WOYWW 447

First of all, I am really sorry not to have replied to the lovely comments I had on my blog last time I was on here. I shall endeavour to do so in the next few days. As you can imagine, with my mum dying, and my hubby’s broken leg, and then Christmas, I have had more than enough to cope with and time has been very short. At times I have become quite overwhelmed with everything and have lost the plot on more than one occasion. When things are normal, I can just about cope with what I have to do, but add another raft of problems and things start to go a bit pear-shaped chez Shosh.

However, over the past few days things have generally been better. We have had a quiet couple of days over Christmas with no visitors, and I was able to concentrate on the dinner and just spending time with my hubby and the kitties.

We have loved having everyone dropping in to see us, but it all takes up such a lot of time and I can find my schedule slipping alarmingly, and I begin to get a panicky feeling that things are slipping beyond my control. Sometimes I’ve just had to apologise to people and take myself off and get on with things, and leave them to socialise with my hubby, which has made me feel a bit rude but it was the only way to keep going. Another problem is that most people have no idea about not letting the kittens out into the house from the flat – they stand with the door open, and before we know it, Ruby has dashed off upstairs, or worse, into the kitchen and I’m terrified of her getting outside when people are in and out! I can’t blame them, because they don’t know our arrangements and their aim is to see my hubby and they aren’t concentrating on anything else, but on occasion this has happened when I am at some crucial stage with the cooking or I’m already multi-tasking more than my poor brain can cope with!

Once we are back to normal again and people aren’t in and out all the time, we will be able to give the kitties the run of the house as we were doing before. At the moment they are generally very content in the flat with my hubby – they have loved having him there all the time, with a nice big warm lap for them to sleep on, and I have been spending as much time as possible in there too.

Here is Lily, lying as she so often does these days – shameless hussy, everything exposed!!

She is the most soft, floppy and laid back kitty you could imagine. She’s as bad as my hubby – all she wants to do is sleep!

Here is Ruby being queen of the castle on top of the cat tree. This one’s full of life, and wriggles and fidgets when being cuddled, but purrs her head off the whole time!

Do you remember Beatrice the Computer Queen? Well, it seems that Lily is following in her footsteps! She has been helping my hubby on his laptop.

Ruby, like Phoebe, isn’t a bit interested in the computer – she is more interested in having fun and generally being a really cheerful, enthusiastic kitty with no intellectual bent whatever.

Here are the latest videos of them. Can you believe they are now seven months old?

I have been doing lots of therapeutic cooking! On Christmas Eve I cooked a new recipe after watching Mary Berry on TV and just had to try her fish pie with soufflé topping. Here is the result.

The topping is done with cubed white bread and whipped egg white with a melted butter and cheese mixture. I used a combination of cod and salmon and chucked a few prawns in for good measure, and it was the most delicious fish pie I have ever tasted! This one’s definitely a keeper, and I don’t think Mr. Tesco will be persuading me to buy his “Finest” fish pie again! Thank you Mary!

My Christmas dinner was a triumph. It was the first I had cooked since 2006. That was my swan song, and I managed to prepare everything and did my best table decorations ever, but I didn’t really enjoy eating it because I was going down with a horrible flu-like illness and by tea time on Christmas day I was feeling so rough that I went to bed and didn’t get up for a week. I never bounced back from that, and it developed into the ME which has been with me ever since.

This year I was determined to cook a proper dinner again, with all the trimmings. OK, I did buy a Lidl Christmas pudding, but everything else I cooked from scratch, just for the two of us. I thought my hubby could do with spoiling, having broken his leg and been deprived of going out and doing all the things he wanted over Christmas. Here is the table, just as we were ready to sit down and eat.

Starting top left: crispy bacon and pigs in blankets. Top right: gravy, bread sauce, carafe of the delicious red wine which was given to us by our lovely neighbour. Middle, left to right: roast turkey, carved and ready to serve; three stuffings: chestnut, mealy (a traditional Scottish recipe made from oatmeal, a firm family favourite), and date and walnut; carrots and sprouts with whole chestnuts. Front row – the best roast potatoes I’ve ever cooked, after finding a tip online to par-boil them and then freeze them, and cook them from frozen, having tossed them in semolina. Crisp on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. I used Maris Piper potatoes, which, like King Edwards, are ideal for roasting. All laid up with my best china and silver on my favourite hand-embroidered tablecloth from my Scottish grandmother.

