'If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it… The goal should be an interesting life."

Dorothy Rowe

Thursday 15 January 2009

You may be wondering


whether any embroidery has been taking place chez Cheese recently. The answer is 'No'. There has been a fair amount of stash sorting and some sewing and knitting - but very little embroidery.
I mentioned my new method of storing fabric in an earlier post. This is the result - a [relatively] neat and tidy stash cupboard. It may not look tidy to you - but believe me compared to what it was like before ....
There are other stash cupboards by the way - this is just the fabric one. Apart from the lining fabric which has a suitcase to itself. Why do I have so much lining fabric when I don't do dress making? It was inherited from my mother. Why did she have so much? Heaven knows - she could have carpeted the house with it and still have spare. And why so much bottle green when she never wore green? But I digress. As usual.
In the course of my sort out I found several bits of embroidery and patchwork which had been begun but not finished. Not really 'works in progress', more that I had got thoroughly bored with them. Some immediately got shoved back on the top shelf - but some I decided to do something with. Like make bags.
As I have mentioned, before I made books when I wanted instant gratification I used to make bags. So I have - er - several - bags. Patchwork, embroidered, knitted, crocheted. What Imelda Marcos was to shoes, I am to hand made bags. Babybel's mum has taken several of the bigger ones off my hands but I still have quite a few small ones. Never mind - I have made a few more.
The top one is crazy patchwork. It was originally going to have hand embroidery as well as the machine embroidery - but I decided I would never get round to it, so it has ended up as a giant pencil case. Used up a zip from my stash too. Is it odd to have a zip stash?
I think the one below was originally going to be sliced up for fabric mosaic. [Does anyone else ever find things they don't remember making?] I decided to add some couching instead and it has ended up as a sort of mad plaid. A second over sized pencil case, and another zip gone..

This is one of three panels from a lovely quilt that I started a long time ago. I still like the design but I decided there was no way I was ever going to finish it - applique is just not my thing. So this is the first of three bags. It is pretty big - about 20" by 17" by 3" - patchwork always get measured in Imperial here because that is what my patchwork rulers are!



And now for something completely different - the hydrangea. I'm sure there are larches at the Hillier gardens but I didn't photograph one. [And if you don't get that reference, don't worry, it means you are a lot saner than I am - and probably a lot younger too.]
This is my favourite of the photos I took at the gardens - I see free edge applique and French knots. It is not at all my sort of colours - not nearly bright enough - but I don't think I'd change it at all for an embroidery- although I may play around with it in Paint shop Pro later just yo see what happens!

1 comment:

Kitty said...

Until last weekend I would have said "Yes, it is odd to have a zip stash" but since going through my large box of haberdashery stuff then I would have to say, erm, no. Is it odd to have a boning stash?