Quite some time ago, I made little mice for Christmas, based on a vintage pattern that I had made when I was a kid.
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 🙂 ).
I had an image in my mind of white linen mice (the original ones were tweed) in bright silk skirts, no boys this time and I was quite fixed on blue and orange colours with something else for the third (hot pink?), channeling a tin of Quality Street for colour inspiration or maybe my newer love, Lindt truffles.
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.
The first two girls were looking good, I was very pleased. I swapped out the bright white linen (as it looked wrong) for some oatmeal linen and added gold ric-rac for extra bling.
Then I realised what the little mice really reminded me off – Cinderella mice!
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 here.
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.
Right, back to sewing something less jolly, probably back to the black spider purses as I’d like to get them finished too 🙂 I’m on a roll – ha ha!
Random thing but my laptop is stuck on often doing two spaces….I think I might have got some food crumbs under the keyboard, that’ll teach me to show more respect. It’s driving me nuts, though!
I guess it’s just an extension of how my general taste has changed. This house was all white with wooden floors (a definite and intended Scandi feel) and although I’ve always liked bright accents of colour, colour is now creeping onto the walls too with bold colours in the kids’ bedrooms and green walls in mine.
Some of the old favourites are back, though, including baubles on ‘the dog’.
and a knitted Santa that my Gran made and that was always in my room at Christmas when I was a kid.
The Pelham puppets are up again in the kitchen…the star lights never actually came down!
 And some of my really old decorations have gone on a tinsel tree in the kitchen this year.
When I think of Christmas I think of the colours of a box of Quality Street, all foil and bright with purples, greens, blues and golds. I guess it’s a childhood nostalgia thing. I recently bought a box of Quality Street to use as props for photos (of the Christmas Stockings) and it sadly reminded me that although I like the wrapper colours I don’t actually like the chocolates inside!
So instead, I’m going to think of this bowl of Lindt chocolates bought for me as a gift last weekend….there is an entire Lindt shop in Bluewater – who knew! I just LOVE the colours (and the chocolate) and I have some plans for Shop makes for next season that will definitely be inspired by these.
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.
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 
I did finish some of the new aprons, but there wasn’t a chance to photograph them (red is very difficult in good light, but in winter, almost impossible). I’m happy to have the ‘reject’ one to keep and wear on Sunday (I always keep the one I am least happy with), the rest will be for next year now.
I bought an extremely cheap box of tat from Ebay…
to use with some tree rejects (the things that weren’t strung etc) to make a wreath. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but I love it. It only took about 20 mins to make and then a painful hour to fix to the door!
It’s on just in time for the weather to turn nasty, as the remains of Storm Barbara head our way. The door has a small overhead porch so I’m hoping it survives alright, but as pretty much everything on there is plastic, it should be OK.
So that’s it. I’m quite excited about not leaving the house for a few days and for the first time in forever, we genuinely don’t have anything planned for almost a week (we do have guests, here and there, but I have a stocked freezer and cupboards, ready). I’m thankful we’re all healthy and happy and together for Christmas so I hope for the same for everyone I know.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently trying to work out the best way for me to balance making a living, with looking after the boys. My oldest finally has his official diagnosis and Charlie will (hopefully) be getting his in the coming year. Having children ‘on the spectrum’ means I am quite restricted in the hours I can work, especially with being a single parent, and having gone through a quite difficult transition into Secondary with Felix it just demonstrates to me how dependant the boys will be during certain periods of their lives. So, it really does have to be working from home (for the moment, anyway) as that offers the flexibility I need, and it has to be sewing, as I’ve already invested so much time into establishing a ‘business’, plus it’s the only thing I really know how to do. The difficulty is it’s getting increasingly hard to compete with commercially made items, especially now that ‘vintage’ (sorry, there are lots of quotation marks today…..always makes me thing of Ross in Friends and I cringe slightly that I use them so often!) is so mainstream, and handmade (resisted the urge to stick quotation marks there) is also so fashionable. I’m not complaining, I love how much lovely stuff you can buy these days, I just need to take some time out properly in January and plan how best to present my work to either differentiate it from commercially made things, or to compete on price. I see beautiful pieces of work on a daily basis where I think about the price versus how much I would have to charge for something similar in order to make it scale. Tricky, but doable. I have faith in me 🙂
Every year, I buy the boys some form of decoration critter that goes in their stocking, usually it comes from Anthropologie (See the top photo for this year’s bits and pieces) but as I was reading Facebook this morning, the cutest thing popped up in my targeted adverts from 
Clearly I’ve shopped there before, for their link to appear in my social media, but I haven’t had a look for ages and I got sucked into a good browse this morning.
I love the 
They also have Mimi Kirchner owls!!! 
Sooooo cute.
I was a bit gutted to miss out on a Doug the Pug from the ASPCA Animal ornaments (F would have LOVED one of those!)
but I did get a couple of Brimley Cats, which the boys will be very exited about (in case you don’t have internet crazy kids, this collection is inspired by famous internet pets).
