doorstop hen

I made this fat hen on Tuesday as a housewarming gift. She’s made from felt and stuffed with polyester batting. Lentils were used to weigh her down and ensure that she does her designated job of holding a door open.

 

 

heads and more heads

I’ve begun more stumpwork heads since the completion of portrait no.3 but I’ve discarded all of them.  They all start off quite well but then I wonder what difference another type of padding would make or if more padding would make better cheeks, or if I should shape the padding first or choose different stitches for the facial features or, or, or. Really, I’m striving to find a method of constructing stumpwork heads that’s my own and that works for me first time, all the time. I don’t want the heads that I make to be identical to what I see in a book. They haven’t been so far of course, because I’ve used different stitches for the features and shaped them differently and the basic pattern is only the starting point. I’ll end up with portraits that are an amalgamation of methods derived from the stumpwork and doll books that I own, things I find online, my own imagination and skills, and in the end no-one will care how I got there, not even me. A bit like life itself really.

Here’s a little preview of the stumpwork that I’ve been working on this week. She’ll be full length if all goes according to plan.

lavender sachet

I wanted to make a lavender-filled sachet as a small gift for a friend but didn’t want to just do a plain old square or rectangular shaped one. (Why would I do something the easy way when I can complicate it instead?!) After discarding two sachets made from an internet pattern which made aligning and positioning the bird embroidery a problem, I devised a pattern of my own. I’d love to be able to tell you that this little pyramid smells wonderful but as this was a prototype for my pattern, it’s currently filled only with rice. (I actually don’t have any lavender but it’s now on my ‘to buy’ list for my next retail therapy day which happens to be tomorrow.) The cord is about twenty thicknesses of the same thread used for the free-motion embroidery and construction, crocheted into a length of simple chain. I can think of all sorts of embroidery ideas for these so there might be a few more on the horizon.