Time is really flying at the moment. Here are the next four tags. Tag 24 was to create a bouquet of flowers tied with ribbon or in a vase. I opted for the ribbon since I just happened to have one in need of a job.
A really enjoyable tag with lots of stitching.
Tag 27, weaving.
Another enjoyable tag. Took time but good fun.
And there we were at the half way mark for which we all deserved a medal.
Tag 27- beaded tassles. This was also highly enjoyable.
I am really enjoying making these tags.
I am falling behind with sharing my tags. The First one introduces writing using back stitch. The suggestion was to choose a quotation, put the First word on top, turn up the fabric to reveal the rest of the quotation. A super idea but I couldn’t think of a quote and my thoughts were full of Mum whose birthday it was that week. By a long train of thought I came up with the idea of incorporating her childhood address and away I went.
Turn up the fabric to reveal this on the other side.
Next tag was a simple combination stitch.
The next one is bullion knot and a chance to get the pretties out. It was suggested that we used a variegated thread. Since I don’t possess many such threads my choice was limited, sometimes that helps to narrow down the alternatives.
And finally lace layers. This was heaven to stitch. Firstly choose a pretty piece of fabric with lace for background, then play. I had an old hanky which someone had marked with one of those laundry markers the numbers 25 in a corner. I was never going to use someone’s old hanky, probably my step-mum’s as a hanky, so I had my background. Three hours of bliss followed.
Tag 18 is pretty but very fiddly.
Teeny tiny hexies, how many can I fit onto the tag?
Stitched together and ready to go on my backing fabric.
Add running stitch- job done. Loved this one.
I really quite enjoy couching- this tag is couching with a difference- the challenge to couch rolls of fabric. Harder than it sounds! We were also challenged to use a colour we don’t/haven’t used much of. For me this would be green, brown or orange. I don’t have a great deal of fabric in any of these colours, but what I do have is a pack of green threads bought many years ago- i.e. at least 20 years ago from a now defunct embroidery shop. They cost well over £4 at the time, which for a few lengths of mainly wool, I consider it a bit of a rip off, and so never used them. The time had come!
Even that has a story behind it. I bought it as part of a pack of two, having found a project at least 20 years ago to make aprons from t-towels. I made the first one and lost heart- it looked like an apron made from a t-towel. Anyway there it sat in my fabric box. Time to do something with it. I used it as the base for my tag and for one of the fabric rolls.
But quite enjoyable to stitch. What’s next I wonder?
The latest tag 16 is about seed stitch and negative space. First task create the negative space with buttons or washers.
The fabric is purple in case the colour doesn’t appear properly. I choose three yellow embroidery flosses. I love the yellows and purples of Spring time crocuses.
And start to stitch
I like the way the colours blend, but mine didn’t puff up as much as others I have seen. Should have used the cheaper wadding not off cuts of batting. Learning all the time.
Tag 15 was to create a landscape. Imagination ran riot for a while, until I calmed down a bit and looked through my fabrics- would I do another sunset- really so old hat from me, or maybe a snowy scene- brrr, wrong season. So in the end this is what happened.
The advice was to draw a picture- turned out to be invaluable advice.
pinned out ready to stitch.
At this point my inabailty to translate things into shapes that work needed a great deal of effort from me, and the sketch proved really helpful.
That’s much better.
A memory, a pocket and a treasure! The brief for this tag was to think of somewhere or something we had missed during lockdown, make a tag with a pocket and add a treasure to go in the pocket.
One thing I really wanted to do last Summer and didn’t because our house move was delayed in lockdown one, and then we were occupied with just settling in with limited open shops for things like curtain rails, was strawberry picking. There is a particularly good strawberry farm in Swindon that I really wanted to go to and just didn’t. This year I will. I also missed going round beautiful gardens , mostly due to needing to book slots. So my tag was going to reflect both of these dreams.
I had no idea what to do about a treasure to do with picking strawberries, but a rummage through my jewellery boxes yielded up the smiley badge. No idea where it came from, but a smiley badge seemed to reflect what the strawberry picking and garden visiting made me feel.
The green bias binding at the top was leftover from the Stitchbook. Took care of fraying edges.
Loved stitching this tag. I can just taste those strawberries warm from the plant.
Tag 12 is about exploring buttonhole stitch, which happens to be one of my favourite stitches. I wanted to make this one in celebration of my friendship with J whom I have known since I was 6 years old. It was her birthday this month. She loves, Scotland, dancing and geology. I couldn’t think of anything to stitch which fitted her first two passions, so I opted for geology.
Tag 13- was called Golden Layers. Time for some fun.
Turns out I am not big on gold or even yellow fabrics, but I did have this piece of orange fabric. I had used it for the sun in a piece of applique on a quilt, and it seemed to lend itself to the basis of my golden layers. Find a piece of contrasting fabric to go under it, add some lace.
I really enjoyed making both these tags, and I am quite pleased with them both.
I had joyfully volunteered to make a page for Wild Daffoil’s floral book, to raise money for charity. I was sent a page on which a floral picture had been applied to side one- I was to do side two. Oh it was so very very pretty- all in pink with real twigs down the side- I was going to have to up my game.
Time for some thinking- time for my big girl’s pants. I thought of foxgloves and delphiniums and lupins and daffodils and none seemed right to me. I slept on it. Now I don’t think it is a coincidence but at the time I was reading Birdsong about WW1. When I woke in the morning it was obvious that I had to do a poppy field in a heart- this whole project had begun a few years ago with Sawdust Hearts, a project by Helen Birmingham, in which both Sandra (aka Wild Daffodil) and I had both made hearts, as had many others who went onto make a stitchbook and join Sandra in the extra pages books.
So off I went
Blue fabric from a piece I had bought from wherever, and some green which I had made well at sometime in the dim and distant. Anchor with bondaweb and some random stitches.
French knots galore
Satin stitches for bigger poppies in the foreground and for the trees on the skyline, some beads for a bit of glitz and a bird- hope it look s a bit dove like to symbolise peace.
And I added these lines to the tag, which had inspired my sawdust heart.
For once I am actually pleased with how it all turned out, and I was delighted that Sandra liked it too. Have to wear the big girls pants more often I guess!
I’ve already forgotten which number I am on, but here are my latest two tags.
The brief was for Suffolk puffs- I love making these.
I did a lot of playing around with getting my placement how I liked it- lace at the bottom
or lace at the top? It needed something more- but there wasn’t enough space for a third Suffolk puff.
When in doubt add a button!
I’ve been and looked that was tag 10, so the next must be 11. So this time it was all about rings and circles- and basically make half a Dorset button- i.e. button hole stitch around a circle. I had just one curtain ring at home and try as I might couldn’t find any more in the shops that are allowed to open at the moment so I had to make do and I wasn’t really happy with the outcome.
Anne suggested that we used fabric with circles or dots for the background. That I could do.
Green fabric from a toy giraffe I made and red and white fabric from a dress I made Little Miss F, and a bit of lace for some frough frough. However you spell that.
I used white thread round the curtain ring and managed to get the blue ring off a bottle and that other is a key ring.
Neither really looks good, not terribly happy.
I wonder what comes next?
