All work and no play

Ok, so I've done lots of lovely embroidery but now is the time to kick back and enjoy myself with these slightly bonkers cacti!

Each year, my friend Chrissie and I have a little stall at our local Sue Ryder Hospice Garden Party. We make all sorts of things like aprons, cushions, lavender bags.... but this year Chrissie wanted to make cacti.  Very fashionable, very hipster, very good.  I got a bit carried away and rather than dinky little cacti with flowers, mine turned into a Mexican cartel with bushy eyebrows and moustaches! 

They make me smile and I hope they have the same effect on others.  Come and visit our stall at Manorlands Garden Party on Sunday 8th July.

Sowing the seeds of love

This Travelling Book challenge was a delight!  The theme is gardens but I chose to make an embroidered seed packet with seeds stitched in bullion knots on fine net.

The book is for Margaret, a longstanding member of the Embroiderers' Guild and responsible for inspiring, encouraging and supporting, countless new members over the last 25 years, including me!   I wanted to make something special to reflect her love of flowers and contemporary embroidery.  My seed packet was based on one used as a wedding favour which was inscribed with the phrase "commit random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty".  Funnily enough this same phrase was spoken by Margaret as she gave me a bunch of flowers for running a small errand.

It's a mixture of hand and machine embroidery but the sewing (sowing) instructions on the reverse were printed onto fine cotton and then stitched onto the final seed packet.

I hope she likes it!