Ship of Dreams - Finished!

Here, finished and in all her glory is my ship of dreams. She's been lined with muslin and is ready to set sail.

I'm amazed at how quickly she took shape, Everything seemed to fall into place without me having to sit and stare, waiting for her to talk to me. I've already started to think of some other designs and have made quick metal mesh ship and a needle felted underwater scene one.

I took a trip on a sailing ship/my fantasy ship of dreams

Mixed Media Ship of Dreams - felt based soft sculpture

This is a new project, an experiment in 3D mixed media soft sculpture. The aim is to create a ship of dreams, a basic shape that is then lavishly decorated with silk, lace, muslin,buttons,beads,metal,embroidery,salvaged objects,gemstones,shells and all sorts of beautiful things. I started off with a basic ship shape that I made from heavy duty white craft felt, stitched it together with blanket stitch in dark blue and went around the top with some blue and white striped nautical braid

I then took three shades of blue embroidery silk and did some layered stitching to the aft to represent the layers of the ocean

I then started the serious decoration. I wanted it to look like a mix of a shipwrecked luxury cruiser and a something out of an 18th century boudouir.

To start I took some strips of muslin and ruffle stitched them to the bottom to symbolise waves

I then took a shell strip bracelet apart and stitched the pieces to the sides to represent planking and mother of pearl buttons for portholes. I also added some beaded thread and silver beads, beautifully tarnished into black

I then took ladder sari silk in greens and blues, bright yellow silk waste, more MoP buttons, cream lace, coloured glass beads and a brass rings and clear charms to decorate the sides

The Forward is the most lavish so far, bits of bright saffron yellow silk waste and green and blue ladder sari silk have been stitched to each side with faux pearls,brass rings, petrol beads, silver beads, log shell strips and red seed beads

So this is what I have so far

The next part is to add more embroidery, a ships wheel, an anchor and more trinkets

Romance Is In The Believing - Treasury List

Thank you to Caitlihne for adding my Pale Knight top to her new Treasury List
Romance Is In The Believing

The Girl in the Pre Raphaelite Hat - Now in Flickr's Portrait Group

I got an email from the admin of A Portrait Group on Flickr asking me if I'd like to add my latest photograph to the pool. Needless to say, I was delighted.

This is the picture in question and this is the link to the group's home page

also the Etsy link to the hat

Swapshop fun

The first sat of the month is swapshop day at our local recycle/paint store/community centre and today was a great day for goodies.

First thing I'd like to do is introduce Fred and George, two fantastic handmade plant pots who will soon be gracing our main gate posts

Second is a fantastic vintage parasol (a very unusual find), also a vintage glove box)


A case of Pre Raphaelite cards


some lovely graphic designed blotting paper cases,


a selection of pen nibs (always useful)


a sweet little ethnic doll,


a book of rag crafts and a book on quilts,

a lovely book of ethnic portrait photographs,

a set of vintage 1930's happy family playing cards. Top card is Miss Rake - the gardeners daughter

a little model elephant (perfect for storing rings on) and a dinky little decorative teaspoon that will soon be a pendant

The most fantastic child's tape measure that will be a godsend (lets see me loose this baby down the back of the sofa) Its so big I feel like I should take it for walkies

and a large leather luggage tag thats just what I need for my keyring.

Gremlins, mushrooms, soap bubbles and rose leaves

Sounds like a good plan for a friday doesn't it.

My plan for today involved some beautiful grey silk, a pattern for fabric mushrooms, earring hooks and some relaxing hand sewing. As usual, it all went awry. I was going thru the fabrics 3 days ago and saw the silk in a bag, I thought aha! I know where you are now, I can use you when I need you. I needed it today and it appears that the gremlin has decided it doesn't want it to be used and has moved it to another part of the workshop and I can't find it for love, money, pleading or hysterics. I know I put it on the worksurface by the sewing machine but its simply vanished.




I gave up on my silk mushrooms, having made a note of it in my ring binder/sketchbook/ideas sheet/random scribbling store and came in the house to nearly fall headlong over a potato stolen by willow (our dog) and hidden in plain sight in the middle of the living room floor. After coffee and staring at the potato in a thoughful manner I decided to give up on 3D mushrooms and concentrate on 2D ones I.E a potato stamp which is something I've not done for years, it turned out pretty well, all things considering and I made a pretty piece of hand stamped muslin with mushrooms and butterflies.

Making a potato stamp 101

1: get a potato and cut it in half, 2: draw your chosen design, 3 cut out design and place on potato half, 4: cut around paper with a scalpel and slice off the waste flesh,5: stamp in inkpad, 6:stamp on pabric or paper, 7: iron on wrong side to set

One potato stamp

It has quite a good texture it once inked up

My hand stamped muslin

I want to try my hand at proper wood carving stamps but finding somewhere local that does hardwood blocks is difficult.

The soap bubble part of the post was found in a bowl of rose leave on the table about 5 mins ago

The Aesthetic - Now on Etsy

The Aesthetic - Blue and black striped gentlemen's cufflinks

Buy them Now

http://www.etsy.com/listing/77398917/the-aesthetic-blue-and-black-striped?ref=pr_shop

Silk Mushrooms

Thats my plan for tomorrow. I was walking upstairs and the two words just popped into my head. I have some saffron yellow and steel grey raw silk in my store that will look fantastic. I may be making earrings with them

I may be in love - Octopus hairstick

I think I may have fallen in love with this beautiful hair accessory. Emergent Glassworks on Etsy has a stunning pink and black spotted octopus hair stick and whilst I'm not that much of a pink person the idea of having this holding up my mass of mane is fantastic. He also does ladybirds and roses but the octopus would go down a storm with everyone I know.

Bilbert the plushie

I just found this wonderful post on the British sellers on Etsy team page. Doodledollies has a lovely plushie called Bilbert and she is looking for people to help him travel around the world and see the sights. I've sent her an email asking her if she'd like him to visit Oxford and see all our museums, galleries,botanical gardens, colleges, the prison/castle hotel and have a ride on a miniture shetland pony