Distressed

 I've been down at La Vieille Bergerie, our special hideaway in la France profonde. My friend Ann showed me how to paint and distress crummy old bits of furniture and make them look great, and I am hooked! This cabinet was a hideous brown and had obviously been used to store paint in a garage. I picked it up for a few euros at a roadside sale. I sanded the worst off, and painted it. Used fine wire wool to distress it, and then rubbed on dark wax to give it a "French" colour. Buffing it up and seeing the lovely patina appear is the best bit.

This was an ugly old cupboard that someone was throwing out. After treating the woodworm I did the same paint and wax job.

But the inside was horrible - until I had the idea of lining it with toile de jouy, which I cut into panels, hemmed and tacked on. Very satisfying to make something from nothing. 

Poppies again

I needed another card, so made this small piece of felt.To make the poppy red I blended together some red and yellow wool.( I don't actually have carders, so use old dog brushes instead!)   I roughly needlefelted the background, with some red and blue blobs for poppies and cornflowers, then wet felted it gently. When dry, I used free motion machining to add stems, grasses and to define the flowers. 

Cherry blossom

I made this a while ago - my first attempt at a wall hanging. I lightly wet felted the background, then needle felted on the black Japanese-style tree silhouette. The cherry blossom flowers were cut out from a separate piece of wet felt - darker pink on the back side. I attached them with a cluster of seed pearls at the centres.

I am not really happy with the streaky background.