On the US site you can even get tea towels!
If the above don’t work for you, what about some Fair Trade handmade ornaments?
or (and this is probably more my kind of thing, at the moment) some sequin clip-on birds?
They have quite a few pretty Christmas bits, much at half price right now, so it is worth popping over for a look.
We’ve gone for retro tack again this year, our favourite thing being the foil flowers Mum took off some crackers in the 1980’s. You don’t have to try hard to work out who I get my hoarding tendencies from, I mean, who keeps tacky cracker decorations for 30 years!!
My plan for today is to wrap gifts, write cards, and it was to photograph a new Christmas apron for the shop, but the light is so bad I don’t think that’s going to be possible…
I might even find time to watch Elf and eat a mince pie 🙂
I started them back in January, which is often the case for winter specials. I do quite a bit of designing and planning for the next festive season, just after one has passed; I think I just want to commit to some of the new ideas I’ve had that I don’t find time to make with all the craziness that happens in the run up to Christmas . 
There were mistakes, as always, with the odd swear word used, 
but I’ve managed to refine the making technique of mice to avoid the past pain of turning the whole thing out, skirts and all, through a teeny, tiny gap in the side. Bonus.
On another side note, one 
I worked on them over the summer, Instagrammed them (and subsequently sold a few before I got to blog and list them, sorry);
but the last few have just gone live in 
I really am supposed to be winding down the things that don’t make a great profit, but at the same time, I really enjoy making them and they are always fun to photograph, usually because of the skirts and shoes…..we’ll see, maybe there will be more next year  after all 🙂
This is how I’m planning to approach the New Year! Â Ha ha, although I do admit that The Linen Cat is due for a very big shake up. Decisions have to be made about what I intend to make in the future and certain lines are going to be resigned to the sale section. I need my sewing to be more profitable, although the main reason my shop has been so stagnant is all the blind and curtain sewing I have been doing, and that has probably brought in a more consistent ‘salary’ so it can’t be sniffed at. Clearly I still need to get my blog mojo back, both writing and reading, or perhaps move onto Facebook? I think that Twitter has defeated me and my Instagram account has about one photo on it. I also think I should open an Etsy shop and start shipping worldwide, but I’ve said that before and not quite got on with it.
(
I got off to a good start, with pretty much all my gifts bought and even wrapped in early December, which was good as then the kids got sick, and I mean properly sick as in days and days off school and lots of vomiting all over beds. Â I then also got sick, but as always didn’t have time to be ill, so just got on with it, as you do. Â Not quite as bad as the pneumonia year, but heading that way.
Then Tuppence broke her leg, right when Buster was due in for his SECOND hip operation, so I had two cats hopping about the living room, not allowed outdoors. Â Thank goodness for pet insurance or I’d have had to sell one of the children by now.
For our tree, I was inspired by 
A few of these came from home, when Mum and I cleaned out the attic years ago and she put a box of ‘Christmas tat’ aside for the bin and I rescued it, because I’m a hoarder and I can’t help it!
It mostly contained these foil baubles, from the early 90’s, I think, and some amazingly hideous but fab foil flowers things she took off some crackers one year. Â 
A lot of the other things came from the mixed Ebay batches I bought years ago when I was buying true 
I took some time this year to go through and pack up decorations in proper storage boxes. I’ve kept one large box of modern things, (my vintage stuff is kept separately) and it was interesting to see how my taste has changed, this layer was from when I first owned my own home, I was all set to send it to the charity shop but the boys objected.
This is the style I’ve had for the last few years, lots of glass mushrooms and fircones etc, that I mix in with my own shop 
I did also have a mini tree in the hallway window (as they are very deep) complete with tiny coloured lights so I could put some of my more delicate and older decorations up – sorry, I forgot to photograph it!
Christmas itself was fab. We had all recovered from our various sicknesses in good time and were lucky to be invited out to France again, with my Sister and other half.
I love it that the boys also like to dress up for Christmas, Charlie spent quite a bit of time planning his outfits and was insistent that we brought along three different jumpers….for the whole three days we were going to be away!
We did some nice walking (no skiing this year, which was good as there was no snow anyway!).
And ended our stay with the usual 2 hour delay at Geneva airport on or way back. Â Oh, we flew from Southend Airport, which I didn’t even know existed and is now my top favourite. Â There is easy parking and no waiting for customs etc….it’s a winner for me.
Above, is a gift received, some beautiful celluloid bangles that I had on my ‘wish list’, from 
I’d originally planned to use the berries as part of the gift packaging, but then I thought it might detract from the fact that each piece is handmade and individual so I gave them wrapped in their original bags and ribbons.
And not exactly new, I’ve owned it quite a long while now but I know I’ve never blogged about it, a vintage, hand-knitted 1960’s jumper from 
thelinencat.wordpress.com 