Curtain samples and creative clutter

 

Yet again, the dining table looks chaotic, but one of the advantages of being a singleton is there's no one to demand you 'clear up your mess!'  Or to make pointed remarks about how it'd be nice to sit at the table to eat a meal, instead of balancing a tray on a lap.  

It's Sunday evening after a glorious day's sunshine.  I'm looking out onto the back garden, and beyond to my neighbours trees, including a hawthorn that's smothered in creamy blossom.  There's a lilac too.  All mauve flowers and abundant green leaves, so different to the stark bare branches and twigs of winter months.  The foxgloves are everywhere in both front and back garden, and masses of them on the allotment.  They're so near to flowering.  I keep seeing bees buzzing around 'em, nosing at the still-closed buds.  A few more days of sunshine and showers, they'll be out, and I'll be able to watch the bees nosing inside each flower, intent on their task.  

Well, yesterday I managed to nab another couple of charity shop bargains.  

The £2.50 orange skirt was originally from Monsoon, and I like the batik style pattern.  Plus I've very little orange in my fabric stash, so that'll come in useful for patchwork.  The £1.00 scarf is pretty, but not the kind of thing I'd wear, so I might use it to make drawstring gift bags.    

Another charity shop purchase from several weeks ago was a bag of what turned out to be curtain samples.  

They're made of an artificial material, almost papery in feel.  Maybe polyester and viscose?  Anyway, I cut one of the samples up and played about with it for my Saturday 'postcard', part of my 31 days in May challenge.  

I sewed strips of this black & white bamboo patterned fabric on to my calico 6 x 4 rectangle.  

Making sure the pattern was broken up.  

It was all sewn very speedily.  Not over-thinking it.  

A little triangle of velvet in the top corner.  

Then I placed two more folded fabric strips on top, adding texture and stitching them at different angles.  And I was done for another day.  

For Sunday's postcard I decided to keep using these curtain samples.  

I used pleats this time.  Folding the material to once again disrupt the surface pattern.  

Adding lines of machine stitching to keep the pleats in place, I realised I'd inadvertently created shallow pockets.  So I used red corduroy to make triangles.  

Three of them, like particularly vivid sails.  Or scarlet shark fins!  

A hastily made binding and lines of red stitches to keep the triangles in situ, and Sunday's postcard challenge was completed.  

That's 14 in all, and what a mixed bunch they are.  

I wonder where next week's creative thoughts will take me?