Here is a close-up of the decoration for the table napkins.

This is the small table centre I made.

These ribbon and paper decorations were made for my swan song Christmas table and I’ve used them on occasion in between. I can mix and match the different elements.

After we’d finished, we settled down to watch the Queen’s Christmas broadcast.

I was delighted a few weeks ago to discover that because I’d lost so much weight, I was able to get into my Afghan Nomad Dress again! I made this many years ago and could never bear to part with it. The whole of the front of the bodice is covered with hand embroidery, and it has a very full skirt, and is made of several different fabrics, all in rich colours.

A bit difficult to photograph as a selfie –here’s an old photo of myself in it when I first made it.

For Christmas this year, I braided my hair with ribbons and added some gold flowers. Here’s a back view.

My hubby was thrilled!

Mum

In view of all our current difficulties, we decided to have Mum cremated privately before Christmas, and then to have a memorial service in mid-January. This means we’ve got more time to plan something really special, and also more people will be able to attend who might have been away at Christmas. There’s still quite a bit to sort out, and plans for the service are coming together nicely now, and once the Christmas dust has settled, I shall be able to get down to producing the order of service as I did for Dad’s funeral.

Health Update

At long last I have an appointment to see my surgeon – on 11th January. I was getting desperate, having been promised an appointment before the end of the year and hearing nothing, so I phoned his secretary, and she passed me on to the appointments department, who immediately referred me back to her! I was spitting tacks after this. Since the return of Miss Piggy, my hernia, things have got more worrying – it is now in the same state it was at the beginning of the year when it caused a blockage, resulting in emergency surgery and me being really poorly for ages, something I am more than anxious to avoid repeating at all costs. I am suffering quite a lot of skin irritation around Kermit, my stoma, and he has not been settled all year really, and things are now worse, not better, which has been very disappointing after having such a good year last year. Hopefully my surgeon will agree to go ahead and do a proper repair in the New Year.

Finally, here is what my hubby gave me for Christmas: a set of Derwent Graphik Line Painter pens. I’d seen some reviews of these on Youtube and was longing to get my hands on a set! They come in a lovely box with a slip cover.

Hopefully in the coming year I shall get more time and energy to do a decent amount of art, after what has been a pretty disappointing year.

A Beautiful Gift

The first of two posts today.

I am currently experiencing major problems publishing blogs from Windows LiveWriter into Blogger. According to a forum on the Microsoft website this is due to changes by Microsoft and Blogger and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. Until it is sorted, I am copying and pasting from WLW into Blogger's own (awful) "Compose New Blog" so if the layout comes out all wrong, I apologise. It appears to be impossible to get consistent paragraph layouts with this and it's a real pain. 

As this is the final week of my regular 3-weekly chemo cycle, I am feeling considerably better (just in time to feel horrible again after Friday!) so the timing of this was perfect: on Monday my hubby agreed to take me out for a bit – I have hardly left the house these past weeks and months, except to follow that well-worn path to the hospital and all its attendant joys!

One of the friends I gained while in hospital had contacted me to tell me that she had several pictures in an exhibition held in Dunsford Church over the weekend. Dunsford is a very picturesque village in the Teign Valley, and every two years they put on an art exhibition which is open to all comers, and my hubby and I are both keen to enter something next time! We spent the afternoon in the church having a good look around and meeting some interesting people, and we were very, very impressed with the standard of work, in all media. The bulk of the exhibition was pictures, but there was a large craft section with items laid out on trestle tables the entire length of the church on the further side. Wood carving, embroidery, quilting, stained glass, pottery, etc. etc. At the further end of the table there was a special section showing a collection of the most exquisite textile boxes, many of which featured cats in the design. They opened in the most intriguing way and I fell utterly in love with them! The lady who made them is called Suzanne Shave. She doesn't seem to have a website (yet) which is a shame because it would be great if you could see her other work.

My hubby was as taken with them as I was, and he offered to buy me one! I reminded him that he never did get around to buying me a birthday present this year (there being plenty of other things occupying our minds!), and he agreed to buy my favourite box from the collection, and it now graces our sitting room mantelpiece. Yesterday I took some photos of this beautiful object to share with you now.

The cats on the boxes are all inspired by cats belonging to the lady who made the boxes, either currently or in the past – or should I say, cats to whom she was enslaved? This particular box is in honour of two very handsome cats, Laurence and Leo.

