Turkish Delight.

Ok. I can remove the paper now and reveal whats underneath. So glad you like it Jo. The material as I said is nearly 40 yrs old. Before we got married my soon to be M in L gave me 7 pieces of beautiful real silk remnants. She worked in a clothes factory and would often bring home end of line remnants or faulty seconds. Over the years this continued and I made various items for the children from the materials but always carefully putting the silk back thinking that one day I would use it. Well the children grew up and I would still get the silk out from time to time and just look at it, feel it and enjoy it. Then I bought a book on Embriodered Boxes by Janet Edmonds and suddenly those pieces of silk took on a new meaning. Mum is no longer with us but I bet she is reading my blog so thankyou Joyce. Enjoy.

Sneaky peek time.

I have been busy this week making this. Sorry. I can't show you any more at the moment because it needs to get to its new home first. Lets just say full of Eastern Promise.

Eyelet stitch project

I have been to the Textile Colour and Stitch class this afternoon. I took along my finished silk rod

bag and WOO HOO they want to upload pictures of it onto their Web site in order to promote awareness of the workshops that they run.

Below is the the next project using Eyelet stitch along with different textured materials to build up a fabric picture. Again I have set myself 3 criteria. They are:

1. Not to be a bag this time

2. Not to keep the finished item

3. Not to buy any extra embellishments just use up more of my stash.

Already Flo is giving me some ideas so I shall go along with her as it worked last time!

Finished Silk Carrier Rods.

Remember the silk carrier rods project?
As soon as I brought the material home from class I knew I wanted to make a bag of some kind from it though I set myself 3 criteria for completing it.

They were:

1. The design of the bag would have to fit round the panel.
2. The bag had to serve a purpose and be useful.
3. I would only use material and notions that I already had and not buy anything extra.

This design is a version of a pattern by Bronwyn Hayes from her Flowerbed book. I do not have the pattern and have only seen a picture of one made on another blog so this is my interpretation of it.

Now I have a place to put all my crochet hooks/crochet cottons and embriodery needles/threads. By using the silk rod panel for the front of the bag I just sized the rest of it to match. Best of all I did only use stuff from my stash. So here it is.

Front view showing the silk rod panel and the added embriodery details:

Side view showing the inset bag which is stitched to the base:

And opened up flat to show the drawstring bag inset housing all my crochet cottons and the
pockets for embrioderythreads /needles and crochet hooks:

My next class is on Wednesday so stay tuned!!

Origami Boxes

Welcome to my new style blog done by the very
Lovely Jo from Siggi Shop. I just love it. Now I
feel like a proper blogger. Thanks so much Jo.

Have been busy today finnishing the lids for two Origami boxes I made before going on holiday. I used an old roll of wallpaper which was the inspiration for the blog pattern.

Meet Anna.

Say Hello to Anna. This is a Victorian rag doll that I made for my daugther one Birthday (I'm not allowed to tell which one).
She has come down out of the loft especially for a photo shoot. A good soak in the bath and freshly washed and ironed clothes does wonders for a girl!

When my daughters freinds saw her they all wanted one, so as their Birthdays came round they each got one made to their chosen name and dress colours. I think I ended up making about a dozen in total . A couple of grannies requested her too.

I have just downloaded some e-patterns for Raggedy Ann

dolls. These are a different style to a Victorian doll (which is

very precise) and the technique is completely different too.

For a start you spray the dolls with instant tea after they are

made to age them. I shall have some fun making them.

Treasure chest

This is a fabulous tapestry chest we have just
bought. It now houses some of my shoes but not all of them and some of my bags but not all of them! Just how many of them I'm not saying but a girl can never have too many shoes or bags. Personally I can't leave the house unless everything is matching right down to the last detail.

Squirrel

This is a lovelly Allium that I had planted in a container at the bottm of the garden. It didn't come up last yr and when I

redid the pot I found all the bulbs had gone. Mr squirrel was very busy last winter digging up his nuts that he had hidden around the garden so I think he had these for breakfast one day too!!

Tree felling and Cacti garden

We have just been doing our annual tree felling exerise on waste ground to the side of our house. The garden is south facing and would have sun all day if the trees were not there so we trim branches off them each year as the council will do nothing. The down side is that we now have loads of tree to take to the council tip. The upside is that the cats get new scratching posts!!

A couple of years ago we went to Egypt on holiday and the hotel we stayed in had a lovely

cacti garden in the grounds. This is my version

which I made as soon as we got back home.