I just fell down a massive rabbit hole, which seems apt considering this post is about rabbits.
I was looking for past images of egg cosies and I got sucked into looking at my life over the past 14 years in blog and shop photos. As I write (or used to, anyway) two blogs, one for sewing and one for gardening/cooking, it was a full-on nostalgia trip of how the house and garden used to look (tidy and new! I had so much more time for them than I do these days), how cute the boys once were and loads of sewing designs I’d forgotten about.
Anyhow, sorry, back to the point.
Cosies were one of the very first things that I made and although in truth they don’t sell brilliantly consistently, the woodland linen rabbit ones (the third incarnation, after brown mice and the original trio above) have been one of the most popular magazine requests of all my work, including getting into the hallowed pages of Country Living, and every Easter, there is a flurry of sales. It’s interesting, when we were kids we were always served our dippy eggs covered in a cosy but I never think to do the same when making eggs myself.
I had started a batch some time ago using a really pretty grey/blue Liberty Tana Lawn in the Betsy print but I got obsessed by the idea of using coral pink ric-rac which I simply haven’t been able to source, not in 100% cotton anyway. Then last week, in an attempt to close up some project boxes (I keep all of my work stacked in Ikea see-through A4 boxes and there are a LOT of them at the moment), I relented and used some blue polyester ric-rac from my old stash. I don’t think anyone buying one of the cosies cares if the trim is 100% cotton or not and the blue looks really pretty, in fact probably better than pink would have.
They started off really quick and I wondered why I don’t make them more often, then I got to the ears – the bl*@dy ears!! What a nightmare they are to get even, they tend to head off at jaunty angles no matter what you do so I end up unpicking and re-sewing them a number of times. The ric-rac also doesn’t always match at the sides no matter how careful I am, but I’ve had to suck that one up and remember that they are handmade and should look so (in a professional kind of way, if you know what I mean).
I really struggle to purposefully stitch the arms to look like they’ve been ‘sketched’, which is how I want them to look, as my instinct is to stitch the second line exactly on top of the first, I have to make them a bit wobbly on purpose which kind of triggers me a bit!
They are done and a final batch of red ric-rac ones are on the way (to use up my final length of it) and then I might really retire the design and move on.
You can find them here.
No idea what’s next, it’s half term and I always find it difficult to work with the boys in the house so I hope to address some of the hand-sewing in more unfinished project boxes as one of the boys has taken over my workbench for Art homework. For now, back to old photos and admiring how my garden used to look!
They were very typical of my taste at the time and of how my Christmas tree looked.
But as happens, my taste has changed slightly and we’ve gone a bit more gaudy these days with ‘trash tree’ and it’s odd assortment of broken plastic deer, santas and 1980’s foil decorations.
It seemed like a great opportunity to make new mice, something I’d always planned to do, but more fitting to our ‘new’ (to us!) decorations (well I say that, quite a few came from a trash bag Mum once started in the attic and I rescued them, like the sad little hoarder I am 🙂 ).
Then I remembered my promise not to buy new fabric when I have plenty to use up. Boring. Oh well, orange and purple is not so bad and still fitted the brief. The orange silk is lush, it has a gold and hot pink crossweave, I will be very sad when it is all used as you can no longer buy it.
And I decided a little boy was needed after all, leading to a total inability to chose what colour he would be which went on for some days (as I carried on stitching the girls).
Until I had a little girl mouse army going on.
Then I bit the bullet and went for pink for the boys (I tried green and blue but that didn’t look right).
After which followed more looooonnnng days of hand sewing. These mice take a really, really long time to make. Much longer than it appears.
But I managed to binge watch all of Stranger Things (or re-watch, actually, as I’ve seen it all once) ready for a fantastic day out at Secret Cinema whilst drinking lots of peppermint tea from my new festive mug. Wild days. I know how to live.
The final little touches!
And a day of trying to photograph, edit and list them and they are finally done – hurrah!
I bought a box of Quality Street especially for photographing them with but they looked better with Lindt chocolates…I think it’s the round shape, it just seemed to work better…I may have eaten a few.
