Craft Fair Goodies

This post was originally published on 9 September 2012

The craft fair was in Canberra a few weeks ago and, obviously, I went. It's good fun because there's so many different things so even though I could probably get most of the stuff online it's fun to browse. Much more variety than the few shops in Canberra.  So this year's goodies included:

Packet of various types of linen and evenweave to try out (don't know the shop name), novelty zips, sashiko printed panel, sashiko thread and lovely japanese fabrics to edge the panel with and turn it into a table runner (from bebebold.com) and a book! 18th Century Embroidery Techniques, which I thought would be handy for working out how to do my pockets - I ordered a pattern from Nehelenia Patterns, which is nice but doesn't have much explanation of stitches or anything like that.  The books looks really nice, I saw a review of it on American Duchess a while ago, and I agree with everything she said, if you're interested.

These are make-your-own plastic coasters.  I have a plan for making some super cute cross stitch coasters. I don't know how pretty these will look, but it's probably a better option than sitting a mug directly on the cross stitch.  Anyway, I'll see how it goes.

This is last year's craft fair purchase! I hadn't heard of sashiko before (Japanese embroidery) but I've always loved those geometric Japanese patterns (apparently originally derived from sashiko) so I decided to have a go.  It's even easier than cross stitch (the kits come with pre-printed fabric) so it's a nice relaxing thing to do.  My mum was pretty sceptical, Japanese isn't really her thing, but she came to the craft fair with me this year and now she's got her own sashiko project : )