It's over and I really mean it this time

It's the right thing to do, I mean, isn't it? There's nothing else I can realistically make from the stuff to the left of the pic, is there?


Just don't ask how long it has taken me to come to this decision or how much I have draaaaagged out this final item, made from a charity shop pair of jeans nearly two months ago.


I tried to be experimental with the stitching, some was ok, some not as you can see from these pics.

With this one, I started without any idea of what I would end up with and now I'm triumphantly describing it to my family as my patchwork placemat for all those solitary, week-day lunches.

In case you were wondering, I found that solitary scrap to the top left, as I was finishing of and couldn't resist sewing it in, like a lonely tear.


Tbh, I vere wildly between thinking 'it's quite rubbish' to 'shows some promise'.

You may call it cheating but I dreamt up this jeans challenge so I think I'm allowed to introduce the shiny, lumpy bright green fabric which I think were part of a set of vintage curtains I have been hoarding for years.

Yes moving on is hard but always easier when you have started itching to revisit a few ideas from the past as well as embark on a variation on a theme.


After trying to steal the sleepy sheep pillow, Becky has asked for a pig pillow, I have just found the perfect fabric for a herbal bath idea and realised that the next challenge is to use up as much as I can from an upcycled sundress.


To as they say, 'take your mind off it, love'.

Saying it with flowers

Stringy, tight, thrifty, call it what you will but I was determined to use the scraps left over from my project to make stuff from a pair of charity shop jeans. The pile of denim oddments may have looked unpromising and, given the time this has taken me, was  labour intensive, to say the least.

Quite early on, it became obvious that the flower shapes and sizes would have to be different and that developed into the main joy of this project, picking up a scrap and working out how to work it!

It was fun to plunder my stitch bank and quite a challenge to bring in enough variation to keep it interesting, as opposed to messy.

So here they are from a variety of angles on my kitchen worktop...

.....with close ups of some of my favourites...

.....this (below) has to be a contender ...

Not a bad transformation for a pile of scraps! Trouble is, there are some leftovers and guess what, they are not in the bin yet.

Notes from my garden

To use a phrase I first heard from the lips of Saint Jamie Oliver, I'm really into herbage, and really quite dedicated to making useful things incorporating the power of plants.


So just because:

• Chelsea Flower Show week, where we were being regaled by weird and very wonderful garden designs has just finished
• Whoosh, summer is here and all my recent efforts are bursting forth

I thought it was time to take you on a quick tour of my garden and check out how my powerful plants are coming along.

We inherited this slightly shady, brick-edged bed and it's the perfect place for many herbs as well as this mini Bacchus statue. Check out the alchemilla mollis, various mints, marjoram, the alliums and chives.

We love to lounge around in our garden. A gap in a bed was bench-shaped so in it went. Last week I was clearing out an old shed in preparation for a new potting shed this autumn and I found this mirror which I hung on the silver birch behind it. 


When we had those lousy winters, I thought I had lost all the cordyline Australis - but no -  they started springing up at the bases so I chopped the dead tops off and on this one glued an old candle lantern.


There was always a strange circle in our lawn when we cut the grass, until I started to dig and found what I maybe whimsically now describe as a filled-in well.Some cobbles and an ever-changing planted pot and it's a bit of a feature nowadays.

For the Mediterranean herbs of course I needed a really dry, sunny spot. At the moment we're having sage with everything because of the success of this one.

Finally, for so many reasons we had to have a pond. It's full of newts although we had hoped for frogs to eat the slugs ... great how nature always makes its own mind up!
A fantastic spot for a bout of gentle contemplation.

More notes from my garden coming soon, please drop by again!

Scraps

You know that feeling when you know exactly what you want to do next but are not sure how to go about it?

It happens to me a lot and I sort of relish it, wallowing in the creative confusion for a few days until ...WHAM the methodology comes whooshing in and I'm so beside myself I'm not sure how to start.

Determined to use up every scrap of my old pair of jeans, I am left, as you see, with a heap of oddments. But as I must say, 20 zillion times a day, something always comes up just as you need it and the special Wedding magazine in the latest issue of Mollie Makes mag has persuaded me that I simply have to have a back at making fabric flowers with the rest.

I particularly adore these utterly breathtaking bouquets which were featured and which will provide my inspiration as I begin and if I get stuck.

Now I don't think it's cheating to raid my supplies of ribbons, buttons, lace, fabrics and beads, do you, to add interest?

Agreed ... then off I go!

Do you need a sleep angel?

 

Yawn, mutter, mutter.


It could be because my sleep has been pretty poor again recently that I find myself drawn to gorgeous, sleep-inducing chamomile and lavender. Not in a sleep pillow this time but in a denim doll which I made from an old pair of jeans.


As I was making the snuffly bunny I though to myself, 'Hang on a minute, the world is your oyster here. There are so many gentle, beneficial herbs which could be stuffed into objects!' A sleep angel could be attached to the side of a cot, Moses basket or pram, not as a toy, but as an eye-catching object which at the same time would help a baby nod off to sleep.


