Two angels, a matchbox and an eye

Some odds and ends for you today. First off, I love the work of an Instagram user by the name of ievate, and I was smitten with this crazy looking Folk Art style angel that she made. Which meant I've collected fabric scraps & had a go at making my own version.

They're still very much W.I.P.s, and they're definitely not going to be your traditionally pretty angels! (Once they're made I'm going to try a reindeer too. After all, Christmas isn't that far off, is it?) I'll remember to show you the angels once they're finished.

When I'm done with scrolling through Instagram with the first cuppa of the day, I like to scoff my morning porridge while watching crafty videos on YouTube. Well, it beats listening to news reports full of doom 'n' disaster on the radio. I'm enjoying Jude Hill's short pieces about her textile work. This little video about weaving had me emptying out a matchbox in order to use it as a make-do-and-mend style mini loom. Just creating this tiny swatch had me thinking about the possibilities of using different yarns, embroidery threads, string, maybe even dried grasses or twiggy bits to weave with. I've dug out an offcut of MDF, a hammer and a tub of panel pins, and I'll see it I can cobble together a larger 'loom' so I can really play around with the process.

Speaking of Jude Hill, something that she'd sewn and that I noticed in another of her videos had me adding to my nearly-complete embroidery. I couldn't resist sewing my very own Jude Hill style embroidered eye.

Is it disconcerting to have a single eye staring out at you? Maybe it is, but the eye is such a powerful symbol in Folk Art. This embroidery is meant to end up as a bag to store my fabric book in, so maybe this eye's a protective symbol. Looking after the book, keeping it safe.

Perhaps, as well as Christmas angels and reindeer, I should make a few decorative eyes to hang from the tree, along with the tinsel and baubles? To protect the spirit of Christmas. Now, there's a thought ...

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