Here is the side view of the box. Suzanne told me that she sources her materials from wherever she can find them – charity shops a lot of the time – she buys scarves and cuts them up. You can see the combination of hand and machine embroidery on this box, and the addition of clusters of small gold beads.

A view from the top, showing the fastening which keeps the box closed.

Underneath, the box has four dinky little stumpy feet! Not strictly necessary but they add such charm to the piece! You an see that they were constructed from rolled up fabric, like the toggles on the closure thread.

The box, open. For the purposes of the photo, I put a couple of small bottles underneath the sides to stop the box form opening fully. Normally the sides would rest on the table.

Looking inside the box, you can see what amazing attention to detail Suzanne shows, with the quality of her finish.

I told my hubby I thought it would be fun to make a few little textile cats to go inside this box, and he suggested taking a leaf out of Suzanne’s book and making representations of all our ktities, past and present! What a lovely idea.

It would be fun to open the box and find it full of cats! I attended several courses on fabric box making back in Plymouth days when I belonged to the Westcountry Embroiderers, and the amazing teacher always said that a box should contain a surprise.

Having had experience of making boxes, I know just how much work has gone into the construction and embellishment of this one. Suzanne said she was delighted it was going to such a good home – to someone who appreciated the work, and who was also a cat person!

Isn’t this a beautiful object? I love its construction, the unusual way it opens, its bold colours and the stylised cats which seem to fill both sides of the box. Happy cats!

WOYWW 325

Well, I have actually got something on my desk today to show you, but nothing very constructive as yet!

I want to make a get-well card and a small gift for our neighbour who we have become friendly with, who recently came home from visiting family, having had a serious accident while away, and she is now mending and recovering, and needing a little cheering up! She loves butterflies, and last year she gave me a lot of lavender clippings from her garden, from which I made some infused oil, as well as having sufficient flowers left to dry for sachets. I made these for my fellow chemo-ites when I started my chemo, and thought I’d make her one as well, in its own little box, together with a small bottle of the oil, and possibly a lavender soap. Something else to keep my angels project on the back burner!!

I have been feeling so poorly since my last chemo that I haven’t been able to make a start on this, so this morning I had a rummage through my stash and selected a few cards and papers to make a start on the project. If I don’t get going soon, she'll be better before she gets it! Lying on top is a fabulous piece of silk paper that a mixed media artist friend gave me several years ago and which I have not yet put to use, and I thought I might add a bit of this. Silk paper is something I want to start making one day.

I have another project in the pipeline as well. Until now, I have been wearing a butcher’s apron in my studio and this doesn’t really offer me much protection especially once I’m let loose  on the spray inks! It has been on my mind to make myself some sort of smock to cover me up a bit better.

Recently while surfing Pinterest, I came across this gorgeous “slouchy smock dress” and knew this was exactly what I wanted, and it has a free downloadable pdf pattern.

On a fabric website I found some linen-look heavy cotton fabric which is 60 inches wide and ideal for my purposes because it shouldn’t allow any bleed-through of paint or ink onto my clothes underneath. This is now washed in case of shrinkage, and waiting to be ironed once I have enough energy.

I shall make the sleeves longer, and put cuffs on them.

If I like it, I shall probably make it again, as a dress for normal wear!

Regarding my chemo, I have not been doing so well after my fifth treatment on 14th August, and am only now starting to feel more myself again. The peripheral neuropathy has been more severe, and I’ve noticed some loss of sensation in my feet and fingertips, which I shall report to the oncologist. She is most likely to reduce the chemo dose a bit more, because this is something they take seriously, as it could become permanent. I have been very wiped out too, sleeping a lot, and feeing pretty poorly generally, and unable to shift a very unpleasant sour taste in my mouth, and my appetite has been poor. All this means that I haven’t achieved much in the last week!

Yesterday, though, my new laptop arrived, and I’ve been busy getting it up and running, which is taking some time. My old one has been playing up quite a bit recently and is on the way out, but until it finally dies, I shall keep it as a spare.

So that’s been Shoshi’s week.  I hope yours has been a bit more productive! Happy WOYWW everyone.

Practising Doll Faces and Completing Doll Body

Doing a bit more work on my angels project. Today I practised drawing doll faces according to the instructions of Patti Medaris Culea (links provided by Judy). Not as difficult as I thought, and working from right to left, I think I am gradually improving!