As usual I found myself getting carried away with the stitching. Here's the collar and face detail:

And here's the pattern on the dress:

I made the hair using a lovely technique I have adapted many times before which I first read about in my treasured book, Homemade: Gorgeous things to make with love by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson.


I'm glad that her limbs are flexible enough to arranger her into various sleeping poses
Here's the sleep angel having her afternoon nap...

                           

... and with all these soporific herbs wafting about, plus a few sleepless nights, I may just join her....

More, err, 'jeanius' ideas

So who'd have thought an old pair of jeans had so many possibilities?
  Determined now to complete this challenge and use up every single scrap of denim from these charity shop jeans, I have been somewhat busy in the last week. 
  Always on a quest to keep things useful, here goes:


1 The coaster

I stuffed this with some fabric from an old oven glove to protect any surface I should select.
  The possibilities are endless with this one but I stuck to a good old floral cup of tea motif this time. A quick and easy make for Mother's Day and birthdays or when you just want to jolly somebody along!






2 The pincushion

Inspired by a design in a back issue of Mollie Makes, this pear pincushion used up some odd scraps of denim which were starting to accumulate. I improvised the stalk with another odd shape of fabric and created the leaf by embellishing a leaf design (just the perfect scale!) taken from a small scrap of vintage fabric I found in the loft. 
  Already in use - you can never have too many pincushions!






3 The address book cover

Call me old fashioned but I cannot bring myself to digitise all my contacts and have a fondness for my Cath Kidson address book which, through use was starting to look more shabby than chic and most excessively 'vintage'. Too lazy to buy a new one and enter in all those details and besides, wanting to be thrifty here, I decided to revamp the well used book I have before it's too late. 
   I cut out some denim about 10cm wider and taller than the book, cut away at the spine and folded over at the sides and then sewed on some lazy daisy and chain stitches randomly along the spine and appliqued an old fashioned telephone motif in to the cover. Then I blanket stitched all the way round through two layers of fabric and the card cover to hold it all together.
 What's more, now that it's protected by this tough fabric I hope my trusty address book now has a few more years of wear!


4 The sunffly bunny

There was enough fabric on one of the jean legs to design a very simple rabbit shape. With wrong sides together, I cut two out and improvised some embroidery to embellish the ears, eyes, mouth and nose as well as the pads of the 'hands' and feet.
  I also worked out an easy way to stitch on some whiskers and couldn't resist a quick pom-pom for the bunny tail (as you can see in the pic below of the rabbit face down and 'asleep' with a 'friend')

 Always wanting to stay away from cheesy, cute and cliche as far as I can,  I love their quirkiness but my daughter insists the green eyes give him a sinister edge so the next version will have to look more 'cuddly'. Nevertheless, this bunny definitely most definitely has a benevolent side. He's mainly stuffed with lovely soft and eco wool waste but I also included in the middle of his tummy a muslin pouch containing eucalyptus leaves. This makes him interestingly scrunchy as well as nice to cuddle when you have a cold as the oil released by the leaves will give off a congestion clearing perfume to sort out the sniffles. 
  The idea of simple toys has given me the idea of incorporating small amounts of safe and gentle herbs and plants into stuffings for interest ..... hmmm!


  I reakon I can just about manage one of those and then I'm going to need some serious inspiration to tackle the mini mountain of tiny scraps which is all that now remains of the jeans!

A pause for inspiration

They say that where your identity lies and where you feel most 'at home' is not necessarily where you were born or even where you have spent most of your life.
  Blonde and blue eyed and without the teeniest drop of Welsh blood in my body, right now I'm at my happiest in Wales, at least 2 hours away from south-east England where I have been based for nearly 30 years.
  Admittedly between the ages of 4 and 12 years Wales was where I was, with my family in a quiet village in Ceredigion, immersed in the language, culture and scenery. Formative years, evidently, as they say.

  Of course we all move on in life and I lost my fluency in the language and thought Wales was well behind me until my daughter went to university there about three years ago and gradually I started reconnecting very powerfully. I was planning prolonged weekends there, starting in Cardiff where my daughter is based, and slowly venturing deeper and deeper back towards a more familiar landscape away from the bright lights. 
  Right now I'm totally fixated with Camarthenshire. It has everything I'm craving - the gentle, rolling, green mountains, the sense of local identity, the vast beaches, the gentle air, yes, even the soft rain. The whole family now refers to Wales as 'the homeland', much to the consternation of many of our long-lasting acquaintances.

Last weekend I managed another precious fix. In the glorious sunshine, I breathed in the markets, the lush gardens, the shorelines, the flowering hedgerows and tasted the local produce. I'm back now with a sense of longing or hiraeth for my next visit but also a brain brimming with inspiration for my current and future projects.

  And I'm not alone, I'm noticing the work of artists and crafters based there and don't get me started on the poets and writers who keep me connected when I'm away ....