Handprinted bunting making at Eco Design Fair

We had a lovely time on the first day of the Eco Design Fair. As well as our stall full of print gocco and recycled vintage fabric wares, we have Xtina's fabulous new wrapping paper on offer.

As is usual when the Seaside Sisters get together, we also ran our bunting making workshop. We had a stack of vintage fabrics to choose from and the Xtina printed them up with our chosen messages, images and names.

I choose this sweet xmas tree girl. It was hard to choose from so many lovely images. Here are some of my freshly printed pennants drying on the rack. It only takes about 10-15 minutes to dry so we could run a 'while-u-wait' printing service for shoppers.

I'm really pleased with the finished bunting and can't wait to decorate the house now.


We also printed up lots of cheery xmas messages on lovely tweeds, silks and velvets.

For people too busy to stop, Xtina had her ready-made bunting for sale.

In between printing and chatting to our lovely customers, I managed a little xmas shopping, including a snazzy ring pull clutch bag, a recycled wool rug and a bangle made from sugar tongs. Beautiful and tactile. There are a wonderful array of sellers working with people around the world to create beautifully made and ethically traded original homewares and accessories.

We will be at the Eco Design Fair again all day (10-5pm) on Sunday, so do pop buy for some inspiring xmas shopping and bunting making.

Seaside Sisters at We Make London

I donned my Seaside Sisters hat last weekend and took the Seaside Sisters Bunting Making Party to We Make London. Linda and I set up in the beautiful setting of Chelsea Town Hall. I love this building, it is so grand and ornate, like being inside an exotic birthday cake, but so municipal as well with little brass signs and hatches for ticket sales.




My bunting adorned the entrance to the hall, and signs lured crafty fingers to our bunting making party. The lovely Sidney very kindly swapped places so we could take over the corner (we liked her hats) and we later spent the day swapping textile tales with her.

The highlight of the day was seeing all the lovely visitors of all ages to our stall create, decorate and sew fabulous bunting flags. Bunting makers rummaged through our stash of vintage and retro fabrics, trims and buttons to craft individual bunting flags or spell out messages. I love seeing how each person creates something so different and the pleasure they get from designing and learning. I never get over the different ways people can approach a simple idea that just needs minimal sewing skills to create something personal and fun. Many of our visitors were stall holder's children, who, not surprisingly, were very creative, including the lovely Cara's. Only later did I realise we had visits from Picciolo and Tobyboo's little people, both designers I really like and who's talent has clearly rubbed off on their children! We were also pleased to have a visit from Louise at ehive and enjoyed taking part in her We Make film and sewing with her daughter.



As usual, We Make was overflowing with beautiful creations, talented makers and lots of lovely people. Across the room, we admired Love from B, I liked their ice cream sundae fascinators so will be back for one of those and enjoyed sewing with Cariad. I bought a moustache adorned baby-gro for a friend's soon to arrive baby from Emily the Pemily - these are a very welcome alternative to the cutesville look that dominates baby clothes. We liked the orange maid lolly brooches from Mockinghorse, so realitistic they made our mouths water! Mary and the We Make team work really had to make these events a success - thanks lovelies!

All in all a buntastic day! Next stop Vintage Goodwood for the Seaside Sisters bunting-bikini-gocco making eco-craft-a-go-go!

Craft goes pop...

... at the Midland Railway in Butterley! aka the home of the Indietracks happening once a year, where Fabric Nation teamed up with Printed Wonders to run a bunting making party in the indietracks workshop wigwam.

Indietracks is a delightful music festival run in the grounds of a railway museum. It's been going for just a few years and is a lovely, perfect small celebration of all things indiepop. This year, for the first time, they included a workshop wigwam. We zoomed up the M1 on Saturday morning, pitched our tent and arrived just in time to meet the lovely Alice and transform the workshop wigwam into a bunting world.

With stacks of felt, sequins, buttons and teacakes on hand, we spent a fab afternoon with indie bunting makers. We were thrilled by all the lovely designs and bunting love, most especially, the girls who made birthday bunting for their friend and later met her off the steam train and wrapped her round in it!

The workshop wigwam was buzzing with creativity all weekend. As soon as we scooped up our pins and needles, Tatty Devine took over with a jewellery making session, helping indie campers create jewellery out of campsite finds. There were lots of train tracks and choo choo whistles being transformed into necklaces. We loved Alice's train track necklace.

Tatty Devine also where they were selling fab indietracks jewellery, including a bunting necklace, which of course we had to have!

Later on we joined Hey Ho Let's Sew to make felt and fabric corsages, really simple but effective designs and endless possibilities.

Here's Alison showing how to make a felt corsage, and Xtina modelling one she made.

It was lovely to meet the Craft Guerrilla's too. They run crafteroons in East London and had made a felt cassette brooch kit specially for the festival. I wish Walthamstow was a bit nearer to South London as their craft events look really good fun.

These scenes were typical of the weekend in the workshop wigwam. Everyone into whatever they were making and really enjoying it.

The craftiness was rounded off with a crochet and knitting that sprang out of the Buttons for Eyes portable workshop.

We also met Rachel from Kathleen and Lily, their shop is named after their nans! I loved their bingo earrings.

Even the indie popsters were getting in on the craft act, including this handmade CD cover stitched in felt from Little My.

We had such a lovely time, and I've not even told you about the steam trains, old buses, choo choo whistles, singing 'love is in the air' with a spainish popster, chatting with bar tenders about cheeky ales, riding steam trains, doing the indie dance with MJ Hibbett, dancing on the tracks, the happy express, tents with doors, sipping beers in old train carriages, guitars between the pews, falling asleep to boys singing 'we are the pipettes', and lots and lots of photos of vintage formica! Oh, and there was music too! More to come soon...