I have recently been having a bit of an overhaul of my folksy shop and trying to establish an identity for myself. My general approach to being creative has always been to do what I feel like doing at the time. I can happily jump from baking to sewing to knitting to cross-stich to drawing and have drawers of half finished projects to show for it. So my plan was to try to work in a more considered way and to actually create a collection of things with an underlying theme.
I had been thinking for a while about making a series of felt cassette tapes. There is something great about the cassette tape which I have to say I miss. As good as iPods are they are slightly soulless compared to analogue music playing devices. I remember happily swapping cassettes with people at college with no worry about whether you'd ever get it back. I used to paint the body of the tapes in nail varnish and stickers. And I miss the 'slowed down' thing that tapes used to do when the batteries were dying in your walkman. So the cassette theme seemed like a logical starting point (and links well to the record bowls I already sell)
I started by designing a make-up bag/pencil case pouch with a zip. I raided my stash of random felt, starting with light grey and adding the details in pale blue, dark grey, white and black (including letters for the A and B sides). I added a bright blue zip (by hand - still haven't mastered doing it on the machine) and a blue and white start patterned cotton for the lining.
Once I had designed the basic pattern, I decided to make a scaled down version to use as a brooch. I used the same basic colours but in a smaller version with a silver brooch back on the reverse. I like the cute diddy version a lot, it has a certain (wonky) charm!
