Daffy's Garden: Sewing, drawing and facing your demons

Sunday 14 June 2009

Sewing, drawing and facing your demons

I love charity shops. Every Saturday afternoon, after a lovely morning of tea and cake and friends at the local Women's Institute country market, we have a quick mooch around the charity shops. This week I found two of these black and white cotton pillowcases for 60p each - a bargain, and they go very nicely with the white and black one I found in the same shop a couple of weeks ago. I used some of that to make a bag, but I'm now pondering a new project that will use both of them together.

Speaking of projects... I wanted a small but cheery thing I could do and finish this afternoon. Quick projects really are the best I think, especially if you're like me and have too many things to do (or rather, avoid), and a rather short attention span :)

I decided last week that my diary needed a new cover. I have no idea what possessed me to buy a white diary - a white diary with little pink and blue butterflies on. Needless to say, it's completely filth. I don't seem to be able to keep crumbs and mud and water and grubbiness out of any bag that I own.

This week I've been reading about drawing over at Soulemama's blog. I've always thought I couldn't draw at all, and therefore I had no business even trying, not even for myself in a corner of my bedroom, where nobody else would see. How daft! So I grabbed a pen and a scrappy bit of paper and had a go. The perfectionist in me wanted a proper pencil and a proper drawing pad and a book to copy out of. But I've noticed lately that the perfectionist is getting her way less and less often these days...

So here it is, my cheery gardening woman, posted on the internet for all to see. I feel like I'm back at school! So one foot's bigger than the other, and her hat's lopsided, and she looks like she's wearing glasses when she wasn't meant to... but she's got a smile on her face, a plant in her hand and her wellies on. All good.

After going to all that effort (!) I figured I couldn't really let her go to waste. Again, over at Soulemama, I've been reading about how Amanda traces her children's drawings onto fabric, embroiders them and uses the embroidered squares for quilts, or hangings. Well, I don't have a few arty children lying about the place here... so I thought I'd use my new gardening woman picture :)

Here she is, slightly altered, with a cup of tea instead of her brush (although you can still see the pencil outline of the brush, and the extra hat (!) on the fabric). Another day I might have embroidered the whole thing, but I needed to do this quickly, before I got too scared.

And here she is, wonkily sewed onto the front of the new cover for my diary :) The cover is black, with small red roses (I thought they were strawberries originally, but either will do!). The fabric is from another charity shop find, a kind of peasant/cowgirl kind of dress, with a gathered neck, and a flared skirt. Sadly it doesn't really fit, so last weekend I lopped the bottom off to make a skirt, and this diary cover is made from one of the sleeves.

I think she looks happy there, reminding me to plan in a little gardening time, a little resting time, in amongst everything else that goes in the diary :)