I used some coloured crayons and some pens. I worked on a strip of unbleached calico ironed onto a piece of freezer paper to give it a bit more stability.

I also completed the body of the large cloth angel.

I had awful trouble stuffing this – the polyester stuffing which I have had for many years is really not very good quality and it came out all lumpy, so I had to pull most of the stuffing out of the body and tease it out again and restart the process. This filling seems to do better with narrower pieces like arms and legs than it does with larger volumes, which work better if I don’t attempt to put too much stuffing in. I’m on the look out for something of better quality but so far my online researches haven’t come up with anything definite – if there’s anybody out there (UK) who can recommend a decent polyester filling I’d be grateful.

I also spent a bit of time in my ARTHaven this morning, tidying up, and putting all my Dylusions sprays, paints and Ranger mini-blending tools together into one box, after painting a dab of paint on the top of each handle so they are readily identifiable.

The effects of my third chemo treatment are definitely not as severe as those of the second. The reduced dose has definitely helped.

Kitty Squad, Lavender Sachets and WOYWW 313

What’s on your workdesk (this) Wednesday? I have to say there’s not much on mine, because I’ve been too exhausted recently to sit up in my ARTHaven studio, and have decamped downstairs so I can be creative with my feet up! My poor hubby, what he has to put up with. Look at the state of our sitting room.

Zooming in where I am doing most of the actual “work” (if you can call it that), here is what my table looks like when I’m busy.

I have two things on the go at the moment. I always find the smaller the project, the more stuff I need to make it. First of all, I have started a project using my new Stampotique Originals stamp “Kitty Squad.” I bought this last year, and because health issues overtook me in the New Year, this is the first time I’ve used it.

The first thing I do with Stampotique Originals stamps is to unmount them from their wood blocks. I hate wood-mounted stamps. They take up far too much room, and it’s difficult to see exactly where they are going to stamp. So I broke out the adhesive remover and found some EZ-Mount Foam and set to work. Very sticky job, and it gets all over my non-stick scissors from Tim Holtz, too. Anyway, job done, I started to stamp whole sheets of card with this stamp.

Then I fussy-cut them out. What a job. I still haven’t finished. Here are some of them laid out randomly on my brown masterboad/background sheet. (It can only be called a masterboard if one intends to cut it up and use it in projects, something I can never bring myself to do.)

They look a bit like bugs… More photos later, when I reveal what I’m going to do with all these kitties. It’s an experiment and I have no idea if it will work. Still, fussy cutting is quite therapeutic!

My other project is to make little lavender sachets for all my fellow chemo “cows” sitting patiently in the milking parlour, chewing the cud and waiting for their chemo infusions to finish. It’s a bit of a glum experience, and my friend Maria in the US has told me about her cancer-survivor friend who started “Happy Chemo!” by giving people small gifts. I felt inspired by this and thought what nicer than to give each person a lavender sachet to sniff. Lavender is so calming and healing and lovely, and last year, our neighbour gave me a whole armful of clippings from her lavender hedge and there is still masses left over after making quite a bit of infused lavender oil.

I’m good at pretty, but not so good perhaps at the more manly style, so I decided that alongside the pretty ones, made with scraps of lace and ribbon and pretty embellishments, I’d make some plain calico ones for the chaps. I have never stamped on fabric before (except for a brief experimental foray into stamping on teabags), so I used sepia archival ink, using my other new Stampotique Originals stamps, “Medium Bee with tiny bee.”

I love the look of the sepia on the unbleached calico.

My plastic tray full of goodies for making the bags. I’ve also got several large boxes and quite a few smaller ones littering up the place (see first photo) with all the stuff I “might need” for this project!

These are the seven bags I’ve finished so far. Each one has some form of embellishment, and each one has a tiny heart charm sewn on which reads “made with love.” You will notice that each bag has a little loop. You can hang this over your thumb for sniffing purposes, and later you can hang the bag on a clothes hanger if you want.

I have a lot of recycled embellishments, including bits and pieces from sabotaged cheap jewellery from the village fete. Some of my little bags have a disc of abalone shell from a necklace I took apart. The iridescent colours of these shiny shell fragments are beautiful. I’ve also got a couple of plastic “charms” that came out of a Christmas cracker – bright red plastic – which I have painted with black gesso with the idea of rubbing gilding wax on them – great for this project.

