Getting crafty

I've not had a lot of enthusiasm for crafts of late as my mind has been totally occupied with the shop developments. I had however signed up for a silk painting class, weeks ago and as it was being run by the lovely Sue from WISH I felt I had to make the effort to go along and I was so glad I did. Our group are such a friendly bunch and soon my stresses were forgotten for the evening while we learned how to apply Gutta to the silk and create our chosen designs. I desperately wanted to do a chicken but couldn't find or draw a picture suitable on the night so I ended up redoing one of my silks at home later in the week.
Last night we went back to paint our pictures, there were such a wide variety of designs and feeling much less stressed than I had the week before I really enjoyed the evening.

The first silk I painted was done on an embroidery hoop. I did this one first so that I could practise the required technique in the hopes I wouldn't make any mistakes on my chicken design.

It's a floral design about as big as a tea plate, but my favourite is definitely my chicken picture below

My chicken picture a little smaller than A4 size

So while I was in the crafty mood I decided to 'Jubilee' a top for L to wear to school on Friday. They're hoping to have a Jubilee picnic and are allowed to wear Red, White & Blue. I'm not really in a position to buy new outfits for them all to wear to school for one day (M's high school is doing the same) so I got R a cheap Union Jack themed T-shirt from the supermarket and treated L to a Union Jack head band and matching earrings. She has some lovely little denim shorts piped in red with red buttons and cherries on the back pockets and she also had this blue and white striped t-shirt

 It's OK but a bit on the plain side for a Jubilee Picnic, so I had a rummage through my fabric, buttons and ribbons and after about ten minutes I'd made her this little rosette to add to it. I decided to pin it rather than sew it on so then she can use it on other items if she wants to.

The button is just a random one from my box, the red and white ribbons were offcuts left from previous makes, the blue ribbon was actually a hanging loop that I cut out of a dress of mine and the red fabric was left over from when I made my Union Jack cushion so it cost me nothing at all to make, I hope L likes it!