Road to Hell

Now that the weather has turned I am less inclined to spend hours out in the garden and less likely to feel guilty about sitting indoors fiddling about with fabrics, threads, buttons and beads. So I started on one of my to-do projects.

If you know anything of the lovely Bobby Britnell, textile artist, you will probably know of her charity Hands Up for Uganda, which she founded with her (equally lovely) husband Martin.

She currently has a challenge/project running with Janet Middleton of  Starchild shoes to produce lovely little 'art shoes'.   For more information, check out her newsletter - scroll down and you can see some examples of the finished art shoes.

Basically, the idea is to buy a piece of barkcloth from Bobby for a minimum donation of £3, which you embellish using which ever textile techniques you like, and then post it off to Janet who will make up the shoes.  They will form part of an exhibiton at two ICHF exhibitions in 2014, in Birmingham and London.

Having looked at my piece of barkcloth for a couple of months, I made a start.  I was going to do something in keeping with the fabric, something tasteful.  But I remembered that I don't really do tasteful, so instead I machined lines of sparkly metallic cord that I bought years ago at one of the shows.

Then, running with the 'star' theme, I hand stitched on star shaped sequins, topped with flower sequins, held in place with beads.  

Fortunately, the shoes don't have to be wearable as I'm not sure how long the decorations would stay put.

You've got until the end of this year to send your finished pieces in if you fancy having a go, and it's all for a really good cause. Just contact Bobby via the links above and she'll sort you out.

Obviously I haven't spent my whole time stitching, and on Tuesday, when the weather returned to normal, my friend Jill and I went to Sunbury Antiques Fair at Kempton Park.  

We didn't need anything, and we weren't looking for anything in particular, but we both came away with some treasures, none of which cost more than a fiver, and several of which were only 50p.  

Not sure the necklace is real diamonds though.

It was a really good day out, although we have both vowed that in future, we will never go anywhere that requires travelling on the M25.

Road to Hell - Chris Rea (who did, in fact, write it about the M25)