Ruby's Button Tin

This isn't getting the decorating done!!

I'm supposed to be painting my flat before I get around to re-carpeting it, but somehow working on needlepoint seems to be more enticing.  Well, 'go figure' as the Americans say! 

I've already started to think about what I want to do next, a design based on auriculas. 

Have been collecting up suitable shades of wool to use.  My patchwork quilt loosely based on Janey Forgan's superb 'Liberty Jack' quilt is still sitting in pieces while I work through this needlepoint phase I'm caught up in.  Nicki left a comment asking about any good images of the wonderful Janey Forgan quilt. Unfortunately I think, Nicki, you're going to struggle to find good enough reproductions of it.  I didn't splurge on the book of the V&A exhibition, but I'm certain it'll be featured in there, and there are images on Flickr.  Maybe the exhibition will tour around and you'll get to see the original? 

Maybe the V&A website might offer alternative views of it?  Sorry I can't be more help but with quilts there's nothing to beat seeing them 'in the flesh' so to speak.  Some of the quilts at exhibition had been featured in books but photos of them don't have the same emotional impact as seeing the fabric and stitches up close. 

Stitching and reading ...

I've a week off work, so it's been a day of chores (a little cleaning and home decorating) then on to the more enjoyable stuff - stitching and reading, and later going to see a film.  The stitching is the pink and stripes cushion cover which is coming on nicely. 

 I've also finished reading Jean Rhys's 'Voyage in the Dark'.  I haven't read any of her books for quite a while, and I'd forgotten how astonishlingly good her books are.  The writing is wonderful, and the subject - of a young girl alone and vulnerable, different, on the margins of respectability and inevitably on a downward slide - must've been pretty shocking at the time it was published.  It makes me want to re-read 'Wide Sargasso Sea'. 

Still here ...

I get embarassed by how infrequently I blog - (Bridget Jones style note to self, must try harder!  Also, must find out whether embarassed is two 'R's and two 'S's, one of those words that are tricky to spell - like accomodation - or is it accommodation?)

Anyhoo ... I'm still going with the needlepoint.  The pink and stripes design is starting to work out. 

The colours, especially that pink, could look a bit too sickly-sweet so I'm doing a black and white border with a grey line of stitching beyond that around it.  The squares design on the right is finished, and waiting to be made up into a cushion while the other pattern - hmmm, well, not sure about it.  Not sure at all. 

It's vaguely 'inspired' by a book of Gustav Klimt paintings I've got, and I've taken shapes and colours from various illustrations.  Though the top right corner of it has gone all 'Kaffe Fassett' ... I've already unpicked various parts and re-stitched them, and maybe it'll all come together and look okay in the end. 

It just ain't working ...

Okay, I gave it my best shot but sometimes a needlepoint design just doesn't work.  You keep going, but something about the shapes and the colours doesn't look right, doesn't have any pzzazz ... so I'm giving up on this cushion cover.  I've stuffed it in a basket under a pile of material and it'll stay hidden there for now. 

 I'm going to try another design, something with lots more colours and based on geometric shapes.  I did a little swatch which is something similar to what I'm planning.  Top left in notebook page below:

 The circles and squares inside the larger pink square will be bigger themselves and I want to use some metallic thread too.  The colours are mainly going to be 'ice cream' shades - pinks, lemons, pale shades (but not too sickly sweet.)  Fingers crossed this pattern's more successful.
 

Very much a work in progress

I'm not sure at this stage whether this needlepoint pattern will work.  There's always a stage when you're a 1/3rd or halfway through and you're convinced the design's no good.  Usually it works out okay in the end, but sometimes you just have to admit it's a turkey!!

I think the middle section is going to be based on a teazel head, so I collected a few while I was out cycling this morning. 

They really are extraordinary things.  I'll keep going with the needlepoint as there are elements of it I like and might recycle into another pattern.  I've got an idea for the dandelion heads (the white lollipop like thingys)  with a line of them followed by a line of stripes then more dandelion heads. But as usual I've more ideas than time! 
  

Back on the needlepoint

I'm back on the needlepoint after spending months working through a patchwork craze.  There's definately an autumnal feeling in the air, so I'm trying to do an autumnal kind of design. 

