Shiny New Website.

It's serious now!

We've got a website and everything!

How fancy!

Take a look if you like.

Massive thanks go out to the guys at Coderra for making this tip top internet based creation.

Taking Stock.

We like this blog a lot...we've been reading it for years now. 

We think that Pip is the bees knees, soo we decided to play along with her 'Taking Stock'. Pull up a reading pew and find out some stuff about us ( when we say us we mean Bex).

Making : French knitted and knotted necklaces

Cooking : Slow roast pork belly and veg (it was yesterdays dinner)

Drinking : A can of fanta ( I stopped drinking fizzy pop for about four years but since I conquered my fear of the dentist I allow myself a can of fizzy orange from time to time)

Reading: Struggling through the last few chapters of Day Watch.

Wanting: The Debbie Greenaway print i just priced up and put out in the shop.

Looking: For a successful future

Playing: Albus and Winnie ( a game me and Beardy play involving members of the public who we think look like wizards or witches)

Wasting: The end bits of loaves of bread...they never seem to make it through to the end of the week without going moldy)

Sewing: Soon to be sewing a draw string pouch for the knitted and knotted necklaces.

Wishing: For lots of customers today

Enjoying: Listening to Daughter and getting excited for seeing her in September

Waiting: To wake up from this dream that is commonly known as my life at the moment.

Liking: Making lots and lots of pompoms for the new window display.

Wondering: If I've made the right decision

Loving: Selfish coffees (coffees where I'm by myself)

Hoping: The workshop tonight goes well.

Marvelling: At the incredible things people make by hand.

Needing: A couple more hours in the day

Smelling: The new lavender air freshener i brought for the shop

Wearing: a new pleated navy skirt i brought in a charity shop in Bath.

Following: My own lead since i took the full time plunge.

Noticing: Spots of floor i missed when i mopped this morning.

Knowing: I have to ‘just keep swimming’

Thinking: Of new display options for the shop.

Feeling: Fizzed up because i just finished my can of fanta.

Bookmarking: Workshop ideas.

Opening: New deliveries

Giggling: At stupid cheese jokes

Feeling: Postive over all with frequent bursts of doubt.

Until next time!

xx

Stitches Shaped Like Crosses On Postcards.

I don't know if you know but we run fortnightly workshops at the shop too. They are called Make It Mondays, and they are a rather jolly affair full of crafty goodness and ambition! We've got one coming up called 'Things You Don't Normally Cross Stitch On' 

We will show the ten lucky attendees how to make a cross stitch brooch (made from polymer clay), a 'cross stitch mug' (involving a white mug and a ceramic pen', and we will show them how to cross stitch onto vintage postcards (We got the idea from this blog)

We think its good form to have a practice before we are put in charge of peoples crafty endeavors so Bex spent the first part of today sewing a rose and a tulip onto a postcard.

Here's how she did it!

You will need: a postcard, a ruler, a big sharpish needle, some embroidery threads, a pencil, some scissors and a rubber.

Take your ruler and pencil and mark a grid system (i just put some dots at every 0.5 cm interval)where you would like your cross stitch to be on the post card. I marked a grid that was 0.5cm by 0.5cm. Once you've marked your grid out take your needle and poke it all the way through the postcard at every point marked.

I decided I was going to do a rose first so i picked out some rose like shades. I found the rose pattern on pinterest.

Then it's just a case of copying the pattern from the laptop onto the postcard. Every square on the pattern is equal to one 0.5cm by 0.5cm cross stitch.

I thought a tulip would look good to so I sorted one of those out.

Here is the rose.

Here is the tulip.

And Hey Presto! A postcard with stitches shaped like crosses on it. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.
Until next time.

Full To The Brim With.

We figured it would be a good idea to let y’all know who we are full to the brim with. So below is part one (if we put it all into one list it would be rather long.)

Katy Spragg.

(Illustrated ceramics)

Debbie Greenaway

(Illustrated cards, jewellery and bunting)

Brady and Proud

(Hand bound notebooks and journals)

Beth Boodle

(Screen printed prints, cards and tea towels)

StuffedNonsense

(Quirky handmade plush and homewares)

Vivid Please

(Tongue in cheek stationery)

Birds In Hats

(Cards and prints covered in pictures of birds...in hats.)