You can find them 
For packaging the mice I had bought some cupcake boxes about 5 years ago (when I made the first batch of these!) and I decided to go ahead and use them, depsite the plastic I would never buy these days. I feel terribly guilty, the same way I do when using bags for flower brooches or sending things in jiffy packaging, but these things were bought in bulk in the early days of The Linen Cat (I have been selling and making since 2009 now) and I will use up the plastic I already have but won’t buy more. The alternative is to throw it away and that seems more wasteful.
The originals were made as a big Halloween themed bunch of designs back in 2014 (see 
The applique pieces came already beaded and were slightly 3D in style; the whole purse was based on Victorian mourning dress, specifically inspired by an antique dress I own.
By the time I made the second batch in 2015 I couldn’t get the same applique, so I bought a new design and beaded them myself (this made sense as I had to double stitch the beading on all of the first ones anyway, I was paranoid they might come off otherwise).
I was always a bit sad that they had an orange red lining as in my mind they needed blood red, hence the ‘Vampire’ purse name, but I had quite a bit of the silk to use up. I still love them though and I kept one for myself, it is by far the most used item from the shop.
This time, I got to indulge in my need for that blood red lining.
Yum. I love it!…..I may need to keep another for myself.
Gluing in the frames nearly killed me – I’d forgotten how much I hate that job.
But they are done and are listed 
Gosh, they went quickly! Some have already sold as I was writing this post.
Another re-make but one that’s always popular are the red rose brooches,
they are back too.
The witch mice from the original Halloween makes never sold well 😦 and the last couple have gone into the 
There’s a single vampire boy left too.
Whilst I’m in the mood, I’ve started on new spider purses for next year. I’m just re-drafting the pattern and annoyingly I will need to polish up the acrylic bodies of the spiders as they’ve turned up a bit scratched, which just won’t do.
Like half of the World, I am currently drinking only water, eating lettuce (in an attempt to undo the festive excesses) and dreaming of Spring.
It’s the same with my sewing work, I’m all for flowers and bright, sunny colours, I’m done with Winter tones.
Despite being away, I squeezed in some sewing over the holidays. The floral cushion was a little something for me, it took such a short time and I’ve had both the cushion pad and the tapestry hanging around for months and months waiting. I do find it difficult to carve out any time for sewing for myself.
I also managed to run up a batch of new Linen Rabbit Egg Cosies, because…
ta-da! I made Country Living again. Can’t lie, chuffed to bits.
I did make more of the ones featured, with the woodland print ears, but I still had the Liberty Tana Lawn out from my Fox and Badger making laying on my worktop and I couldn’t resist making some with ‘Mirabelle’ ears too.
I also remembered that I have one of the very original rabbits left from years ago, with the first ears (I ‘improved’ the design with the second batch as it bugged me that it was so difficult to make the ears neat and symmetrical) so he’s here for giving away to anyone that comments on this post. I guess I’ll randomly pick a name on the 26th January.
I’m not sure if I’ll make more, even with the newer ears they are a bu*%er to stitch evenly and the linen I use is also a nightmare to iron, but I can imagine lots more Liberty Tana versions in my head and once I get a plan I find it difficult to ignore. We’ll see.
I sold out of all ‘Woodland Animals’ after the Badgers were in Country Living so it seemed right to make more. It was originally an experiment in how long it takes to make them (let’s just put it this way, I am earning waaaaayyyyy below minimum wage) but I just kept going with new colour versions, as they were selling as quickly I could list them.
First, there were some pink ‘Betsy’ boys. I’m not sure why I’ve never made pink fox suits before, it seems like a winner and they flew straight out of the shop.
Then, after 
I haven’t made girls for ages and it was quite good fun. They have red ric-rac sandwiched between the hem and I used some crochet flowers I already had rather than making new ones with my Hana flower maker. One flew straight off to the Netherlands!
Next, came a batch of bright blue boys. 
All the linen is offcuts from apron making and it felt really good to finally use it up. I have a habit of keeping all of my trimmings (in this case, quite big bits of trimmings, so well worth keeping!) but I can go a bit overboard with my reluctance to throw things away. The tweed wool for the bodies was also the final length and I (forced myself to) throw the scrap bag of leftovers from this once I’d finished my last fox. They really were little bits that were too small for even fox ears so it felt quite good to finally say goodbye to the bag which has sat in my scrap drawer for years now.
