two new cushions

Yesterday I dug into my fabric again and made two small buckwheat-filled cushions with new ribbons. The first is a great piece of embossed felt which I decorated with the large, turquoise & brown Suzani ribbon, and trimmed with mini ball fringe; the second is a nice bird print cotton which I framed in my Butterfly and Dot ribbons (available from retailers in my Friends column). Each is about 9" x 12" (the size of a piece of felt!) and is filled 3/4 full with buckwheat hulls to which I added a scoop of dried lavender.

new designs

I'm working toward a group of new ribbon designs to introduce in January. Now that I work with a company, Renaissance Ribbons, all development is a committee affair, and all of my designs go through an informal but through process of evaluation for market-worthiness. I am thrilled with the success of the Suzani collection, which we launched in August, and really gratified that as so often happens, my nose for a trend has proved dead on.

We are discussing ideas for the next collection right now: as usual I have about 15 times as many ideas as we can afford to produce. Each ribbon, each color of that ribbon, is run in lots of at least 3300 yards, so we are talking a lot of ribbon here. One needs to be very sure that the design is a good one! I am happy to say that we will be producing coordinates for many of the existing ribbons, so projects can be designed with a range of patterns & widths which all go together. We did this from the get-go with the Suzanis, designing 3 patterns in separate widths and 4 colorways.

So, friends, here's a chance to have some input! Do we need more vegetables? More flowers? Poppies in pink? Tiny Tomatoes? Or other subjects? Do leave me some feedback, and watch this space as new ribbons emerge.

kittens and ribbon

Well, much of my time these last two weeks has been taken up with caring for four tiny kittens I found at the back door of my studio. They were probably 3 weeks old, which meant eyedroppers and kitten formula. Today they began wolfing down solid food -- which means freedom!

They have doubled in size in these two weeks but are still quite tiny -- and would not sit still to have their picture taken!

They all are black with white markings, each distinct enough from his siblings, and they all look like a wonderful black & white cat called Marbles, who belongs to my friend Michelle. My daughter Rose drew Marbles several years ago -- she must have been about 10 then -- and I always kept the drawing. Last winter we made it into a ribbon, which you see here sewn into a little gizmo case I made last week.

sachets for the eyes and senses

I am deeply into good smells, valuing my nose almost as much as my eyes & hands. I get great pleasure from making sachets, using organic dried lavender flowers and filling eye masks (the best way to nap) with a mixture of lavender & flaxseed. You need the flaxseed for weight: this exerts a cool soothing pressure on the eyelids and blocks out the light: napping comes easily this way.
To make one, you take an 8" square of silk, find the center, and then apply the length of ribbon to the lower half. Then fold, stitch around the edge, turn, and fill halfway with a mix of flaxseed and dried lavender.

I also love making pincushion sachets (so if you sew it's the former, if not, it just smells wonderful).
These are also simple to make: I use 2 - 7" squares of a pretty fabric and sew a length of ribbon across the center, or maybe diagonally, then sew around the edges with the right sides together. Turning it, I stuff it until it is absolutely solid with lavender. It takes about 4 ounces to do this. Sew the opening closed, and then tuft the center deeply with a pair of vintage buttons, one on each side. I have a lot of fabric, a lot of ribbon, and a lot of buttons, so I tend to make a lot of these pretty things. I sell them on my website and on my etsy page.

long black gloves

I've had these gloves for some time, just waiting for the right ribbon. Here they are now, trimmed with my Suzani in the 2.5" width. The gloves are polyester Ultrasuede, and I turned them inside out to apply the ribbon to the top of the cuff.

working with suzanis

Yesterday I got into my bins of fabric and objects and began making and trimming things with the Suzani ribbons. I trimmed a pair or burnt orange stretch gloves (these are great gloves, and I have decorated many pairs with ribbon!) with the 1.5" design. I backed the ribbon first with a beautiful vintage brown grosgrain ribbon, 2" wide, which sets it off and hides the floats on the back. Then I heat cut it into 10" lengths (with my woodburner tool, wonderful for cutting a sealed edge on ribbons) and seamed each length into a cuff. I turn the gloves inside out, and pinning at both seam edges, I carefully attach the cuff to the glove all the while stretching the glove to fit. This ruffles the cuff nicely.

I am working on a pair of elbow length ultrasuede gloves, trimmed with the red & black medallion suzani. I will post these next.

Suzanis at Last!!

Today my box full of Suzani ribbons arrived from Renaissance Ribbons. How exciting it is! I submitted the designs on Easter Sunday, fighting a cold while I made all the thread color choices, and here they are in my hands at last. They are flying out the door, I am told, and we are considering a fifth color way in more muted tones if all goes well with these.

In the next few days I will be making things with these and will upload pictures as I go: meanwhile you can see them at Renaissance Ribbons.

I am also showing you here the first Suzani which inspired the collection, a beautiful Bukhara I saw at my favorite bazaar, eBay.

ribbon paradise

I was in Chicago over the weekend and stopped in to see Maili Powell, who owns what must be the best ribbon and trimmings store in the country, SOUTACHE. Glory glory glory -- she has a full wall of ribbons, shelves laden with bottles of buttons, drawers with buckles and other findings (eyeglass holders! dog leash attachments!) for things to make with ribbon. Lovely bulletin boards full of glam magazine clippings providing up to the minute fashion & color trending for embellishment. Maili makes wonderful objets d'art of ribbon and teaches classes in how to do these things.

Of course she carries most of the LFN Textiles ribbons. Look at the veggies ribbons in the display details --- and the yellow poppies against the aqua wall. Soutache also carries a great number of Renaissance Ribbons.

No website yet (too busy frilling the world) but Soutache is at 2125 N. Damen Avenue, Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood, (which is full of wonderful & original shops) 773-292-9110.