I couched some white cotton cord (which I smooshed in some Gathered Twigs distress ink on my craft sheet) around the edges of the calico bags, and frayed the ends of the loop to create tassels.

I’ve still got a lot of them to make. Eventually each one will be tucked into a little box – I found the design online and downloaded the template – a pretty box cut from a single piece and assembled in such a way that it remains closed until the recipient desires to open it. I am going to use thick watercolour paper to make these (probably) and they will be embellished with mixed media – each box will reflect the design and/or colour of the sachet within.

It was my birthday on Saturday, but as with my hubby’s birthday on 19th and our 29th anniversary on 24th, it was a low key affair as I didn’t feel up to celebrating. Let’s hope that we will be able to celebrate big time next year! My friend Marlene sent me a box of crafty goodies for my birthday which I unfortunately put away before I remembered I hadn’t photographed it, but there were lots of fabby embellishments, gems, rubber stamps, die cuts, etc. etc. What fun! Some will be incorporated in the lavender sachets project.

We went to a stoma open day today (yes, such things DO exist…) – see my Gutless Bag Lady blog if you are interested (link top right of this blog). My stoma is now settled enough for the nurse to set up a prescription for me (saw her last Friday, when I also saw the surgeon, who is well pleased with my progress). Oncology appointment tomorrow, and then my next chemo on 12th June. It’s all go. I am now feeling a lot better after the first treatment’s effects are starting to wear off, and I’m trying to take full advantage of these “good” days.

Sorry not to be able to take part in the WOYWW 6th anniversary ATC swap, but I am hoping to send one to each of the people who have very kindly sent me an ATC to cheer me along my road to a cancer-free life!

Happy WOYWW, everybody, and may chaos reign in our creative spaces, and may God grant us enough of His creative spirit to enable us to bring a small modicum of beauty out of that chaos during the coming week.

Drapes for Half Tester–A Mock-Up

I’ve decided to do a temporary mock-up of my bed drapes. I haven’t done any more embroidery for a while, but when the pieces are finished, they will go around the top.

This is what the frame of the half-tester looks like without the drapes:

You can see, from this photo which I took in the evening some time ago, that there is a light attached inside the frame – you can see the pull cord for it hanging down.

There are still 3 banana boxes remaining from when we moved house, which I still haven’t unpacked (!) and one of these is in the bedroom, and marked “Bed Drapes.” I opened it up today and got them out, and put up what I could onto the half-tester frame. It’s a mock-up and looks a bit messy but it gives me an idea of what needs to be done to make the drapes fit properly.

The curtains with the dark red patterned outsides and green linings were designed to go at the four corners of the four poster and are unfortunately too narrow to extend the full length of the half-tester, but I have put two curtains on each side. Eventually I shall probably sew them together to make one. Also, each curtain is made so that the lining is attached along the long sides, apart from a short distance at the top, to allow the curtain to go on the outside of the frame, and the lining on the inside, sandwiching the frame in between. Because of the diagonal struts supporting the top of the half-tester, I had to unpick the seam a bit further down the length of the curtain, to enable it to go past this piece of wood.

The red woven strip with the wool tassels on it (can’t remember where I got that – probably from some ethnic shop or other) was also in the box, and I’ve pressed that onto the single line of Velcro on the frame as a temporary top edge until I can complete the embroidered pieces – it sticks OK for now, because the fabric is fairly soft and fluffy. It is not long enough to extend the full length of the sides of the half-tester frame, so I have just pressed the ends down onto the Velcro that goes along the top edge of the frame for now. (That Velcro will eventually hold the top canopy.)

The dark blue piece hanging at the head of the bed is supposed to overlay another length of fabric, but I can’t use this until I’ve altered it. The soft Velcro is on the front, because originally it was stuck onto the outside of the four-poster frame, against the wall at the head of the bed, and the half-tester frame is up against the wall and I can’t get at the back of it. It used to hang flat (ungathered) but it is too wide now, so I may cut off the excess, or I might put it up gathered – I haven’t decided about that yet. The dark blue piece is also too wide, and is gathered at the edges at the moment, so that it fits the half-tester frame, but it’s a bit wrinkled and doesn’t hang quite right. This piece was originally going to be covered with shi-sha embroidery but I never got round to it! Probably a good thing, if the piece doesn’t fit properly! I’ve got more of that material and I may cut another piece to fit, but I’ll live with it as it is for a while and see how I feel about it.