There was a little badger interlude here as I’d had quite a few emails asking if I’d make more so I did one last batch of those.
One of the reasons I made new foxes over badgers or wolves is so I didn’t have to make the brooches. It isn’t that I don’t like them, in fact, I think they finish the animals’ suits off in style, it’s simply that they take a really long time to make (they take the same time as a full-sized flower brooch) and I don’t really charge much extra, so it really is a labour of love.
There was one exception. A lovely lady has bought a lot of the Woodland Animals asked if I could make a red fox in mustard. I pretty much never make to order as my life can get a little stressed and I hate the idea of letting anyone down so I decided years ago to always say no, but as I was making badgers in mustard anyway I figured I would make an exception (and I was happy to do so, I should add!)
Mr Mustard Fox got a special Liberty Betsy cravat in a colourway I imported from Japan. I only have a short length of it but it was perfect with the yellow linen. I then made a matching green auricula brooch. I have to say, I was really pleased with him….it’s a bit of a shame the weather was so crappy and dark so I couldn’t get a decent photo but he’s gone off to his new home.
It started as an idea a couple of years ago. I had bought some vintage (I’m going to use the word with abandon now) napkins when I was buying old Christmas stuff on Ebay and I couldn’t help but think they’d make great cuffs for Christmas stockings.
The plan was to combine them with some stash busting, specifically reducing my tweeds and a few Christmas cottons that I have. The problem is, as always, I tend to imagine the finished thing in my head and I then struggle to compromise on that vision.
The red tweed looked too ‘dull’ so I considered some linen, also from my stash, but that felt too similar in texture to the linen cuff. I like contrasts of texture 🙂
I ended up buying some bouclé wool in a crimson red. I also abandoned using the Christmas printed cotton for lining as the wool is a little stretchy and I wanted a matching stretchy lining so I opted for some nice, cosy, green brushed cotton.
I’m not sure if it show in the photos, but I added a little shaping to the top cuff to make it kick out slightly (I like to think it’s these details that make my work my own).
Then I embarrassed myself by buying the newly arrived Christmas stuff from the local supermarket as photo props – coins, Quality Street, a Lindt Santa and some walnuts and oranges.
But I liked the photos taken with some of my vintage decorations best.
The photos look really dark on here…it’s one of the problems when photographing red and at this time of year.
I’m very lucky that I’ve been in the magazine before (a few times, actually) but not for some time. In fact, I think it’s a lot harder to get into magazines in general these days, there is so much competition in the handmade market that it’s difficult to stand out and it’s increasingly important to keep up any marketing which is an area I really struggle to find the passion to maintain.
So, welcome, Mr Fox (in a Green Dandy Suit!).
These started with some amazing Liberty Tana Lawn that I bought and imported from Japan. Why are all the nicest Tana Lawns only available abroad? I’ve never figured this out, it seems wrong, especially as it’s such an iconic British brand. Anyway, at much expense my single meter arrived (back in 2010!!!) and it was yelling animal cravats at me, so that’s what I made.
With the addition of real leather buttons (I bought the entire remaining stock from Cath Kidston a few years ago when they went into the sale at a silly low price – one of my best buys as before that a lot of the leather buttons I used were vintage and they were getting hard to source at a sensible price).
There isn’t a lot else to add. Of all the foxes I’ve made, these are my favourite combination (but they don’t beat the wolves!), I really do adore the cravat fabric and bright green is very much my colour. They seem like a summer animal to me.
It’s likely that the remaining ‘
I’ve been making them in some form or another since 2010, but they take an enormous amount of time to make and the fabric alone is quite expensive so there is little profit.
They really are a labour of love.
There are still a few to be found in 
Christmas things are coming next!
There are a number of items on the long list and one of those is getting the website completed as I changed the layout and style a while ago but couldn’t settle on a logo and banner. I don’t have much of a clue about working in Photoshop so I do my best with the knowledge I do have and I think it works, but boy, does it take forever!
The cat idea is from ages ago but I had abandoned it as it didn’t feel right at the time. On a re-visit, I quite like it again, so I worked up the sketches and created a banner that feels good, for now.
The collar went as she looked like a vicar cat….but she might get a bow around her neck, at a later stage and annoyingly, the banner used in the Create templates can only be stupidly narrow so there is no room to use extra text.
