Sew far, sew good

Hello all!  I'm delighted to be putting in a guest appearance over at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog today for their new challenge Sew Sweet.  I was honoured when my Even Tinier Houses were selected as their winner a month ago, and that led to this invitation.

I say "delighted", but I have to confess the theme gave me a moment's pause.

Sewing is not one of my comfort zones... I'd happily leap in to ceramics, woodwork or even metalwork, but sewing machines break when I sit down at them.  (Yes, sewing machines plural - twice in my life it's happened when somebody's tried to teach me to use one.)

I used to put up my skirt hem with double-sided sellotape if it came down.  I also reduced my sewing teacher to tears in primary school when we used to do embroidery for half an hour each week.  (I'm starting to date myself there... visiting embroidery teachers in state schools these days, anyone?!)

But I do love the look of stitching on papercraft projects, and I would also love to be able to stitch a book spine or even knock up the occasional fabric project, so my motto as far as sewing goes appears here on this tag... never give up!











And of course there wasn't any actual sewing required for this challenge (though I'm sure you can if you'd like to) - just sewing-related stamps, ephemera and embellishments.  So once I'd located some PaperArtsy stamps in my stash that fit the bill, I was good to go.












I can't tell you much about the background here, I'm afraid - it's one I made a couple of weeks ago when I was playing with various embossing powders and inks and sprays.  (There was a whole flourish/embossing powder thing going on at the time.)

Frankly, your guess is as good as mine as to exactly what's going on back there!











I stamped the dress form from PaperArtsy's Hot Picks 1215 set onto tissue paper and glued it down so that it became part of that mixed media background.

I love how your eye suddenly notices it emerging from the swirls and flourishes.













I added a bit of script stamping in white Snowflake Fresco paint - it's the text from the same stamp set so the words are actually all about Victorian dressmakers.















There is definitely some gold powder involved in the background...















... so I brought that to the fore when I identified this object as a needle threading tool on the PaperArtsy Hot Picks HP1215 set.












I embossed it in gold, fussy cut it and mounted it on padded tape as one of my embellishments.















I promise you the tangled cotton thread is actually threaded through the slit I cut in the blade of the tool!















There is more thread providing a white accent and extra swirls and flourishes over the top of the background.














And I wound some of the same cotton around a tiny reel to add to the 3D collage.

The twist of lace is pinned in place with an Idea-ology Memo Pin.

Another twist of lace at the top and some distressed edges provide a nice shabby chic touch. 














The sewing packets tucked in behind are from another Hot Picks set HP1212.

I stamped them in either Coffee or Sepia Archival ink onto some card I'd inked with Antique Linen and Old Paper Distress Inks.











And here are those words, from one of Tim's sticker sets... affirming my determination never to give up with trying to get a sewing machine to play nicely with me for my crafting creations.












The tissue paper dress form had obscured some of the golden embossing powder in the background, so I used Tim's Resist Spray to create some more gilded droplets.

I think it's Ranger's Queen's Gold, but don't hold me to it!










I hope you've enjoyed this little sideways step into a different theme (what, no meadowflowers?!), but you'll notice I stuck pretty closely to my colour comfort zone to stay happy!

Thanks so much to Cec and the team at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog for having me as a guest, and I hope you'll check out all their amazing Sew Sweet projects and be inspired to join in over the next fortnight.











Thank you for dropping in today.  The weather is less sunny here, so my mood is a bit less sunny than it has been, but I really don't have much to complain about compared with many.

I hope you are staying safe and staying well, and finding ways to make the best of the strange times we are living through.  Take care, and I'll see you again (very) soon.








Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.
From The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Not this woman!  I'm far more in tune with this second quote...

I couldn't sew on a day like this. There's something in the air that gets in the blood and makes a sort of glory in my soul. My fingers would twitch and I'd sew a crooked seam. So it's ho for the park and the pines.
From Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week is to make something which is Not A Card
At Tag Tuesday they are playing Anything Goes for this fortnight
The More Mixed Media Challenge is playing Anything Goes + Optional Yellow - well, there's Gold and there's Antique Linen, and that's pretty yellowish for me!