Tying up loose ends

This was the largish piece of handmade felt I found yesterday. It is quite thick as I made it thinking I might use it for a carpet bag. It has a white base layer with two or three different coloured purple layers topped off with some white mohair from a ball of stuff I picked up in a bargain basket somewhere. Anyway, I just couldn't wait could I, so I chopped it up this morning and stitched together a bag that I call a 'book bag'. Can't remember where I got that name from or whether it's even correct but I just sewed up the sides, cut two holes for the handles, cut out a base and with a bit of ubiquitous blanket stitch, you have a bag.... trouble is, I have enough left over to make something else .....

..and I wanted to get on an finish one my little accordion books. Just a jumble of images that appealed....

..using the pages from my atlas to make the covers with pictures of the surface of the moon....

I've now tied up my 'loose ends' from yesterday but I'm steering clear of the shed for a few days. Therein lie too many ongoing diversions. My ironing beckons and I must not be diverted any longer!

Sidetracked....

A few weeks ago I was having a browse in a curtain fabric shop in Bristol. Now I know I don't need any more fabric but it never hurts to have a look.... anyway, I got chatting to the lady who owns the shop and I was telling her about the sewing I do for Combat Stress using remnants and whatever I can get hold of to make things to sell to raise money. To cut a long story short she gave me a huge bag of stuff she was trying to get the rag merchants to take without success. It was literally a real mixed bag and there was this piece of sheer, chiffon type of fabric included. I was going to throw it away but today, I was getting on with my shed spring clean and found this black hessian...

Now I bought this as many years ago when I started the rug I posted about last week (and yes, I have done some already, so I'm still going strong...) and I got to thinking about laying a sheer fabric on top of it and making a bag using the two fabrics together. I thought the bag could be unlined being hessian but I forgot the issue of fraying so had to abandon this idea and eventually put a black poly cotton lining in it. I turned the hessian over at the top to capture the chiffon and found a couple of pink strips in the bag she gave me, so, made these handles too, which I had to attach to the outside. It didn't turn out too bad and might be an idea worth revisiting with a large chiffon scarf and some natural coloured hessian maybe?

As the sewing machine was on the table I decided to finish the second bag cobbled together from the man's jacket from the charity shop. I used the two fronts, stitched the pockets together and added a long handle and the last few roses from the trim I bought. I really enjoyed trying to recycle this jacket into something else, but I'd started the day with a mission to get on with my clear out and got sidetracked on the way, so I went back to my original task....

I found a couple of collaged books I am now inspired to finish, a large piece of handmade felt that I made to produce a carpet bag with... and this little chap....

I made him a few years ago from handmade felt and I needled mohair locks from a friend's angora goats into one side to make him all fluffy. I used to use it as a sample in felt making workshops but no-one was ever inspired enough to make one of their own after realising how long it might take. I'd forgotten all about him and found him at the bottom of a crate. Of course then I got sidetracked rummaging through more old projects.... the shed is still a mess and I need more hours in the day!

Recycled Hearts and Flowers

The other week I bought a wool and alpaca men's jacket in a charity shop and posted a couple of pictures of it. I have finally stripped it down to the best pieces and made something of them. I have enough left to make another small bag and maybe some small items like needlecases and the like but the main piece from the back was used to make this bag. I used the jacket lining to fully line the inside of the bag so it has all been recycled.

I added a magnetic catch and I did buy the trim because I fell in love with it and then appliqued the heart in the middle of what my friend is calling my 'ring a ring a rosy bag'. The photo makes my sewing look more naff than it does in real life (honest). Now, of course, I shall not use the thing as it is just not my style but the urge to recycle and conjure up something new is a compulsion I cannot resist. Anyone out there want to make a style statement for Valentine's Day?

On short rations

My husband was reading a magazine tonight which had an article about sugar rationing during the war in Britain. As all beekeepers know, sugar is needed at key times of the year to make a syrup to feed the bees and keep the hive going. When sugar was rationed beekeepers were given an extra 10lbs of sugar a year but to make absolutely sure it went to the bees and not the black market it was all dyed green! Imagine that stirred into your morning cuppa.

The whole issue of rationing then reminded me of this little film I saw the other day. It has to be the last of the gems I found in the BFI archives. It caught my imagination because I would have liked to have been a child as bright as Sally but think I am a natural Jane. To this day I still cook cabbage like she does.....

Koumpounophobia

Koumpounophobia is the unlikely name of a fear of buttons, something I seem to possess the opposite of. As someone who loves rootling through the button tin and picking up old cards of them when I can find them it is hard to believe that they represent frightening, dirty and ugly things to one in 75,000 of us. It is a topic that has caught the imagination of textile artist Penny Leaver Green and whilst in Bristol yesterday I managed to vist her Button Phobia exhibition at Harvey Nichols.

Using antique linens and wonderful buttons Penny has taken comments from online forums by sufferers as well as the reactions to questions about buttons by an old school friend and translated them into these exquisite art textiles. I found the comments to each piece fascinating and it is startling to read how some people's phobia began. One man's lifetime disgust of buttons began when a tin of buttons was tipped over him accidentally in a classroom when he was very young. Things like that always make me wonder over the way a chain of events evolve over many years.

I first saw Penny's work a couple of years ago after reading about it in an article. At the time she was about to have an exhibition at the WWT in Slimbridge so we went to see it as birds and textiles together are a 'must see' for me. I loved the work, especially the way Penny writes with her sewing machine. I wish I could do that! This is a favourite image of my favourite bird and if you want to read more about Penny have a look here at her website. The button phobia pieces are on display at Harvey Nicks until 28th February.

Make Do and Mend

What goes around comes around.... isn't this the trend again?

All hooked up

I have stopped rummaging in the BFI Archives because I've been rummaging and tidying in my cupboards instead. Mainly because I've been coming across an image in the newspapers and magazines in recent weeks that kept nagging at me. It was the photo of a coir door mat by weaver Roger Oates - a red heart on a black background. Now, it reminded me of a hooked rag rug that I started - I'm ashamed to say - over 10 years ago. The frame I was hooking it on has long since collapsed and fallen apart but the hessian is still good so I hauled it out of its hiding place. Here it is on my kitchen floor and, as you can see , I have not got very far in 10 years. The brighter heart in the middle was done on Saturday when we were snowbound here in Pembrokeshire again. It took about two hours and all the itchy bits all over my lap afterwards reminded why it has taken so long to do. I was scratching for a long while... I know... too much information. Anyway, it's now languishing on the side pleading to be finished or returned to its hiding place but if I put it back I might as well throw it away because I know I'll never finish it otherwise.

My style of working is quick and dirty with very little planning and even less ability. I cannot do one job without mentally wandering off into other territory. See, once I started on the tidying up I then cleared out all the beads and stuff I have, determined to get rid of things I know I'll never use.... but I found this silver heart and a couple of beads, a bit of ribbon and a fabric scrap which sort of said 'make into a brooch' ..so I did....

It was worse when I got to my button tins. I seriously cannot tidy these up because once you start you're reminded where you got them from, who you got them from, what ideas you had for them... and then I'm off again, sewing them onto card, printing on to them, making something that I think I could develop....

....but then, at the back of the cupboard, I found these paint charts from the DIY store and I stuck a lovely thrush on top that I'd cut from a ruined book. I placed a mount around because I wondered if there was an idea for a series of cards there too. I have loads of paint charts and lots of bird pictures... does it work I wonder?

I don't know.... what I do know is that I am not doing any more tidying up or clearing out. It is not good for my brain. It hurts from too much thinking!