More waffling on about stitchy stuff ...

Friday's here before you know it, and I'm starting to think about Christmassy stuff. Compiling lists of presents to buy, that sort of thing. I won't put the decorations up yet though, despite lots of homes and shops near me already being decked out in twinkly lights and baubles. The artificial tree will stay in its cupboard for another week at least. I'd love a real tree as they smell so good, but I can't be doing with hoovering up pine needles for most of January. On the crafty front I've been playing about with my Jessie Chorley style 'doodle cloth', and really enjoying seeing where my needle and thread takes me.

I've finished a couple of these Christmas tags, which are made of calico. I might try making more on a different coloured background as otherwise the names don't stand out enough. I was trying for a homespun vintage-y look, but maybe I should go for shiny and sequins instead?

Speaking of shiny ... I also made a little coin purse in a boho kind of style. It's lacking a closure, so that's why there's a dressmaking pin stuck in it. I'll burrow around and see if I can find a snap fastener or hook & eye to sew on.

It's a calico base, on to which I've stitched scraps of material and decorative braid. I've then embroidered and added a few seed beads.

It's lined with a printed cotton from an upcycled top. By the way, the black floral fabric you can see was from an Accessorize handbag. I wasn't using it as a bag, but it was too pretty to discard, so it ended up in my fabric stash. The flowers and leaves would've been machine embroidered, probably in a factory, but I've added my lines of simple running stitch.

This sort of purse is so easy to make, and you can enlarge the pattern to turn it into a clutch bag. I can see a version of it being made in dark blues and white with lines of sashiko stitching, for those who appreciate Japanese style boro textiles.

Well, I need to crack on with my online shopping, in order to allow Santa and his reindeer (a.k.a. the Amazon and Evri delivery drivers) the time to deliver my parcels before the festivities start. Happy stitching, or drawing or painting or wherever your creative urge takes you. Have fun!

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Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Sari scraps, PVA, a couple of books and a necklace

I'm typing this as snow's falling, and has been steadily all day. It's not settling to any great extent, though I bet by tomorrow morning the paths will be slippery with ice. Which always makes me paranoid about falling over and at the very least looking undignified, but at worst breaking a bone or twisting an ankle. Oh well, it's ideal weather to stay inside and craft, isn't it? I finally got around to listing packs of sari scraps on Etsy this morning. I only made up six bundles as I've no clue whether they'll sell or if I've set a reasonable enough price point. Time will tell. This is a link to the listing, if you're interested. This vaguely pink fabric isn't from one of my Etsy packs. It's from a bit of experimenting I was doing yesterday. I'd seen a post on Instagram showing how a DIY version of batik could be done without using hot wax. The Instagrammer used PVA instead, and I wanted to try this out....

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

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