Piece de resistance

Once again I made a present which I was very proud off and was more than a little reluctant to give away........
I was so pleased with it I decided to give it a post all of its own.

Well, dear reader, let me take you back to a WIPFriday last February (it only seems like yesterday) when I was last seen doing something with velvet samples. The rather splendid devore ones. Also, I can take you a little further back to January of 2007 when I went and looked at Holbein potraits in the Tate. I couldn't get a few of those portraits out of my head and I found myself in March of 2008 rather taken by the idea of velvet sleeves. So, combined with a new love of screenprinting, devore, velvet sleeves and the need to produce my metre piece for my City and Guilds course pretty darn sharpish, I came up with the following piece during a weekend in Wales over the Easter Bank Holiday. Here it is from my summer exhibition:

Whilst this was very grand with its devore details, beaded fringing, machine embroidered organza cuffs, embroidered buttons and rouleaux loops. I couldn't help feeling that it could have been improved on in a kind of less-is-more kind of way. Like, if I, um, didn't do any embroidery or surface embellishment or other pootling about. My mother, when visiting my exhibition, pretty much read my mind when she surreptiously tried the wrap on and hinted such a garment without the lacey finishings would be quite the thing for the various social occasions she attends (she has become quite the butterfly).

So one bit of velvet and satin stitching later and she found this left under the Christmas tree for her:

Almost no phaffing about this time. However, I did forget what a slippery old customer velvet is, despite the use of a walking foot and cough, cough, double sided sticky tape in the seam allowances. I also thought I would save time (HAH!) by forgoing the rouleaux loops and covered buttons and do something with some of the funky new asian knot templates I had recently acquired. After 10+ metres of cord, hand sewing and 30 knots (to make 10 pairs of ball buttons and frogging combos) my fingers and eyes would have disagreed with my earlier assessment.

But you would have to admit, the result was really worth it. And my Mum was pretty chuffed too ;-)

Now, how would this look in a nice crisp dupion.......and some good ol' fashioned one step buttonholes?

A Christmas Summary

Whilst Christmas has now been and gone, with presents dispensed and unwrapped it is finally safe to show a few of the presents that I gave. These were the little projects I need to keep under wraps as I didn't wish to spoil the surprises. First up is the little baby jacket I made for my youngest nephew E who joined us in August:

The pattern for this was taken from a new magazine which I received in October/November and is from the same people behind Quilting Arts. It is right up my street and if it becomes a regular publication I may be switching loyalties from its mixed media/quilting cousins. There are plenty of other projects in there which I am itching to try as well. The instructions for drawing up the pattern and making the jacket were reasonably straightforward but did require a bit of intuition and initiative to think "hmmm, I think they mean this" or "I think it would be better done this way". The result, however, was successful as well as warmly received by the recipient's mummy. Oh yes, did I say..... it was done on the overlocker! (I couldn't resist)

Another project (this time overlocker free) was a present for my friend G who had joined the crafting community by taking up crochet this year. I am especially pleased as it means that she has been proven corruptible, it ticks off her other half and I am hopeless at crochet - so she can teach me! I based this neat little roll on the instructions over at this blog. I liked the extra pockets for some scissors (to which I added a little yoyo scissor charm) and dinkier pockets for the darning needles and bodkins which crocheters require for weaving in ends.

To keep Mr.T sweet I decided to make him something he had been hankering after for a little while (here modelled by M):

An Imperial Gate Monkey Cape. Thats why its purple. Don't ask. If you want to know more you would have get up early(ish) of a Sunday morning and go for a cross country cycle ride (none of that namby pampy road riding stuff). It would be fun. You would get gates opened for you.....

Wet Wednesday

On our final morning after our breakfast (for the first time in our hotel rather than "Le Twickenham" - it may have been pricey but at least the croissants weren't burnt) we headed out into a damp and drizzling Paris. The rain was probably in order to set the theme for our morning's exploits as I was to finally achieve one of my long cherish goals - to see Monet's Water Lily murals in L'Orangerie at the end of the Tuileries Gardens. The last two times we visited Paris the galleries were closed for renovation. This time they were finally open, except on Tuesdays, that is.

So we had a very atmospheric stroll along the left bank:

The Musée de l'Orangerie was a calm and quiet place (one of the advantages of Paris in December, I guess) and I was able to relax in the 2 oval rooms with the 8 paintings of Monet's water lilies which he gifted to the French state. The rooms had diffused daylight - which is how Monet wanted them displayed. I particularly liked the evening time paintings of the water lilies. The collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings in the basement were also worth looking at as well - although if I wanted to look at the more stunning impressionist pieces I would have needed to cross the river and go to the Musee D'Orsay.

After leaving the gallery we headed back down the gardens, with the intention of having lunch in La Samaritaine from their roof top cafe. I had forgotten, however, that it has been closed since 2005 for security and renovation. There was some outdoor photo display surrounding it but the doors were firmly shut. So going on the speed at which the l'Orangerie was renovated it will probably reopen in 2013.

It was a shame this beautiful Art Nouveau building wasn't open as the view of Paris from the rooftop cafe was lovely when we went there in 2004, when we were on our honeymoon. I would have also liked to have seen the lovely internal art noveau murals that are displayed on the top floors. The snap below was grabbed back then - just before my ancient digital camera decided to give up the ghost:

After lunch in a cafe at the Forum des Halles we wandered back to our hotel, picked up our bags and made our way home on the Eurostar. The bubbly was diet coke this time but the reading material made up for it..... I had found a much sought after copy of the Marie Claire Idees Christmas issue:

Birthday mooching

We wandered along the left bank towards the Musee D'Orsay and decided we didn't want to queue for a gallery we had been to before, so decided to walk on and check opening times for L'Orangerie. A mild annoyance was invoked when we found our Rough Guide (supposedly recently updated) was completely wrong regarding opening times, so it was closed on a Tuesday - we were going to have to leave it for our last morning.