I collected up lots of old Country Living magazines and leafted through, finding these pictures of teazels and seed heads and stylized dandelion clocks.  Well, the colours say 'Autumn' to me!  They're also saying 'fifties' and 'retro' too.  I did the roughest of drawings and then marked out the design with a pale pink highlighter pen on white canvas. 

I've started stitching, and we'll see how it progresses.  I'm hopeful!

Couture elegance

How gorgeous is this Christian Dior gown? 

Of course there's something uncomfortable about the whole idea of designing hugely expensive, extravagant gowns when there are people in desperate need of cash, but then again haute couture is an industry that employs a lot of people - seamstresses, tailors, embroiderers, etc.  Plus, fashion houses have given us such extraordinarily beautiful images over the years. 

This is a Dior creation from 1951.  It could be worn today by any Hollywood starlet and she'd look stunning.  Or how about this:

 It's not Dior, but is by Lucien Lelong, from French Vogue 1939. Wow!  The movement of the dress is as spectacular as the model's pose high up on the Eiffel Tower.  There'd be a million health & safety rules that would stop her doing that nowadays.
 
 

Cut out and keep

I've always cut out images from magazines that I like, whether it's due to an arresting colour combination, interesting shapes or an interior that's meant to spur me on to decorate.  Sticking things into makeshift scrapbooks keeps everything in one place and throws up some odd combinations. 

On this page there's a gorgeous blue wall I'd love to copy, a cute little bunny that I'd like to make a similar version of - only longer and thinner and of a fluffyish fabric - and two fab stripy chairs.  Their stripes echo those of the funky tiger, and finally I like the blue cushion with the map of the UK on it.  A decorated tea towel would be easy to convert into a cushion cover and there're always lots in charity shops.

Love the curves of this apple half and those of the Alexander McQueen lobster shoes.  There are some good ideas for needlepoint patterns here - the two tone squares would translate into a simple geometric pattern that'd be quick and easy to stitch.  Alternatively it could be knitted or adapted for patchwork. 

On the subejct of needlepoint, this is just a little square I did based on a greetings card design.  The cat is embroidered on, and I'm happy with its jaunty air. 

 
 

Quilt's gradually growing, flat's looking a mess (sigh ...)

Very slowly this quilt is making progress.  But we're talking sloooowly ...

I'm pooped by this heat and by work being busy, plus I've got noisy neighbours moved into the flat upstairs who seem to think playing loud music at 5.00am is acceptable.  Consequently I'm in a lethargic phase.  I am managing to do the odd bit of typing up, adapting and reworking a couple of short stories that I want to enter into writing comps, and also weeding and watering the allotment.  A few weeks ago the grass between plots was long and lushly green, now it's scrubby and yellowing.  Still, M&S have got their autumn fashion in store so the heatwave will break before long I'm sure. 

I keep making resolutions to do up my flat, but judging by the state of my dining table I'm not making much progess, am I?

 Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to leave a comment lately.  I really do appreciate them and I will try - really try - to blog a bit more than once in a blue moon.  Meanwhile I'm going back to my sewing and to watching one of the films I've just bought in Fopp - the original version of 'The Producers' or maybe a young and ridiculously handsome Orson Welles in 'The Stranger' - subtitled 'The most deceitful man a woman ever loved!'  With a line like that, how could I resist it?
  

Once in a blue moon

I had every intention of posting more often to this blog, but real life just gets in the way doesn't it?  I've re-discovered my enthusiasm for writing so am looking out for short story comps to enter and working on a novel.   Very early stages yet ... so I haven't done much in the way of crafty stuff lately.   
I have been thinking quite a lot about clothes too, having come across some fantastically stylish blogs.  One of my absolute favourites is www.advancedstyle.blogspot.com which is truly inspirational.

It features 'older' women mainly but dashing gentlemen too who aren't slavish followers of fashion but are stylish.  Like this glorious lady in the photo.  I love this site as the women featured aren't trying to pass for twenty-somethings or botox themselves until they look like plastic Barbies.  They look confident and sure of their own style and show that you can be alluring and elegant into your fifties, sixties, seventies and above.  A superb blog so please visit them!