Bullseye

The target of 4 items a day seemed a bit ambitious, especially since some of them were handbags.
I showed you the first of these in my last post and I have now made 4 altogether.

I just heard Anna Freud, (a poet and daughter of amazing artist Lucien) on Women's hour.
(Is that apostrophe correct? Women is already plural and the s makes it possesive...)
She was talking about her time as an embroiderer, and how she might put two colours together, say a peach and a dove grey, and the effect would be amazing and unexpected and thats why she loved it so much.
Take that peach further until it becomes orange, and the dove grey becomes turquoise, and voila!

I have devised some other bags with three 'bullseyes'. The centre bullseye is on a flap that comes over from the back to fasten it.


More unexpected colour thrills.
In this tweed below there is a blue grey thread among the weave, so I added blue grey velvet.


I've cut into the precious bright tweeds for these bags.



I loved the bullseyes so much I made a whole lot of brooches.

I sat watching TV last night fraying the edges.

(Oh I do love Matthew McFadyen as Mr Clenham in 'Little Dorrit'. Does anyone else find his acting incredible? He can change his expression so imperceptibly and subtly that you hardly notice, but know exactly how 'Mr Clenham' feels. Sorry non-UK friends who can't see it)

It seems a pity to be unweaving all the Harris tweed edges, and its very hard to fray a circle.

They were such fun to make and I kept the backs simple, no extra fabrics or stitching so I can keep them down in price.

So, thats 8 bags, 12 tweed brooches, plus a couple of hearts I've sent off for people, since Sunday afternoon.

And I was out most of Tuesday.

I hope it doesn't count as mass production.

But don't mention the housework or the ironing.

I have a wardrobe full of empty hangers and a spare room full of crumpled clothes.

Blatant Advertising.

This is the first actual real useable handbag with embroidery that I made back in about 2000. I spent ages on the embroidery, its the same on both sides

and fastens with what I have learned to call a 'vintage' bead, and although its faded a bit worn, I used it on a number of occasions and I still like it. I went on to make lots more bags, large and small. I realised there was no need to cover the entire back in embroidery,
but there's always a little bit. I must have made and sold a hundred or so.
Its the embroidery part I enjoy, but when you are making a handbag for sale you have to pay attention to good quality construction.
Which is why I am not making any more like this. Too much construction and not enough fun.

The Hard Sell (Please look away if this offends)

I am reducing the price of all my remaining handbags from their original £35 - £40 (£50-£60 in certain galleries with commission) to £20. That $40 for American readers plus cost of postage. It sounds such a lot in dollars doesn't it? I can e-mail you extra pictures if you like andI take paypal.

Right, you can look again now.

Every bag is unique and is lightweight, pure silk with hand dyed silk velvet applique and fastening with either a roll of silk or a large bead, some vintage.

The bags are lined with an appropriate fabric and a little pocket is stitched into the inside big enough for a credit card, or bank notes. They are really 'special occasion ' bags as silk is a luxury fabric, not especially hardwearing, but look at the blue one..although its faded it still looks good.

These lemon ones are slimmer and would hold a few necessities such as a tissues, lipstick, phone, keys when you don't want a huge bag with you.

Lemon drops on the left is paler than the more golden swirly one.

The light has caught the swirls differently , thats what I love about velvet.

I've been awarded the Wild women award by paula. Thank you Paula I am honoured. I've seen lots of awards on lots of blogs and I think everyone has had them all by now so I am going to pass it on to anyone who would like it who has made a comment on my blog.

Thats how wild I am.

Not very.

But here are some nice blogs that I read. Caroline Inckle is in the North of Scotland

and does mysterious magical paintings and embroideries,

Julia is also in Scotland and does beautiful handstitched one offs, and Victoria and I share a love of all things 50s.

Later that night.....she corrected the spelling of blatant then....

Now I have a question. I was reading this and it reminded me of a blog post I read a few months ago. Someone went on a trip to New York and visited a wonderful ice cream parlour, and a shop called Tender Buttons, and I left a comment that when and if I ever had the wherewithall to visit NY City I would get back to them for an itenerary.

Who was it? If it was you please tell me! Its driving me mad.