Pink Green

(Covered button and shrink plastic jewellery)

Julo De Gruchy East

(Handmade artist plushies, prints and tote bags)

Martha Ford

(Wonderful prints and cards)

Melly Bee

(Screen printed aprons, tea towels, badges and invites)

Amy Walters

(Prints for your walls)

Hello Dodo

(Screen printed and digital prints to make you smile)

Mr Peebles

(Prints and cards jam packed full of wonderous puns)

Kayleigh O’Mara

(Cute cards and jewellery)

Right, That's your lot for today, my eyes have gone square...more sellers coming soon!

On A Daily Basis

Whilst El is on maternity leave it’s just me in the shop at the moment. It can get a bit lonely sometimes, and my over active mind and imagination are my own worst enemy (they are also incredibly useful at times too...but at the moment they are more troublesome than useful)

 Here is a list of things that run through my mind on a daily basis.

•       ‘This is a ridiculous idea. What were we thinking?’ (No one has been yet and we have only been open for an hour, I must go and find a quiet, dark corner and start crying in it.)

•        ‘Oh no! The radio is playing ‘Youth’ by Daughter’ (It’s a beautiful song but makes me cry every time I hear it)
•     ‘Why do people insist on thinking the shop is a charity shop?’ (here’s an example of a conversation I regularly have:

‘Hello, is this a charity shop?’, ‘No, but we are a lovely shop full of handmade items’,’oh...I thought it was a charity shop’...customer leaves without even looking.)

       ‘What were we thinking I’m not up to this, we can’t run a busy shop! We’re rubbish!’ (following a busy rush)

•   ‘It’s a good job the shop has two doors; this breeze is lovely and cool.’
•        ‘It’s 3pm...time for cake’ (The shop is run in association with Cafe Moochoo...meaning I’m just a stone’s throw away from the tastiest homemade cakes in Cheltenham) 
• ‘I hope people don’t think mean things about us because we have opened a shop’ (this one seems weird doesn’t it? But I’m aware that our situation is incredibly fortunate and that some people get envious and that that sometimes comes out as mean thoughts...for example ‘I want to run a shop like them...I’d do a much better job than them...and I have better shoes and hair than them too’)
•        ‘Mum and Dad are going on holiday this week...It would have been lovely if I could have gone to with them, but the shop needs to be manned...and anyway they are going camping and it would have been ridiculously hot in the tent’
•        ‘Ohh...I better check Facebook for the tenth time in half an hour’ (Social media is an important part of every new business right?)
• ‘I need to dust AGAIN!, stupid bloody bare brick walls’ (they look pretty but they make such a big dusty mess every day!)

Well there you go; A brief ten point glance into the mind of Bex. I hope you survived. It has been said that my mind is a crazy place; I hope you emerged relatively intact.

 I’m off to complete the final 50cm of French knitting I’m doing for this project (if your crafty you should check out pagesfrommymoleskineit’s full of lovely tutorials and ideas.)

xxx

This Is Who We Are & This Is What We Do.

We are El (on the left) and Bex (on the right) and we are StuffedNonsense. StuffedNonsense is handmade business specializing in quirky plush and home wares.

By The Yard is the new chapter in the StuffedNonsense story.

We spent five years ‘playing around’ with StuffedNonsense. When we say playing around what we mean is we dipped our toes into craft fairs and stocking shops around the UK & we also dabbled in the world of Etsy. We even opened a small studio shop which we were foolish enough to ‘assume’ would work.  It was a lot of fun and we met some truly super people along the way, but it wasn't paying the bills and we began to get a little frustrated that we were putting soo much hard work in and not getting anything out the other end.  The impending arrival of El and Johns little bundle of joy (the bundle of joy is no longer impending and she is called Efa, she arrived on the 4^th of July healthy and happy) also made us realize that we couldn't play at this anymore. We had to get serious or get a grown up job somewhere.

So we decided to pull our fingers out and our socks up. We got serious about achieving our dreams; we got serious about doing this for a living.

We took some time to sit down and really figure out what we wanted and once we had put all the ideas into one pot we stirred it around and poked it a bit. We knew we wanted to have our own shop full of our work and also the work of all the other talented makers and designers out there. We knew we wanted to help new designers and makers figure out their approach to retail outlets. We knew we wanted to run workshops and show people that they all had a crafty bone in them somewhere. We knew we wanted to create a space that would be inspiring. In short we wanted to become the creative hub of Cheltenham.

And so By The Yard Was born.

This is us trying to achieve our dreams. 

Welcome aboard, we hope you enjoy your stay. 

xxx