A Very Special Gift.

Mother's Day will come round before we know it.

Here in the UK it's on the 10th of March.

I had an idea for a boot as a gift for Mothering Sunday.

Building on my success with stitching card to felt, I added a very pretty image of a Flower seller to my cut out felt shape. I printed a Vintage image onto linen weave card and cut close enough to the edge to be able to stich it onto the backing felt.

I'm now waiting for the last order of tiny silk 4mm ribbon to completely finish her, as I want to add some tiny flowers to her tray and her hair.

Apart from that she is done.

She was stitched to pink half wool, half acrylic felt as I thought this might keep the shape better than  all wool felt, once paper was added to it.

Then it was a matter of adding the Edwardian lace panel to the top to form the cuff of the boot. I cut a small heart in white felt and covered that too, in the dark ecru lace and this was added to the toe of the boot and padded. Before all this my signature diaper pattern was stitched in back stitch to the boot surface in a lovely hand dyed variegated thread, tones of blue through green to pink and lavender. At every join there is a lovely modern 'mucky green' star sequin with an old pearl seed bead in the centre.

The word Mother was then embroidered by hand on the toe in soft pink.

I cut out lots of green leaves and embroidered the veins with a soft but dark green thread. These form the basis for the flower arrangements, all three, on the surface of the boot.

Hand made felt flowers in white, cream, pink and peach are clustered in bunches to which are added silk ones in a silver threaded pink and a plain cream. Both of these have the edges pulled to fray them

 I cut pieces of the Edwardian lace and curled it into flowers and added a pearl bead in soft shades of green to the middles. Very effective. It just ties in the lace theme a bit further.
Then the tiny silk ribbon, of which I took delivery last week, was made into minute flower clusters and sewn at the base of the flowers.


Then dozens of tiny bead and sequins were dotted here and there. All round the edge of the boot and over the surface.There are bugle beads( long ones ) in real Mother of Pearl which were once on a jumper I picked up at a jumble sale in the 70's. The blue sequins, however are very special. And I only have a few.

Those who follow this blog will know that my friend Vivienne, who died on her 40th birthday when I was only in my twenties, left me her life's collection of lace, trims beads, sequins and wotnots in her will. I am now using a lot of these treasures. I haven't really had the projects or time before now, to do so and besides, the Vintage movement has given me the spur hasn't it?

She catalogued every little piece - where she bought it, how much she paid for it and what exactly it was ( she was a bit of an expert on haberdashery.) This was in the days when no one wanted these things. She frequented jumble sales, auctions houses, flea markets and what we used to call second hand shops. There were no charity shops in those days. People cleared houses and either threw these beautiful things away or they went for a song, to someone like my friend Vivienne, who knew their true worth.

So these little blue sequins ( I also have green and silver ) are early pieces...who really knows how old? Vivienne catalogued them as mica sequins 19th century. Now Mica is a naturally formed organic rock which shales easily and it was often used as glass in early dolls houses, as water on early embroideries, such as Stumpwork caskets and on beautiful evening dresses of the Victorian/ Edwardian era. I'm sure she thought these had once adorned such a dress.

Now they are adorning my creation.

I'm sure some well thought of Mother would love to receive this as a gift on Mother's Day.

And thank you Vivienne, for your gift too. A very special gift.