A Bird In The Hand

This week I'm working on some more new brooches. I've always liked bird shaped brooches and have made many over the years. 

The garden flowers I'm using as props are being very obliging with their matching colours.

I really enjoyed sitting in the shed doing a little sewing at the weekend. I'm delighted that these Vintage Table Linens have found a perfect home. Don't the colours go so well!

I find it very time consuming hand stitching beads and brooch bars but it is also very enjoyable when I can do it sitting in my little garden hideaway. 

 

Here are some finished leaf brooches. I have some listed in both my Online Shops.

 

I'm very careful when I'm sewing outside not to let any bits of thread fly off in the wind. I found this little fellow stuck in a Cypress tree and couldn't really understand why. I had to get a chair and a broom and very carefully pull the branch down low enough to see how I could help. Turned out there was a fine thread tangled in the tree and caught round the birds ankle. I managed to free him easily enough and snip the thread off without harm to the bird. It wasn't a sewing thread, more like a string fibre or something but even so, I'll keep a little bin beside me while I work for all those snippets of thread and wool.

There are a whole gang of Goldfinch enjoying all the wild thistle seed at the side of the farm track near our cottage. It's lovely to see them flit from stem to stem, bush to bush then fly off in a flock over the field.

 

A Passion For Pink!

I love it when new supplies arrive.

These designs all started with the leaf shape in the centre of the square pendant. I had made a blue version of this in March with a cuff to match and I wanted to see how the design would look in these beautiful fuchsia shades.

Next came the heart pendant. It has a lovely puffy effect as it is two thin layers of felt stitched together.

The matching cuff is incredibly soft. It closes with two buttons layered together as I liked the shimmery effect of the top button but it wasn't big enough on it's own.

 I had a leaf shaped template in my drawer of bits and pieces from when I was making fused fabric leaf pendants last year. I had picked a beach leaf off the hedge while walking home one day and based a few designs on it. When I cut this leaf out of the felt, one of the smaller leaves that I had cut for the square pendant fell onto the big one and hey presto! another design was born.

I have made these as brooches but they could also be fitted with a jump ring and worn as pendants.

The little pink daisy on the green background in the top photo was a bit of fun. I had some felt flower shapes cut from commercial felt for me by a fellow folksy seller and she kindly gave me card board cut outs of the four different daisy shapes that I ordered. The teeniest one just happens to fit within the square pendant tray and I couldn't resist the pink on green combination. A shiny shell bead makes up the centre and matches the background green perfectly.

I also have plenty of heart shaped templates lying around and this brooch is reminiscent of the hanging hearts I used to make. Again, this heart has a lovely 3D puffiness due to the layers being stitched together.

You can find some of these new pieces in my Etsy shop and I'll be adding more as and when I get them individually photographed. Thankfully the sun is shining today so I may have to just sit outside sewing on beads and brooch bars!