collaborations:

If you also have a budding little artist at home and you have a special piece that you would like to treasure forever in the form of a unique piece of textile art please contact me either in the comments, links or via my email: annamaltoys@gmail.com.

New Project - Meet Freddie the Frog

My parents came to visit us a couple of weeks ago and brought with them a metal frog for my daughter that used to belong to my grandmother.   Chloe took an instant shine to him and named him Freddie.   They became inseparable for the rest of the day until she decided that he belonged out in the garden to look after the tadpoles in our pond!

The next morning she drew this lovely picture of him:

Then my Dad saw my previous blog post links on Facebook and asked me to transform the picture into textile for Mum.   To be brutally honest I was a bit stumped when I started the project - the picture is very bitty (apparently it is some money styled on a South African Rand note that she uses to play shops) and it felt like there should be something in the background to link it all together.   I thought I was going to have to experiment with painting or drawing in a pond-like background until I had a little search through my fabric stash and found some amazing vintage fabric that looked a bit like big blue lily pads!  

Thank you for stopping by my blog and taking the time to look at my work, let me know what you think in the comments below.  

Happy Father’s Day (a little belated!)

This week I have a special picture to share with you.   This is the gift that I gave my dad for Father’s Day.   I asked my 5 year old daughter and her 6 year old cousin to draw a picture of their grandad and they did not disappoint.   As soon as I asked my daughter to draw him her excited response was “I’m definitely drawing him in shorts because he always wears shorts!”, my nephew even managed to include his ever-present flip-flops!

The picture that my daughter drew was in colour so I honoured her colour scheme but my nephew’s drawing was in pencil so this gave me some artistic licence to choose the colours.  

My nephew is very much into Marvel superhero characters and I happened to be gifted some superhero fabric from the lovely Jen at Little T’s Haberdashery so this was the perfect fit for grandad’s t-shirt and was a good way to differentiate that the two drawings were from the two children.

Here is the finished picture:

Dad was very pleased with his picture and within minutes of opening had hung it in prime position on his office wall.  😊

If you like this and would like a similar picture making please contact me via one of the links on the right-hand side of the blog page or email me at annamaltoys@gmail.com.

Welcome back. 😃

This is one of the first pieces that I made from one of my daughter’s drawings.  
It is now up in my studio to give inspiration for future work.

Hello! And Welcome to my new and updated blog. It has been a while since my last post and this is because I took a break to have a family.   My daughter is now at school and I have decided to take the plunge and get back into making and posting my creations.   I hope you like my new work - and if you do please share, like and comment!

Recently I have come back to embroidery and have discovered a different technique for free-machine embroidery and now I am hooked!  My daughter was my inspiration, her pictures are so full of colour and freedom that they just had to be made into embroidery.   Children have a very different approach to art than adults and their work is so free, they see the world so differently and this is wonderful to capture in my work.   If you would like your children’s artwork to be transformed into a forever-love item (they also make lovely and unique presents!) then please contact me for a quotation either through this page or my email - annamaltoys@gmail.com.   You will soon also be able to find some of my work for sale on Etsy.

Thank you for looking at my work.

This is a piece from one of my friend’s daughter -  it was her Mother’s Day card.