By this time though, the sun was out and we walked on to the Place de la Concorde and decided to get a coffee in the Petit Palais (also the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris‎) as it was free and we could have little browse. The coffee was ok and served in an overdesigned "disposable" cup.

The receptacle holding the beverage was suspended from a plastic spike which was integral part of the rectangular saucer. Daft. What is the matter with a nice bit of china or pottery? After a bit of sneering at photographic portraits of beautiful people (famous and therefore the only people who count and a few token "tribes" people) by some famous photographer we tottered back across the Place de la concorde. As the sun had come out we found a little bit of lunch which was eaten outside in the Tuileries Gardens, which I was pleased about as we like to have a bit of a picnic there when we visit Paris but weren't holding out for it as it was winter. Though it was slightly nippy it was still pleasant. We then decided to have a look at a small exhibition being held at the Ensba (Ecole National Superieure Des Beaux-Arts) which would be interesting for both of us, as it incorporated drawing (for me) and anatomy (for him): "Figures du corps - Une leçon d’anatomie aux Beaux-arts". It was very interesting even though it was a little grisly in places (I forgot that the early artist and early surgeons would have had similar interests).

A little bit of birthday cake was found and consumed:

We had a little rest before venturing out to make a little evening trip up the Eiffel tower.

Whilst we were there it went all sparkly:

then we continued to admire the city of lights:

As well as having a play with the self timer:

Exploring, wandering and fabric

Set off and wandered over to the right bank from our hotel in the Latin Quartier. Via the Ile de la Cite, past the Notre Dame, town hall and then left towards the Pompidou Centre. Then onwards into the Forum des Halles and then to Montmatre Street, to find my first quarry:

Mokuba had a gorgeous display of gold and silver braid and lace - I could only imagine the prices! We wandered in and the array of ribbons was amazing. The prices were pretty amazing too but I treated myself to the following. Which (considering the price) I am a little terrified of using but should use - if only to justify the expense.

Another shop in the area was, unfortunately, closed until 2pm but as it was the middle of morning we didn't want to hang around so decided to stroll northwards through a few departments (2, 9 & 18th) to get to Sacre Coeur. It was tempting to stop for a bite to eat on the way but the whole of working Paris had emptied into most of the lunch stops, so we got a panini in one of the more tourist centric cafes in a very quiet Montmatre.

Then we wandered up the steps to have a look at the view. One part of the view was very interesting:

The Place St Pierre is Paris' fabric shopping area. With 3 very large stores (Moline, Tissus Reine and Dreyfus) which each had 5 floors (at least) of fabric as well as haberdashery (mercerie) as well as smaller shops. Heaven for me, hell for my companion. I could have gone mad but just treated myself to some Clover Asian Knot templates which I hadn't seen in the UK and some extremely good value (despite the exchange rate) African cotton batik fabric.

My deepest appreciation goes to M who did not complain, huff or sigh once!

Paris Sights

The journey started well with a sparkling picnic on the Eurostar.

Unfortunately I then had the mild visual disturbance of an approaching migraine. We arrived at the Gare du Nord and we navigated our way onto a very crowded RER train to get to our hotel. The headache was ignored when we got to our stop and emerged from underground to be greeted with our first sight of Paris:

It was then a short walk to our hotel in the Latin Quartier, where we checked in and I "rested" my eyes for an hour or two. We then decided to go for a stroll through Paris. It didn't matter that it was dark - I wanted to see Paris at night with all the Christmas lights. A lot of my photos are a shade on the blurry side but I like this one of the Tuileries Garden in the direction of the Place de la Concorde:

Closer to the big wheel, which was a lovely large snowflake.

We then carried across the Place de la Concorde and continued up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe by which time we had walked a fair number of miles and went back to our hotel to prepare for a nice meal out. Here:

There and back again

As a birthday treat we went away to Paris for a few days. I couldn't resist a little sewing beforehand, I had been sewing already, and made myself this handy travel wallet. I noticed G using something similar on our trip to Vienna and liked the idea of keeping things and passport together in one nifty case. I found a few ideas on the melting pot is the web and liked the look of the cheque book clutch (becoming more irrelevant in our cheque-less world) that I saw in my copy of Amy Butler's In Stitches. I then made a list of what I wanted: pockets for passport, tickets, foreign currency (with zip), a pen loop and a few more pockets. I also wanted it with a zip - not just a tie or snap closure. I also fancied a bit of coordinating piping round the whole enterprise (my mother's influence - piping does finish things nicely doesn't it?). I measured my passport and made sure that a width of A4 paper could fit in the wallet (it is now the day of the print at home e-ticket) and then marked out my pockets and covers. After a little stitching, a little skirt sabotaging (a story for another day), a purchase of a new overlocker foot (early birthday pressie from Mum - thanks!) this little beauty was produced:

The fabric was a favourite acquired from my one of my favourite K&S show stalls. I got all my pockets in there too: all 5 of them:

It was very useful addition to my luggage - mainly because I didn't panic every 3 minutes that I had mislaid my passport (despite the lairy pink cover that has).