How I get sidetracked

As I have mentioned before, I have been making samples of manipulated fabrics for C&G. I am not completely sure I know what C&G means by manipulated fabrics, but one advantage of making lots of samples is that the tutor could throw half of them out and I would still have plenty!

However, I am getting bored with it, so today I thought I would tidy up the fabric I had been using, make a few ribbon roses for a last sample, and move on to some design work I need to do for next week.

Well – ribbon roses led to lace rosettes - and then I began to wonder how I was going to display them. [Are you surprised?] They would get a bit lost in the bowl.

I remembered that when I tidied up the fabric there had been a piece of dyed hessian which might make a background. But it was a bit insubstantial – so perhaps I could back it with felt? Could I use the embellisher to put the hessian on the felt? Only one way to find out.

So out came the embellisher, and yes, you can embellish hessian to felt. Then, as I usually do, I turned the piece over and embellished it from the felt side – which produced some rather organic green shadows on the hessian. So I added a few more. And then I added some stems using string and some nice loopy mohair from one of Texere’s variety packs. [I used to wonder what to do with the thicker fibres in a Texere pack before I had the embellisher.]

So now I had a nice background – but the few rosettes and roses looked a bit lost on it. So of course I had to make some more. Serendipitously Janet of

http://nostalgicneedleart.blogspot.com/

had posted a link to her method of making roses, on the BQL Yahoo list. She also has instructions for leaves. And rosebuds. And violets. So far I have only made the China silk flowers [the small blue ones top right, although mine are down market sparkle organza] and they are easy, quick and effective.

The small specks of colour you can see on the flowers are pins - this is a work in progress!

So tomorrow I have some more flowers and leaves to make. Of course, if I had intended to make a piece like this I probably wouldn’t have picked these colours but I am NOT starting again, although quality control made her opinion very clear.

I might get round to the design work at the weekend.