Down here in the Westcountry there is a fast growing trend for Shepherds Huts as a place of retreat and sanctuary.
Folks with a little bit of land or a large enough garden are choosing them as an option to rent as holiday accomodation too, cosying them up with little wood burners and simple living essentials .
At Livingstone Textiles we have furnished some unusual dwellings with our cloth, most memorably a tree house in a secluded valley not far from our front door. This week we’ve been working on a shepherds hut where a simplistic approach was requested.
Our client opted for a scandinavian inspired design of lollipop trees on a white background and an unusual lining. Choosing a ticking stripe for the reverse means that the little hut will look just as lovely from the outside as from the in and we think the effect is beautifully rustic.
To find out more about this fabric and others that are suitable for curtains and soft furnishings click here.
We have a strong ethos about waste at Livingstone Textiles. Wherever possible we reuse plastic and we recycle almost everything! So we were happy to be approached by Damers First School when they were looking to source fabric for their Eco Enforcers newest project. They have developed a product called Waxtastic No Plastic, which is cotton dipped in beeswax to make a natural antibacterial alternative to cling film for wrapping or covering food other than meat. The wraps can be washed and last for up to a year.
This lovely Easter bunny is really easy to make. We made ours by simply knitting a square with super chunky yarn, available from our Yeovil store, in garter stitch. Our square was made by casting on 30 stitches but you can make yours any size you like. You will want to vary the weight of the yarn if you are making a smaller bunny. Alternatively if you are not a knitter, why not try using the same principle with fabric? How about a hessian bunny for instance? (You can see at the end of the post how this turned out.)
Simply knit in garter stitch until your piece is square (you can check by folding into a triangle as shown) then cast off. Now you are going to create your rabbit shape. 
Find the middle of the top of your knitting and fold over both corners as shown. this shows where your stitching needs to go.
Leaving a tail, sew a running stitch along the lines shown in black in the picture, using one length of wool.
Pull on both ends of the wool to form the ears and the head. Your bunny will look a bit sad at this stage, so put some toy stuffing into the head to give a good shape and sew it closed at the back.
Next sew the back together down to the bottom edge. Fill the body with toy stuffing, then use a running stitch around the bottom edge and pull up to gather the base closed. Fasten off and sew in any loose ends.
Now use some black wool to embroider eyes and a nose, then give him a ribbon around his neck. Lastly make a pompom for his tail, or use one of our large white pompoms, sew this on and your rabbit is ready for Easter.
One of our regular customers has been busy making this fabulous, yet simple dress, from our teal cord and has worn it into the Bridport shop to show off her hard work!
Deep in the back recesses of the 2nd floor of a seldom visited corner of Livingstone Textiles, but not quite as far up as the attic there lives a dusty box. This box is the resting place of the Livingstone Penguins that flew over Bridport one winter and mistook our shiny tin roof for ice. Of course, once they’d landed here they couldn’t very well leave because they’d made so many friends with the children that visit our fabric shop with their parents. They also rather enjoyed the chocolate coins that we fed them on from the till so they decided to take up residence here and requested a nesting box to sleep in. We had a word with Tom and he granted them leave to stay with the proviso that every Christmas they must entertain the children by sliding down the stairwell. We’ve built them a new ice slide as the temperature has warmed up somewhat since last week and they seem pretty happy with it although we should tell you that we think there have been some pecking squabbles in the box over the summer because when we fetched them out, a couple of them had their eyes missing! If you’d like to make your own penguins out of felt, you can find instructions on how to do it 
One of our customers brought in their latest make last week and we wanted to share it with you. This lovely bag is made with one of our range of 
The bag has a bright colourful striped lining as well.
Our lovely range of
shoe bag for ballet pumps, and is not going to have clothes in so it doesn’t need to be that big, but if you are making a PE bag you will need it bigger than this one.
hem all your edges to hide all the rough edges
It may seem like a long way of with the sun shining very hot on us all, but our Yeovil shop has been busy getting ready for Christmas! Yes, it’s that “C” word that we normally don’t want to hear until at least December, and the word we don’t want to think about until at least half way through December. But Livingstone Textiles Yeovil is busy sewing and getting ready for their Christmas launch on the 25th of July!
image is a simple stitch on a angle. The piece is only finished when the whole piece is covered in stitches. A range of different colours can be used when creating a tapestry and any design of the crafters can be created. As can be seen in these images the customer choose to create an image of some very beautiful flowers focusing on the colours yellow and green. She then chooses a lovely yellow linen fabric to finish the cushion with a beautiful piping in the yellow lined to finish and frame the piece of work. The linen really complements this piece because of its weave, which then adds flow to the tapestry weave.