A fabric bowl

Yonks ago, I saw a (jeanius!) design for a bowl made out of fabric in a library book and before I returned it, I made some scrappy notes for 'when I had the time' to try one out, half thinking, probably that it would never happen.


Now let me tell you, over the last few days I have had cause to curse my poor record keeping, not to mention my lack of faith, as I have struggled to get a good shape to my bowl, fiddled with embellishments and experimented with an old straw hat. By yesterday though, I was wondering how on earth I managed before I made my denim bowl, handy as it is for carrying all the bits and bobs I'm using on a particular project as I move from my studio to other parts of the house. It's squishiness turns out to be a bit of a bonus as it can fit into all kinds of spaces on shelves and seems to reshape itself pretty well.


It's not sturdy enough as an actual fruit bowl (which was my optimistic hope when I opted for the apple design), although it could probably manage the weight of one apple, but as something knocked up from a charity pair of jeans I'm really quite happy with this as a first attempt! 


Can't wait to get started on more variations of the fabric bowl...

A herby heart

Had such fun making this yesterday afternoon. Sure, I could have left it plain but when I start to sew sometimes I find it hard to stop. 

  This herby heart is the second project made from one pair of jeans. There's something about a heart shape which (I'll admit right now) I'm a complete sucker for, but I was nevertheless determined to stay away soppy stitched messages or schmalzy pink, ribbons or lace so I stayed well away from pastels when it came to the embroidery thread.

   I then stuffed with lavender and decided to hand stitch around the outside a few times. A couple of hours later and it's all ready to pop into the knicker drawer!

  Not sure if it was the lovely lavender pong or the meditative stitching but I had such a great sleep last night!

The return of the bag lady

I can't begin to tell you the fun I have making this bag out of the bottom-covering part of an old pair of jeans! I'm way past the stage of cutting up jeans to make a nifty pair of shorts but none of us can have too many bags for stuff, can we? Especially when they cost next to nothing and making them up provides hours of fun.

  It always feels like when I'm after a certain something it pops up the second it's needed. In this case I was after some fabric which would somehow 'match' the style of the jeans,  to thread through the waistband to close the bag. Believe it or not I did walk away from this blue, black and white scarf initially when I spotted it in a local charity shop last week but something about it reminded me of France... I parted with my £2 and discovered that the label is Les Olivades - O la-la!
  The bag structure was complete in less than a day but of course I have spent more time that necessary embroidering denim flowers to embellish the bag.....

A few buttons to stitch onto the bag and it's all finished and will be put to good use sometime very soon!

A jeanius challenge

I do believe I have succeeded in weaning myself away from the embroidered moths by finding a way to use denim for my next project.
  I loathe waste, I adore upcycling and I relish a challenge. I also seem to return again and again to denim as a sturdy, forgiving, adaptable and plentiful textile.
  Had a quick check in my wardrobe and I'm not one of those mamas with acres of denim to spare so I cheated slightly and bought the biggest pair of jeans I could find in my local Cancer Research charity shop. 

  Without having any precise idea of what exactly I'm going to do with them, I nonetheless decided to look out for a  few features:

• A lived-in look 
• Decent condition - no holes or fraying
• As big as poss - I was lucky enough to find a great pair of size 18s
• Zip and fasteners in good condition just in case I need to use them later
• Interesting, though not OTT stitch details on pockets, etc

I'm going to start off with a lovely roomy bag from the hips to crotch area - watch this space..... Now where are my strongest scissors?

Moths away!

No idea why I have made such a meal of this project ... after all it's so similar to my buzz off project, but with added colour! I think I've probably been slow to move on because it's been so fun and strangely satisfying.
       After all there are so many nasty (but effective) way to keep moths away and yet natural remedies such as peppermint and chamomile are just as effectibe. The trouble is, how to contain them?
  A quick bit of research online and it turns out that moths, even good old British ones, are not always the ugly sisters of the insect world, which got me thinking.... 

Once marked out, I put the moth shape into an embroidery hoop and let my needle do the talking...
  A cut out circle in a plain fabric (if the moth is patterned) or in a patterned fabric (if the moth is plain) and and I was off!


