A hand sewn needle book gift

 The slower rhythm of lockdown has given me more time to do crafts & things unhurriedly. Our time is usually interrupted by visitors or visiting but in these times when we are still being cautious & doing our own thing, the quiet time has been inspiring. 

One of my longtime blog supporters & Instagram ‘friends’ kindly sent me some hand painted drawings for my big birthday in April & I wanted to send her something special in return. She follows a local (to me) craft lady who makes the most stunning needle books & I have decided to make one as a gift in the same style as Viv’s because it is a style I have used myself. 

I gathered some fabric, buttons, lace, threads, padded quilting etc in the colours I wanted to use. I absolutely love vintage fabric & have quite a collection of bits & bobs. Some years back I spent a day doing a Gentlework course with a very talented lady & I love her style which is my type of hand sewing  ....

Don’t you just love the softness of this collection of textiles ... 

I love time faded fabric & linens - if only they could speak of all the places they have been.

Another beautiful set of beautifully faded & dyed vintage fabric. A seller I regularly use on Ebay dyes vintage fabrics & I love using her things. 

Mixing old & new is important to me - I love Tilda fabrics for their modern vintage look 

My faithful pin dog who is always at hand for the many pins needed for projects. I have also discovered sewing / quilting clips & they are absolutely brilliant for holding thicker fabrics together. The sewing pages got bulky & these were perfect ... 

I love good quality threads for hand sewing details because they are strong enough & give a much nicer stitch quality. Whenever I visit a fabric shop, I admit to always browsing the threads too ... 

I love these two buttons that I bought ages ago & they are just perfect for this project. 

I learnt to embroider as a child with my mother. Hers was always so neat that it was hard to tell front from back, something I have not attained but I love the rhythmic nature of hand sewing. This is one of my sort of colour coded thread boxes ... 

I always get so distracted in selecting the fabrics & textiles I want to use. I love these hand dyed silk bits. 

So much choice, it is hard to decide which look I want ... 

These threads will go well with the fabrics .... 

The outer cover in progress - some vintage floral fabric with a couched edge using dyed silk ribbon. Because it is padded, the edging blanket stitch in a bold embroidery thread, was tricky to get through the layers of batting, fabrics & linen - fortunately I have several well used thimbles... 

I made a little pin with charms to reflect Lynda’s hobbies of painting & drawing & also her faith. I do love the dyed lace panel to hold those many bits we all use. 

Some more Tilda fabric on the inner pages ... 

I used very soft cotton interlining as the inner pages - it is soft enough to just pop pins of needles in & again I kept to the same colour range. 

The last page had another lace panel as well as a lightly padded heart that could be used as a little pin cushion. 

The front panel with vintage fabric, lace, the pretty button, all edged with a blanket stitch. 

My other pin holder with the many needles holding the various needles & threads I have used. 

The back needed something else so I felted a complimentary section to add to it. Felting is a relaxing hobby - the gentle process means that you can control the whole process. 

The inner front cover details ... 

I also love beading so added some coloured beads to this little pocket ... 

A vintage lace panel on top of new fabric, I love how well they sit together. 

Co-ordinating  the colours, threads, pins is important ... 

The pink fabric with the co-ordinated pins, lace & threads ... 

The back pocket with the pink fabrics - some old, some new. 

The completed front page ..

The silk ribbon ties it all together so well .... 

The back cover with the couched fabric & the felted panel 

I know, I got a bit carried away & it ended up a generous size but sewing needs lots of things .... 

I have loved this project so much & am delighted that it was loved as much as I loved doing it. 

My previous needle books I made were much more modern so this one has been an interesting project. 

The joy of hand sewing & creating things that are very unique is hugely satisfying because this is a once off - it cannot be replicated exactly because the fabrics are small vintage pieces. I think it is easy on the eye. Hand sewing has to reflect the stitch imperfections - I could mark out perfectly even stitch marks to use but then it borders on machine work & that is something us hand sewers have to come to terms with. 

Thank you for stopping by, reading, following & leaving a comment. Each visit is appreciated. 

Dee ~💕~

A special hand sewn reminder of a wedding in Vendee

Hi everyone,

Welcome & thank you for stopping by.

Some of you know the story of the two weddings daughter had - she wanted a quiet, personal wedding, away from social media, & fuss; a quiet legal wedding in the family town in Dorset, then 20 of us adjourned to a Castle 'La Bergelière' chateau in the Vendee region in France where they had a celebrant led blessing they planned themselves.

During lockdown when I had a lot of time, I decided that it is time to do the Vendee entwined hearts as a reminder of that happy event for daughter & her hubby.  Sometimes the planning takes up more time than doing it - it took ages to get the plan sorted in my head of how I wanted to do it.

I used a printed pattern from a Vendee desk flag I had ordered from France. It gave me the outline I needed & I then made a cardboard template from that. Once inspired I decided to do two complimentary but different versions because it was so interesting interpreting my ideas - one in pink, one in blue.

I used French toile fabrics & drew a family crest outline which was done in a soft cream fabric, & the other in a faded vintage floral fabric.

For the pink version I couched the heart outline in various gold threads - couching is a new technique & this project was the perfect choice for it.  The cross shape at the top was beaded with gold beads ....

 Couching gold threads in the shape of the double, entwined hearts

 I decided to stamp my initials on the reverse of the canvas. The stamps needed the Ikea Fabric pen to make it darker ...

The blue one was made by strengthening blue & gold toile then cutting out the heart shapes. I hand stitched gold seed / rice stitching to fill in the heart shape. I also filled in around the crest with  two blueish beads in the random seed stitching way. It is a stitch I really have come to love because to look random, it actually needs some thought. I like the way the fill in gold stitches & the beads sit well together as they are the same stitch used in a different way ...

I added two dogs as their two precious Vizsla’s accompanied us to France & they are very much part of their lives.

I added these initial charms because that is their combined initials now with their little one & it is daughters name too ....

Sewing details of the processes to make the pink / raspberry one

The pink one had hand beading all around the lace edge .... 

Details of the process on the blue & gold crest, again there is a lot of hand stitching with the outline having a bold blue blanket stitch outline  . The beading had not yet been done around the shape ... 

Two different weddings, two very different outfits - their Dorset wedding 

A personal celebrant celebration in France - spot the dog who I added to the pink crests ...

A fairytale dress for a fairy tale chateau

 The Vendee crest that hung above the fireplace in the kitchen & it was evident all over the little town too - I thought the entwined hearts were perfect so that was my inspiration ...

The completed crests on the bought cream canvas flags / pendants 

Thank you for stopping by & gifting me some of your time. I hope you have enjoyed the process of creating a unique gift. Do you have a preference from the above?

Dee ~💕~