As mentioned in the last post Borris Active Retirement had a ‘show and tell’ exhibition last Wednesday and I think this great picture of Mena with her felt beret and large bag sums it all up! Still having ongoing computer problems (and now no anti virus protection) so apologies for the short post, they will be this way until things are finally sorted, hopefully by the weekend if all goes well.
Mena's beautiful beret and bag with integrated handle!
On Friday afternoon I felted a little white on white bag incorporating some lovely vintage lace which I got at The Tim Thimble last year. The lace incorporated really well into the merino roving I used, I didn’t however like the finished result anything like as much as I had been hoping, the ruffles (created with resists) worked well but visually the lace disappeared too much into the main body of the bag. Thanks to a comment from Andrea via Facebook I decided to dye it in the microwave using some Neon food colouring, success! More anon …..
Tomorrow evening I have to show my face at the Golf Club Captain’s Dinner. Being on a budget I was wracking my brain deciding what to wear (it is informal this year which is unusual) when to my absolute delight I found my ‘lost’ black velvet trousers! I managed to pick up an inexpensive plain turquoise top that compliments them perfectly so today I set myself the task of creating some eye-catching accessories to glam up the outfit.
Turquoise and black nuno felt brooch with Victorian button
My mother is lending me a gorgeous diamante bracelet of my grandmother’s and I wanted to make a matching nuno felt brooch using this fantastic Victorian button for the centrepiece. I was lucky enough to pick up the button in a charity shop while in the States and the nuno felt seemed the perfect setting to really show it off! I cut out a rough circle of pongee silk, laid one layer of short fibred merino on top and within a very short space of time the brooch was made. Not being too fussy about the evenness of the circle makes for a simple organic shape and I like this brooch so much that I think I will make some more of them tomorrow morning and put them up for sale!
My next project was a small black evening bag and for this I used an old resist that I already had and made it a little bit smaller. I wanted a clutch (purse for those of you over the water) which was easy to carry and not too big, something just to keep a little bit of money, car keys and the obligatory lip balm that I always manage to mislay! To jazz it up and tie the whole outfit together I have just finished another nuno flower to stitch onto the flap, this time using turquoise silk felted with a deeper turquoise merino.
Nicola Brown Fine Art Textiles 