But how do you get enough herby filling into a tricky shape like this? I'm not sure where the brainwave came from but after one messy episode with loose herbs, I came across the idea of using chamomile or peppermint teabags - ideal for squishing into the body/tail!

As you can see the possibilities of this project have inspired me and I'm on my third version already - who'd have thought?

Searching for Spanspiration

Hard to believe that under a week ago I was pottering around Almeria in the Spanish 'desert', having a family break and loving their company, the climate, the simple Mediterranean diet yes, but also looking for great visual inspiration for my craft projects to get excited about and retain.   I'll be honest, here, I was a bit clueless at first about how to capture all the wonders around me but once I opened my eyes and started clicking with the camera, things started to happen. So please forgive the crap photography and bear with me. Back at home in cold and showery Blighty, rifling through these pics is a real delight.  
  One of the best bits about foreign travel is that spectacular switching of the season, which, for somebody who's a bit partial to a slight spot of horticulture, is an endlessly magical thing. It's not just the flag, the fruit  and the food - so many of the flowers in Spain are also that delicious orange, such as the bird of paradise flower in our holiday house garden and these random ospeospermum or rock roses (?) which were flowering amid the agaves in a tub in the town of Sorbas. I'm not even sure that they were planted there.... 
   How glorious it must be to have these beauties just popping up everywhere - would you ever get bored of these colours?  Of course orange is so beautifully set off by bluey grey and clever old Mother Nature often combines the two. I often associate cacti and succulents with fusty old dusty window ledges but not in this climate... my specimens at home are so pathetic compared to this lot! Agaves are a particular fave with me. Not only are they spectacularly architectural, with the most breathtaking flowers, they are one of nature's great healers. In our house when someone gets a burn or skin irritation, we chop off a bit of agave leaf and dab the affected area with that lovely gel which gushes out of the plant...
ok that could be another reason why my home agaves are not so hot.

   As for the ceramics - well, as you can see I'm easily pleased and I fell in love with this simple old wall plaque outside a house - I can imagine somebody having such fun using their finger in some wet clay to make the shape then dipping their finger into some blue and green paint to decorate this. Simple is often best and I love messages too. So I adored the effort that had gone into the naive painting on this restaurant sign. We don't really bother with that kind of thing here, do we but this kind of craft/ arty expression is unselfconsciously everywhere when you travel. Where I live there seems to be a deluge of outrage at any public art which I never understand.
 
 Finally - the buildings. Of course the monuments and the churches are always stunning but it's when they are at their least pretentious that I'm most struck. There's nothing like a basic, simple old village square, is there? Or even a  little house with a bit of bougainvillia tumbling over the boundary walls? I loved the way the windows on the neighbouring building were outlined in ochre echoing the colours of the building at the back. All completely random beauty and totally sympathetic yet undesigned in any way.

  I'll leave you with my favourite image which is a reminder of a major source of income down there - the harvest of the sea. Was it the fishmonger himself who painted the outside of his shop? Maybe he roped in a mate or an artistic relative? It's even possible he paid a proper artist to come up with this joyful and celebratory design to encapsulate the treasures within. You know what I don't really care, it made me smile with delight - so gracias!

  

Guilty pleasures

Crikey, I find myself abruptly 'home alone' for a few hours and my brain is whizzing so much with fun stuff to get up to I feel positively dizzy - does anyone else get that?

  Soo, to avoid getting myself started on a million and one things I can't finish I took a deep breath and decided that 'first things first'. It's not the loveliest of days so my projects will be all indoors but not before I had a potter in the part of the garden my workspace overlooks (left). 
  I'm so glad I took my Dad's advice earlier in the week when he pointed out that all the daffs have been dying in this unseasonally glorious and dry weather. I have made it my business to pop out every other day and water the pots and oh joy - it's now paying dividends.
  The creamy buds which were indeed looking a bit shrivelled have recovered and are now looking perfectly glorious and a delight for me to enjoy now that I want to work in the warm. 
  So thanks Dad and now I'd really better get on with some sewing!