FUSSY CUTTING IMAGES FROM OLD BOOKS Before anyone gets aerated about destroying books, I would only usually do this with books that were damaged or destined for landfill. However, there are a lot of second-hand books on Ebay, full of beautiful images, and I don't really have any qualms about cutting these up…
2024 Review - Art As usual, here is my end-of-year review. As before, I've separated out the art from the rest, as there is so much, and even so, this post is going to be very long! Online art course The most important art activity this year has been my participation in the…
STUDIO TIDYING, TEABAG STAINS, CROCHET AND EMBROIDERY, AND ORGANISING A NEW PAINT BOX - ACTIVITIES DURING ONLINE ART COURSE REST WEEK I saved this as a draft on 1st May and then forgot to publish it. I posted it on 19th May, back-dated to 1st May. What did I do in the rest…
2023 - END OF YEAR REVIEW As usual, it has been a pretty eventful year, both personally and generally. See the end of this post for the most important aspects of changing world events and what they mean for us all. During the year, I have had various health issues to deal with…
EMBROIDERY ON MY SECOND VICTORIAN APRON Second post of the day Back in November I began work on my second Victorian-style linen apron, designing the embroidery and transferring it onto the fabric pieces for the bib and pockets. You can see this here. I began the embroidery but have not done very much…
BEGINNING A SECOND LINEN APRON, AND SOME HOMESPUN PHILOSOPHY From the outset, I intended to make two vintage-style linen aprons, and last week I began working on the second one. This one will have floral embroidery on it, in a more traditional style. I have already cut the various pieces to make the…
SASHIKO I recently rediscovered Sashiko online. Some time ago I looked at this form of Japanese embroidery and thought how effective it was, and put it on the back burner as someting to explore further. What is Sashiko? "Sashiko" means "little stabs" in Japanese, and it refers to the small stabbing stitches of…
I MADE AN APRON! Since starting my Bonnie Bags project, I've been getting more sewing videos coming up in my feed. I do follow a few channels which show how to make authentic period garments, and while I am not really into this, I am interested to see how things were done in…
BONNIE BAGGIE NO. 3 - UPCYCLED HOT WATER BOTTLE COVER I was going through some old stuff the other day and in a drawer in the bedroom I found a spare hot water bottle cover that I don't use. I don't know where it came from but it was never very satisfactory as…
EYEGLASS CORDS, BONNIE BAGGIE NO. 2 - GREEN NECK PURSE, AND MY OLD BAGGIES Now that the final supplies have arrived for Bonnie Baggie No. 2 and future projects, I am able to post the completed baggie. Eyeglass cords from Amazon The other day, I spent some considerable time searching online for beaded…
