One of those days...

Ever had one of those days when you are doing something you don't want to do? Yesterday was one of those days. I had completed all my waistcoats for this week and had free time so I set about clearing up my workshop. I found this piece of collage I had put together last year and thought it would make a great padfolio. However, when I started to put it together it was such an awful grey/beige colour I found it difficult to jazz it up and make it acceptable. I put a lovely pink piece of silk for the inside and another darker piece for the pockets and set to. I had all the pieces together and started to put the back to the front and zig-zag down the join and when I turned it over to come back down the seam, I saw that the pieces were wrong sides together. I undid the pieces and put them the right sides together and then found I had put the wrong pockets on each piece! What to do??? I cut out the pockets and pieced another silk over the right sides, then put them together in the right order.

Of course, having done this I didn't like it even more now so I left it and went into the garden.

My neighbour came round with her jack russell Archie and Peggy (my JR on the left) had a great time bounding round the garden with him until he cried craven and wanted to go home. As this took some time Kim and I were able to have a cup of tea and relax in the sun.

Today was better though, I had the day to set my box up with all the things necessary for my stall on Thursday and to potter around completing little tasks. Then I received a parcel containing Maggie Smith's latest book 'Image to Stitch' and that got me going again. I had another look at some fibre art I had done from one of her previous books and thought about our latest challenge from Fibre and Stitch - something incorporating a mirror. I had dyed some cotton and a nappy liner with the mop up technique and put one over the other to tone down the painted cotton. Then pressed some painted tyvek over a rubber stamp with a hot iron. I added the lacy bits of tyvek to the fleece sandwich by stitching lines of metallic thread because although I tried free motion stitching the thread kept snapping and doing my head in. Then I pleated the sandwich and cut out the middle. I attached a mirror to some board and made a backing from a faux leather paper bag exercise I'd done the previous week. This was satin stitched all round the edges twice with metallic thread. Unfortunately I forgot to put a hanger on the back so I punched two holes in the top corners and made a machine wrapped cord to hand it up. I added two silk cocoons for embellishment. It was difficult to photo this as the mirror kept giving pictures of me photoing it, but I think I got it OK. I'm quite chuffed with the result.

Now I'm going to have my dinner and read Maggie's book...wonderful stuff!