Because the half-tester is screwed to the wall, the knobs on top at the head end are very close to the wall, and I cannot hang the big tassels over them because their cords are too thick. I’ve just laid them on top of the frame and stuffed the excess down behind, and it seems to work! The tassels at the foot end aren’t a problem, of course, as I can just hang them on the knobs as I did with the four-poster. These tassels are actually curtain tie-backs that I bought to hang over the knobs of the four-poster, as they looked so rich, and co-ordinated so well with the drapes.

Also in the box of bed drapes I found the two long pelmet pieces I made for the bedroom in our old house. They have rufflette tape on them, and I pulled all the gathers out when I washed them, and folded them away in the box. There were two windows in that room, and I think the pelmet piece from the smaller window may be just enough to go round the inside of the half-tester frame, to cover up the wood and provide a backdrop for the front pieces once I’ve made them – I might not be able to gather it very much. The green bobble trim on the pelmet pieces matches that on the bed curtains. The longer pelmet piece I may use as a pelmet to go over the window which at present doesn’t have a pelmet at all – a wooden one would have to be made, or perhaps a purchased pelmet rail? Not sure about that yet. Anyway, if I do it, it will all co-ordinate.

I need to attach more Velcro onto the frame, so that the top pieces as well as the curtains can be attached. I have been using the self-adhesive hooks and the sew-on loops, but after a while the glue on the self-adhesive hooks tends to fail, so when I redid the first lot of Velcro, I stuck it on with extra-sticky double sided tape as well, just to make sure. I’ve also got to adapt the pleated canopy I made for the four-poster as it is much too large at present.

I think my temporary mock-up looks quite cool, but it’s going to be soooo much better when it’s all done properly! I’m not going to be able to do anything more about this until I am well and truly over my operation, but I wanted to get something up over the bed as I was getting a bit fed up with looking at the bare wooden frame! The mock-up will do for a while, and may give me the impetus I need to get the job finished eventually.

Decorations for Half-Tester

My first post in 2015! One of the things I have resolved to do this year is to try and clear the backlog of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) in my ARTHaven, and also to get back into some more textile-based work. One of my oldest UFOs was a project to create decorative drapes for our pine four-poster bed – something I started and never finished. I made the curtains but not the decorative top part. Last autumn I got a new adjustable bed to help with my various medical conditions (I am sleeping a lot better these days) so the four-poster had to go, which I was very sad about. The whole of the top section lifted off and could be disassembled, leaving the bed intact, so we kept the top and disposed of the pine bed base. A local carpenter used the timber from the upper part to create a new half-tester which is attached to the wall above the bed.

As before I have a small strip-light wired to the inside of the frame, and in the picture you can see the pull-cord hanging down. You can also see the velcro strips attached to the framework, to attach the fabric drapes – I will need to add some more for the decorative top part.

When I started making the pieces for the top, I also cut some smaller pieces in the same design and fabric, and used them to decorate a bag that I made:

You can see the separate flaps, each embellished with machine applique and hand embroidery, and each one finished with a different style of tassel.

These are the card templates I made for the bed project. At the back, underneath, you can see the two templates for each piece – the larger one is for cutting the fabric, and the smaller one for cutting the heavy interfacing. After cutting these out, I tacked the fabric onto the interfacing so that the applique and embroidery would go through both layers, and to finish each piece off, the edges of the fabric would be turned in over the interfacing, and a backing piece added.

The smaller templates are used for cutting out the applique pieces which are first ironed onto some Bondaweb.

What I have decided to do now, is to make each finished piece double-sided, and to attach the tops to the outside and the inside of the frame, respectively. Hopefully they will hang properly, but if not, I shall have to make separate pieces for the inside and outside, and maybe add tassels only to the outside pieces.

The next picture shows the pieces I have already started, with the machine applique. Top right is a pile of more pieces – no room to spread them all out to be photographed.

The next photo shows some of the embroidery materials to be used to embellish the pieces. I have a collection of coloured threads with lurex – as usual the photo doesn’t show the sparkliness of these yarns – they are the large spools at the back. In the front of the basket is a selection of different coloured embroidery threads, and on the table in front, scissors, my mother-of-pearl stiletto and some crewel and chenille needles, and on the left, a selection of Indian shi-sha mirrors.

