Exercise

Since coming home from our unexpected trip I have been desperate to get back into my sewing room, but I knew I had this task awaiting me.
A problem to be solved.
How to line and 'zip' this felt bag.

I made it ages ago trying, as I said before , to incorporate my usual embroidery style into felt.
Its just not possible to do the embroidery as part of the pre felt process because the velvet needs to be tumble dried to get a good finish, so I stitched it onto a strip of felt and used the embellisher to attach it to the bag.

Then added a decorative flower stitched on by hand.

There are lines and obvious separateness but I quite like that aspect.
The biggest problem is the lining and adding a zip in a professional way . I think I got it in principle. Its a piece of lining fabric..not rubber as it may seem in the picture!

Phew.
It took so long, if I sell it on ETSY it will be fiendishly expensive.
I've got one in pink, one in lilac and a duck egg one too.

When I'd finished wrestling with that I had a bit of fun with some HUGE brooches..I mean HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE.
Would you dare to wear one?
At least 5 inches high.

Even more wacky and wild.

It was such a joyous process.

Then I calmed myself down with some pinkness.
Which I have to say is a much prettier colour in reality than this photo shows;
The velvet is a beautiful rich cerise.

Not a bit orangey like this picture.

Then I finished with blue.The centre is beautiful deep rich turquoise and indigo.

.....and...breathe................................................

While I was doing this I was listening to the afternoon play on Radio 4.

Setting the scene #I
When I was a teenager I saw a tv film of a ghost story by MR James called 'Whistle and I'll come to You My Lad'. It was the most frightening thing I have ever seen on TV and always comes into my head when I stay in a B&B because the scary bit was in such a place. I have not forgotten it even after all these years.
(In fact, my older son went away to camp with school and was equally scared at the telling of it by one of his friends. Came home and told me all about it and I instantly knew what it was)

Setting the scene #II
My husband has some work he has to return to people in Aldeburgh, and I really fancy a trip there. We could stay in a B&B for a few nights and make a little holiday of it.

Action
The play I listened to this afternoon(as well as being quite creepy in itself) informed me that #I took place in the proposed venue in #II!!!!!!
M.R. James based all his Ghost stories on Aldeburgh.

How can I go now?

Now I have to prepare myself for a sad event.
The last ever episode of ER.
I think I've seen every one.
(S0b!)

Tweedledone

Now back to the serious subject of sewing.

But first, in answer to your questions regarding the fate of the potato, my husband used it for his signature dish, baked potatoes.
He showed it no mercy.
One became two.
He separated the conjoined tubers and stuck them in the oven.
We ate them trying to avoid noticing the tell -tale scar of their former romantic state.

I have at last had enough time to devise a new Harris Tweed clutch/handbag.

Larger than the purses from a previous post.

A large roomy pocket that folds over at the top.

It has a velcro fastener, and of course velvet applique and a bit of hand stitch.

I've lined it with some vintage 'Next' curtain fabric, from the early eighties, thick and soft, and there's a small mirror pocket inside.

I will be selling these for £30ish.

Please tell me what you think.

I have to make four things a day for the next two weeks.

I have high hopes of the next Craft market.

A ''This is.' and a 'these were...'

This weeks theme for the 'this is' game was chosen by Flightless boyds.

We could choose between 'This is ... what gives me goosebumps' and 'This is ... what scrambles my brain when I try to understand it' so as I showed you the goosebumps thing in this post I thought I'd try the second because there's certainly a lot of scope for it.

This is the first thing that scrambles my brain..I have recently set up Google reader to view all the lovely blogs I enjoy so I don't miss anything, but then I found that it wasn't picking up some of them, so I subscribed to my own to see what happened...this happened:

and it wasn't even a real post, just a test I did when I first started, and the previous post from my blog on Google reader was from weeks ago, with nothing after it.



The second blog related thing that scrambles my brain when I try to understand it is this:

Now lets be honest, we do like our blogs to be read.

We can look at Technorati now and then to massage our fragile egos, (well I do at the moment but I'm relatively new to blogging so it may wear off) and having learnt how to 'ping', and even how to configure a ping, I am often checking back and forth, and I now know that 'authority' means I have a lot of links.

I have no idea what rank means but its nice when it goes up..gives me goosebumps in fact...but sometimes it says I have an authority of this or that and one day last week it said 'No authority yet' and rank down in the zillions.... and the last post it picked up was last Sunday's, despite me pinging all week.

I do not understand!

But do I need to understand? Its really not important, but if its there it should work.

Anyway a bit of sewing relief since there was a glimpse in the 'snip' above I will now bare all and show them in their full glory. These are some silk purses like ones I made 10 years ago when I had an offer of an exhibition the showcases of Pendle Art Gallery. I had to think of something small and sellable so I started playing with my favourite material, silk dupion, and produced these little bags which I thought were totally my own idea but I have since seen similar elsewhere so I'm not sure. Maybe two people can have the same original idea, who knows?

I didn't sell any there but they were later accepted by another Gallery which led on to other things, and they were all sold.

I later discovered that 6 of them went to a man on Christmas Eve who was giving his coin collection to his Children or Grandchildren and he bought the bags to put the coins in. Isn't that gratifying...they have become heirlooms.

Anyway since they are no longer unique to me I now offer a workshop which is quite satisfying for a day because you do a bit of machine embroidery, a bit of construction, as much decoration as you like, make your own cord and tassel, and sew on a few beads.

Just look what Macclesfield Embroiderers Guild did! (Scroll down to the bottom picture.)

About 5 years ago I took a lot of these to an Agricultural show Craft fair and decided to name them 'Reticule' purses. My first browsers were an elderly upright couple and the husband asked me what a reticule purse was, so I said it was the name some purses had in Regency times, Jane Austen heroines may have carried them.

He went off quite satisfied, I thought, but about 5 hours later he was back with the important news that these were not reticules as a reticule was a netted or crocheted bag.

I tore up my sign, but now know that it was correct in the same way as we say we are Hoovering the carpet and we use a Dyson. (I have seen that referred to on many a blog but I had often thought it myself)

Anyway it was a lousy day for my stall . It rained and my friend who came to help me was wearing jewelled flips flops, and a cheescloth skirt, and when she got back from looking round the show ground she had mud up to her knees.

I would say that in general in this part of the world, people who visit Agricultural shows are there to look at pigs, sheep and bulls, watch the tractor pull, and drink beer, and not buy crafts.

But right at the end of the day a young couple came up to the stand.

The woman was very pregnant and the husband was the most handsome, blue-eyed, black curly haired, wide smiling, rogueish looking farmers boy you have ever seen, eating fish and chips out of bag, with a can of beer in his other hand.

His wife wanted one of my bags and he forked out a sizable sum and bought it. Or rather, she forked out the money and he looked on. (It was one of those occasions when you forget how much you need the income and almost want to give it) I felt as if I had just been part of a Thomas Hardy plot.

Since then I have avoided Agricultural shows .

There weren't even any puppies.

These are some more items from the same era.

"Oooh, my daughters getting married next year/I'm going to a wedding but I haven't got my outfit yet, when I know what colour/ my little girl is going to be a bridesmaid.. can I take a card and we'll be in touch?"

followed by " "