Constructing constructions

Hooray!  I've been a student again!

I love taking classes, and I have been looking forward to my class in Lewes for weeks - ever since I saw the little ad in a shop window.  Lewes is a funny place - very alternative, sort of the Totnes of the South East.  Half the population is Lewes Woman - easily spotted, usually sporting wicker basket, sandals, hairy knitwear...The class was in a little natural foods cafe - lots of jars of lentils, boxes of exotic tea, tubs of organic vegetarian stock powder, gluten-free hand-knitted muffins...

I digress.  I love construction, and jumped at the chance to learn how to make two different sorts of baskets.  This week, recycled cardboard.

The process:

The finished article (complete with dodgy blanket stitch....)

I liked the lilac cereal box, but was a bit upset I ended up using a pizza box from That Supermarket....

I like the googly eyes on this weetabix though...

And here are the others:

Next week: coiled grass!

I've also finally finished stitching my blue bracelet (still to do the brooch).

This is it pre-dissolving.  It is currently soaking in a tub in the kitchen sink - fingers crossed it doesn't unravel and all the beads fall off!

And just before cooking dinner, I had another go at cooking some beads with my heat gun - prettier this time, less charred:

Angelina fibres on top layer - what a result!  Holds everything in place, and adds some sparkle.  This colour was called something like "Pink Tickle"...

And then this morning, we woke to glorious sunshine (at last!) and the Whippet picked the winner of my little giveaway:

A little packet of foil is now on the way to you!

Thank you for all the lovely comments about the bracelets - very encouraging.  Luckily the blue/seashore bracelet didn't disintegrate in the wash, and so here it is!

Thinking ahead to Art Trail in the summer, I want to make some more of these (or similar) to sell.  Thus the knotty problem now of "what to charge for them?"  As with anything embroidered, it takes an age to make BUT it's only fabric and thread, not precious metal or anything...Any thoughts? 

PS  Welcome to new followers!

Experimental cabbages

Another project on the long list of things I'm supposed to be doing for a group exhibition in November is an embroidery based on a visit to Merriments Gardens.  Unfortunately on the day we visited in July, we had only just made it past the ornamental cabbages when it started to bucket with rain:

And with only photos of cabbages for inspiration, the other limiting factor in this challenge is that is has to be "abstract". 

Oh, it will be abstract all right.

I'd been toying with the idea of stitching on a sandwich of papers and water soluble fabric, then giving it all a jolly good scrub in the sink and seeing what's left.  I thought I would start with a small experimental piece of stitching just to try it out, but ended up stitching my cabbages:

I did it all quite quickly, then soaked and squidged it and put it on a tray with some watered down purple Brusho, and left it to dry on a piece of plastic*:

Hmmm.  I wasn't too sure at this stage but I couldn't wait for it to dry naturally, so I went at it with a hairdryer.

This is the end result just sitting on top of a piece of coloured card for now.

If I put a little more thought into it, I might do each leaf separately. 

And if I don't get round to doing any more, I reckon I'm quite pleased with it anyway.

* thick black horticultural plastic, cut into A3 pieces - jolly useful stuff