I have done a lot of embroidery using these in the past, including on my wedding dress. These little circles of mirror have quite rough edges, and no holes for sewing them down as you’d find with sequins; there is a special shi-sha embroidery stitch which anchors them onto the surface of the fabric, rather like a rubbed-over setting of a gemstone in jewellery. When these tiny mirrors catch the light, they wink and flash, which is very dramatic on any fabric in motion such as a curtain, and they give a very rich, exotic look. I love them! Originally they would have been made of flakes of mica, but they are made of glass these days – the mirrors are far from optically perfect and look rather dull and grey before they are attached, but they do reflect the light wonderfully well.

Here are the pieces to which I have added embroidery so far. Some of them require further embellishment. The stitches I am using are fairly simple ones – chain stitch with variations, and stem stitch. I have never been any good at satin stitch or long-and-short stitch, and love using chain stitch to cover areas with colour, and for outlining shapes.

As I progress with this work, I shall be showing some detail shots of the embroidery, but at this stage, this is just showing what I have done so far, after opening up the box and reminding myself what I have already achieved. I did all this so many years ago that I couldn’t really remember at all what I had done, and when I opened the box, was surprised to find my book on tassels, and also some wonderful notes from an embroidery day I attended when we lived in Plymouth – probably back in the 1980s! It was like Christmas, opening the box and finding all the lovely fabrics and shapes. This has to be one of the oldest UFOs in my possession, and high time it got an airing and was finished!

WOYWW 285

For details on how to join in the fun of sharing your weekly desk, please click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, which leads to Julia’s blog, where all will be revealed.

Not too much activity on my desk this week. I got some new stash – a gorgeous art stamp from Stampotique called Kitty Squad which is waiting to be unmounted from its wood block and mounted on some EZ-Mount foam. Also some sticky embossing powder. I’ve made a start on the next section in my recycled mini-album. On the right you can see the new iPod case I got from Ebay – I have an identical black one which is pretty well worn out, and managed to find a replacement – it’s fine except it’s pink, which I didn’t want! They are very rare, but my favourite because you can attach a neck strap to the ring.

Oh dear, I’ve just noticed I’ve got another dirty paint jar on my desk… Hopefully this one won’t hang around for as many weeks as the last one!

I’ve also been doing a bit of sewing, altering some more bedding to fit my new bed. Even when cleared, the work surface isn’t very deep for folding and cutting! I think I may need to pull out all the pull-out units to make a cutting surface…

I’ve not been too well this week – one day in particular I had a tummy upset and felt pretty lousy all day but slept a lot which helped. We had a busy day out one day, and we dropped my defunct NAS drive in to my fav computer shop in Plymouth in the hope he can get it up and running again for me, and my hubby encouraged me to do some retail therapy in the market where I bought 3 simply gorgeous gorgeous tops… I love markets and charity shops. You can pick up some real bargains.

Had my first soap making class last Wednesday and I made a couple of really simple melt-and-pour soaps, including one for my hubby which he loves as it doesn’t upset his skin! I have ordered a special teddy mould just for him and am going to make all his soap from now on!! Since the teacher provides all we need for the class, if I’m going to go on with this, which I want to, I need to get a few supplies in, so I’ve been shopping on Ebay and am looking forward to some nice parcels arriving over the next few days. Some of the things will have multiple uses in the studio which is great.

Yesterday I started to strain my lavender oil that has been infusing for a couple of months. Our neighbour gave us a huge quantity of lavender that she’d cut back in her garden, and I filled a jar with it and topped it up with grapeseed oil and left it to infuse in the airing cupboard. It has darkened in colour and smells simply marvellous. I am hoping to be able to add some of this to my soaps.

This week I got some A4 Tyvek envelopes from Ebay. I can get a whole A4 sheet and two smaller pieces from each envelope, and it works out at 17p a sheet, which is considerably cheaper than the price a lot of the art suppliers charge. Wonderful stuff for melting and painting, and it apparently cuts very well indeed on electronic cutting machines, and once I get mine up and running again I am keen to try this – for cutting really detailed pieces which won’t rip when you take them off the carrier mat, and also for cutting stencils.

The result of my latest blood test shows that at last I am no longer anaemic! I shall be carrying on with just one iron tablet a day to keep me topped up, and hopefully I won’t slip back again. I don’t feel any different.

