Tambour Flower Clutch Bag Finish

Finally there are some photos of this piece of tambour embroidery, transformed into a clutch purse.  Here is the front of the bag.  I chose a beautiful periwinkle dupioni silk for the base fabric and loved it so much, I split the tambour worked silk organza into a seam at the bottom to show off how pretty is the fabric underneath, on the back (below).

The inside is a very slippery lavender silk- very soft and feminine, with a small pocket for a credit card, business card or lipstick.  After the initial intimidation dissolved into determination, the most difficult part of creating the purse was getting the glue into the recesses of the purse frame, without getting the glue on my hands or on the silk on either side.  And then making sure the glue was holding all the way around both sides of the frame.  Most difficult!  :-/

Closeups of the stitching, using a number of thread types and brands...  This purse is now stuffed with paper to keep its shape, and put into a bag of presentation pieces.  Time to frame up another piece of silk and get back to work!

As usual, Mango is in the middle of everything! 

first blog post!

Welcome to my new blog!  I read a long list of needlework blogs every day and have been wanting to start my own for some time.  Well, there is no time like the present!

Just as a place to begin, I want to point out that the big photograph in my blog header is of a tambour (or luneville) embroidery I did last year, from a master class I take every year in Kentucky.  It is the principle form of embroidery that holds my interest and hopefully, my future profession, as I aspire to teach these techniques someday.  I also am going to Paris (yes!) in February 2012 to take class at Lesage, a couture embroidery school owned by Chanel.  More on that in a future post.  :-)

But for now I am starting with Anna Hrachovec's new book- Teeny-Tiny MOCHIMOCHI.  I cannot get the book cover loaded on here for some reason, but please go to Amazon or Anna's blog http://mochimochiland.com/blog/ and check out these incredibly cuuuute little knitted miniatures!  My mom collects bride & groom sets and this wee one, pattern found in the book, was a must to knit up!  The photo above is the almost completed wee couple, although the groom needs hair and the bride is waiting for her veil.

Male pattern baldness, perhaps?

Blocking the wee veil.

Ta-da!  Veil stitched in place.  The groom has hair, albeit Eddie Munster hair (I had a problem with his hair.)   But check out the wee bow tie!

For anyone attempting these patterns, they are easy-peasy if they don't require color change in one round.  If they dooooo require color change, as the groom's white shirt/black tux did, and you forget to twist your color change, it can be an expletive spewing experience challenge.  Ha ha.  I don't swear.  Nooooooo......

But I am extremely pleased with the final results and can't wait to present the happy wee couple to my mom to add to her collection.  And of course, sometimes prop-ups are needed, both in real life....

and wee knits.....

Thanks for looking at my blog and welcome!