Sunday 26 February 2017

Being Crafty

All my life I have been crafty.

No - that doesn't mean I crept around pinching things without being found out - my kind of craftiness is what we used to call handicrafts. I like making things - creating something unique to me.

When I came to live in France, some ten years ago, I bemoaned the lack of local shops where I could buy the wherewithal to pursue my crafts and the complete absence of classes and night schools where I could take courses to learn new skills and improve the old ones, learn with other 'crafty' people and maybe make new friends with the same interests as me.

But now I find that English people have settled here and are opening businesses that DO cater to my needs.  Not everything that I would like (they all seem to be 'ladylike' skills of sewing, knitting, crochet and so on) but at least there is something and it is getting better all the time.

Recently I went on a course using my sewing machine to make a 'Bits Bag'.  This bag sits on the table next to your machine and provides a handy receptacle for all those bits of waste material and snippets of thread. A sort of sewing dustbin for the table - or Poubelle de Table as the French would call it.

The one I made looks like this...

I used it for the first time today, as I did some free motion machine embroidery - another course I went on last week with the same tutor.

The samples I made on the course were a flower and some leaves...

My machine embroidered flower

My machine embroidered leaves

They were very basic, but I really enjoyed doing them and today decided I would practise what I learnt by embellishing a picture I had printed out on a piece of material cut from an old French sheet.

I haven't finished it yet, but here are some pictures of the progress so far.

First I 'scribbled' in the little girl's hair...

Free motion embroidery practice

...then I tried my hand with some lupins...

Lupins

It takes quite a bit of time at the moment, but I am already getting faster!  It got dark and I couldn't continue (and I would like to get some more threads) so I will continue next week, and I'll let you see what progress I've made!

4 comments:

busybusybeejay said...

Very impressive!Where in France are you?

Elizabethd said...

I have never tried machine embroidery, but rather envy you going on a course. We found in Brittany that most groups concentrated on Patchwork, but I'm sure there are different ones by now.

French Nanny said...

Hi Busy Busy BJ

Thank you for your comments.

I'm in the centre of France. It used to be called the Limousin, but now it has been merged with other departments and we have a new name of Nouvelle Aquitaine - a bit of a mouthful!

It's very rural and a bit lonely, but the weather is good and life is slow...

Joy said...

Looks like fun. I immediately thought of this blog,

http://dogdaisychains.blogspot.com/

Do you know of it?