Great news – after hitting another plateau with my weight loss, I can now report that I have lost a total of two stone since mid-June when I started the 5:2 diet. I’ve got a way to go yet, and I am determined to reach a weight suitable for my height. Considering we have hosted 3 cream teas in 10 days, I don’t consider this bad going!!

My hubby took the kitties to the vet the other evening to get their boosters done, and they had their usual annual MOT. Uncle Luke (vet, who has a huge soft spot for Beatrice!) told Beatrice to stop purring because he couldn’t hear her heart! How many kitties in your acquaintance purr at the vet’s?!! Phoebe purred too. Uncle Luke gave them both a cuddle, and gave Beatrice a treat for being a good girl. Phoebe’s a little tub and didn’t get one.

Happy WOYWW everybody!

Felt Poppies Hair Clip

The second of two felt-making posts for today.

During the third of our felt-making classes we made flowers, and this was what I made:

At this stage, the pieces are not fixed together, but arranged as I thought I might fix them. I decided to make a hair clip from these poppies. Before the felt class last night, I quickly assembled it, not realising I’d put the clip on back to front, meaning I had to do it up with my left hand! The teacher said that we need to watch that when making things like hair clips and brooches. I hope I won’t make that mistake again! Anyway, they all loved it.

Today, I took the clip off and sewed it on again the right way round, using thick button thread. Looking at it, the back was a mess. It would be OK just for me (except I’m a bit of a perfectionist!) but if I wanted to make these for gifts or for sale, they’d have to be a lot neater than this.

I thought I could apply my newly acquired needle-felting skills and felt on a back piece to cover all that mess.

I began by laying down some green wool fibres to match the back of the leaves.

I partially felted the whole thing, using my single felting needle, making a rough oval shape.

I didn’t want to felt the whole thing because I wanted to feather it onto the piece at the edges, but it needed to be substantial enough to handle. I had to felt the centre part, which would cover the clip, because obviously you can’t needle-felt through metal! I began with the single needle, turning the piece over frequently.

After a while I had a good go with the Clover tool, which is better for covering a larger area. However, its needles are rather small, and it took a while.

During the afternoon I had attempted, without a great deal of success, to use this tool to try and improve the look of the poppies, which had flattened quite a lot when drying; I had hoped to needle-felt the petals together a bit and force them into a more upright shape. In the end I achieved this with a running stitch. Had I known it, I would have done a lot better to use the larger, single needle.

You can see that the Clover tool has a clear plastic shield around the needles. The green flange above the needles can be turned; in one position it locks the shield to protect the needles (and your fingers), and in the other position, the shield can be retracted against a spring into the handle. As you press the tool up and down on the felt, the needles do their stuff, but the end of the shield remains in contact with the surface so you can’t accidentally pierce your fingers.

As I felted the back piece, it became apparent after a while that it was a bit thin, so I added some more fibres, and resumed felting.

Once the middle was sufficiently felted, I slipped the piece underneath the metal clip.

Taking extreme care so as not to break my needle against the hidden metal part, I began needle-felting, getting as close to the edge of the metal as possible. I pulled off some of the outer edge and feathered what remained, gradually needle-felting outwards towards the edge of the piece.

The back piece did not cover the exposed ends of the clip, however. The clip has a hole at each end, through which you can sew it down, and the stitching was showing and not looking very nice, so I made a couple of end pieces, again felting them in the middle, and leaving the fibres at the ends to be felted onto the piece.

The next photo shows the end piece being felted on. I added a bit more fibre to cover the edge and to blend it in nicely, again taking great care not to strike the needle against the hidden metal.

Nice neat back! The little stab marks from the needle will disappear eventually. I think this is a much better finish.

Here is the finished piece. You can see that I have embellished the centres of the poppies with some little gold-coloured glass beads, which I think really lift the design and give it a bit of focus. Originally I was going to embroider French knots using a shiny black embroidery thread but in my huge box of threads, I had every colour but black!! I tried embroidering with black stranded cotton but it simply didn’t show up. Then I thought of black beads, and again, in all my stash, not a single small black bead! Why is it that you can have a whole room full of stuff, and still not have what you want?!! Anyway, it was a blessing in disguise, because I decided to use the gold beads instead, and the result is actually much better than if I’d used black.

Finally, a detailed shot of the beadwork.

This project illustrates very well the way wet felting and needle felting can be combined to good effect.