Nibble, nibble, just keep nibbling away and it will all be OK in the end.
Forever ago (running theme here!) I was a bit obsessed with traditional vintage style Sailor Jerry tattoos, at the time I was researching tattoo swallows for aprons (still to come, when I finally photograph them) but the style, in general, is one I really like. If you don’t know who Sailor Jerry was just google him and you’ll recognise his work straight away.
I figured an oversized rose, outlined in black would look really good on a purse. The block colouring style of tattoos translates really well to applique and this vision was my starting point. I spent forever coming up with my own design, which is really difficult as there are so many copies (Sailor Jerry is iconic and therefore frequently imitated, especially the roses and swallows). I used a real rose photo and based the shaping on that, repeatedly simplified it down and then blocked the colours in. I often work on tracing paper then I use a printer to enlarge and decrease the size until I’m happy with it.
Most of the fabrics are simply what I had in stock and the main body of the purse is a deep claret cotton velvet. It’s quite difficult to capture on camera, especially as I often have to lighten photos but the above image is quite accurate.
For the lining I used some stunning fuchsia shot silk, it adds a real pop to the purses and complements the wine velvet really well.
Gluing the frames on nearly sucked all the life out of me, as it always does, but the plus is I’m getting really good at it without getting sticky fingers. I was a good girl and just got on with it and then rewarded myself with cake (which on less than 1000 steps in half a day I should NOT be doing!).
And they are done. And 
And would make a wonderful Valentines gift, I think; certainly, I’d be thrilled to get something similar!
One of the first things I did was to buy some fabric. Again, I had VERY specific plans and knew I wanted something gold and patterned, with a vintage vibe. What I didn’t know I wanted was THE most expensive silk damask available, unfortunately, I fell in love with it so nothing else would do. Joel and Son supply the Queen…apparently….I’m not surprised as I doubt anyone else could afford to shop there, beautiful though their fabric is.
After getting over the shock of the fabric price (my own fault entirely, I could have gone with manmade damask but it just wouldn’t have been the same as sumptuous silk), I got to work planning the placement of the dove I’d already designed. I scanned some of the fabric so I could understand how it would actually look and help see the edge stitching more accurately. I can get a bit disappointed with my head image and reality when doing applique pieces, as I tend to forget how the edge stitching will change the look of the finished item.
Back to doves. I remember I’d planned to take photos of the dove at each stage of the making process, in the same position, and I clearly started out well.
Before I then forgot.
Still, I’m quite surprised that I took so many photos as I often get too involved in the sewing to remember. 
It might not appear impressive, but all that neat zigzagging on the edges and wings took FOREVER and there are multiple scallop lines on the wings with various gold threads…again difficult to see in photos.
I spent some time deciding on the bias binding colour. I was originally thinking gold but it looked a bit drab in real life and in the end I went with a dark, wine red. I also considered the second piece of mistletoe but abandoned that, too.
At this point, I decided they needed more bling so extra sequins and beads were sewn onto the wings.
Back shot!
And finished dove, with mistletoe as that’s what I liked the most (I tried holly and an olive branch).
The truth is that I completed these in December, last year, but I just didn’t get them photographed in time. Red is always hard to capture, but especially so in winter light and I am not the best photographer around.
Even then, I completely forgot to take images this summer and I have just spent a frantic day doing my best in really crappy, grey light. But, as above, it’s always amazing what you can do in Photoshop to edit the colours. Sadly, the blue/grey background above was beyond saving so I had to add a new one and a terrible fake shadow.
And here is another example of an entire day of using the Photoshop eraser and altering the colours. One of this Summer’s stunning, cunning plans was to set up specific places for taking photographs and to that end, I bought some beautiful, brass dragonfly hooks, only there isn’t enough room by the door (the only spare bit of wall!) to get a square image without the door frame being in – Doh!
So more Photoshop with dodgy shadows. I need to cover or remove the black plastic parts of the hanger too….gold glitter and a glue gun??
MORE cutouts. I had finger fatigue by the end of the day.
But they get the images across and I could easily spend hours and hours trying to edit and photograph products; as it was this took me an entire day (including listing them in 
thelinencat.wordpress.com 