Bees and beads!

The last couple of days have been gloriously sunny and the local bees have been taking advantage of the blossoming flowers by collecting everything they can, especially from my Dystentra  (Bleeding heart) – look how caked his back legs are with pollen!

I’ve been working so hard!

But today my friend dragged me away from the books to go to the local bead show held at  Towcester Racecourse – Sarah Hornik was supposed to be there, but I think she was at the Flame Off which was yesterday – I didn’t see her today which I was most disappointed at.

The weather was lovely and the sky was blue…

and inside there were naked flames as exhibiters demonstrated their skills.

My haul for the day, although I didn’t buy as much as I could have…

I did treat myself to this dichroic cabochon though and I’ve already glued a sterling silver bail to the back so I can wear it as a pendant. It’s huge and sparkles like a thousand fireworks twinkling in the winter sky! It’ll be like wearing one of Klimt or Hunterwasser’s works of art!

I also found this lovely polymer clay focal bead which I can’t wait to make into a wearable piece of art!

And what else have I been up to? Well, I’ve been customising this plain old sage green jacket. It’s lovely and soft, almost velvet like to the touch. But very plain. The sleeves were much too long for me, so I altered them using this process which I admit is completely my own sort of mackled together technique and would probably make a seamstress drop all her pins in horror, but it worked for me, so I’m passing it on to you, in case you ever feel the urge to alter a lined jacket sleeve! So I measured how much I needed to lose off the length…

and then the scary bit – cut off just slightly less than you need to…

Make sure you cut through the lining too…

Then with the sleeve inside out, turn the edge over once, then again pinning as you go, so that all the edges are folded into themselves and won’t fray…

Then you can sew the edge and the lining so that it’s all neat.

And there we go, my cack-handed and very unprofessional way of shortening a jacket sleeve!

Look, all neat and shortened now! I’m probably going to embellish the sleeves a bit anyway, but at least they’re the right length!

And here’s where I am with the whole project. I found a beautiful butterfly appliqué patch and these matching flowers..

I had been intending to go for a leafy theme, but I saw these and was inspired! They’re all sequined and embroidered, and the embroidery thread I'm using for the swirls co-ordinates and makes me feel all summery!

So far, I’m loving it! I have some more swirls to embroider on it and some iridescent flower sequins to add to it too. What are you guy’s up to?

Right, back to the books then, and work again tomorrow! Holidays are never as long as you’d like!