Bringing the Sunshine

It's said that your crafty motivation is either the process or the product.  People who are product driven really love the process otherwise they'd just go and buy a jumper, and people who are process driven really love the product.  Mostly.  Well, sometimes.  When the corners meet nicely or when gauge hasn't turned the planned cardigan into a pair of bizarrely conjoined long johns.

How do you tell? Well, if you're product driven then I can promise you that what follows may baffle you slightly. 

When Mollie Makes was launched I was hooked.  I mean when the tag line is "Living and Loving Handmade" you know it's going to be good.  I'm queuing up the project instructions for knitted and felt food for when Kitty's old enough to want to play tea parties, the adverts caused my credit card to start to quiver in my wallet, and the interviews are full of pretty pictures and good questions.  But my one weakness - the cover kits.

I love trying out lots of different crafts; when I lived in London I'd spend a day at the Olympia Knitting and Stitching Show taking class after class (often from the Royal School of Needlework students) on whitework, or satin stitch or beading, and the Mollie Makes cover kits are the same sort of thing in miniature and at home.

Having spent a fair amount of time knitting small elephants recently, and with Christmas still just far enough away to not worry too much, I thought a little indulgent crafty time was in order so I pulled out the kit from issue 4.


A sunshine flowers necklace.  The instructions were nice and clear and I had plenty of materials to have made even more flowers but this seemed like the right amount.  In the project instructions the necklace ties at the back, but to get as much length as possible I used the whole cord in the necklace.  The leaves are two layers of felt sewn together by the yellow running stitch and I buried the ends of the cord between the two layers.

The most difficult part of the whole enterprise was finding a needle big enough to take the cord and be pointy enough to pierce the felt.  In the end I used a crewel embroidery needle to make the hole and then enlarged it with my thickest fattest blunt sewing up needle and with a bit of jiggery pokery it all worked out OK.

But will I wear it?

Well I tried it on, and Kitty pulled at it and licked one of the flowers.  In fairness, my usual necklace (if anything) is a small gold cross so this was a bit of a difference, and the chances are that I'll never wear it as a proper necklace with a proper outfit. But that isn't really the point.  It's sunny and bright, and I smile when I see it, and it matches my tablecloth.

I'm going to hang it on the pinboard in my sewing room for sunshine on the gloomiest of days.