Of Cushions, Flowers and Friendship

Good Morning to you. Another week passes by ever so quickly. Another week of lovely sunny Spring days tempting pretty flowers to burst joyously from their garden beds, weaving blushes of iridescent colour throughout our garden.

As my husband is still unable to do any work in the garden for a little while yet, I have picked up the trowel and shovel and attended to the weeds. Oh my goodness, there are sooooooo many weeds, so many, I fear I will become a little garden gnome. I really am too old for this caper!! I am much, much too venerable to yank and heave and jerk for hours on end at these tenacious and pesky varmints!! But.....persistence is paying off. I am determined not to be overwhelmed by these abominable interlopers, these pesky pains in the proverbial, that persist in trying to overthrow the reign of my kingdom of pretty flowers. With dogged resolve I am determined to banish them to the next world!!

So.....as I have taken residence in the garden, not a lot has been happening in my sunny sewing room; though I did stitch a cushion for a friend whose birthday is just around the corner.

Once again, I buried myself in ribbons and doilies. Yet again, I fashioned another basket of French ribbon work flowers. I never tire of fashioning an overabundance of flowers of the ribbon variety and though I have chatted about making a few of these flower-filled baskets before, one more can't hurt, can it??? And......of course each one is a little different. Besides, one of my dearest friends, for whom this cushion is intended, doesn't have one of these lovelies sitting in her home. With her birthday just a few weeks away, I needed to make something rather quickly. We have been friends since kindergarten and surprisingly enough, although I have stitched her many, many 'Kim Sharman' originals throughout the years of our friendship, I have never stitched her a basket of floralicious delight.

This time the basket of ribbon flowers sit prettily on a background of snippets of doilies randomly placed where they fell. I had a yearning to yet again, rummage through my embroidered pretties. I wanted pretty embroideries with flowers, the odd basket of flowers and butterflies. The fabric I chose for the basket is the prettiest silk fabric of interweaving pastel hues. I brought this lovely fabric a few years ago with the thought it would be an excellent choice somewhere down the yellow brick road of my stitching.

I never, never tire of fashioning these baskets of floral delights! Mmmm....now let me see......which friend can I next stitch a basket of  blossoms for??

One by one, the addition of a pansy here and a pansy there, a fuchsia or two, and blousey roses with leaves peeking from behind, assembling another blooming basket of floral delight.

I chose a fabric with weaving vines of flowers with the odd butterfly fluttering by. A doily with a birthday sentiment is free hand machine stitched on a favourite doily. Aah....bluebirds of happiness casting a little magic on our friendship.

Though one of my joys in life is picking a fresh bouqet of flowers and gifting them to a friend for their birthday, in this case my friend lives two states away, so this cushion of floral delight will just have to do. I don't think my friend will be too unhappy. An over-spilling bouquet of gorgeous french ribbon blossoms which will bloom forevermore.

Although a beautiful bouquet of fragrance-filled flowers will always put a smile in a gal's heart, I fear within a week they always seem to metamorphose into a pongy mass of organic matter. Yes indeedy, me thinks a sweet cushion of an over-spilling bouquet of gorgeous, french ribbon blossoms blooming forevermore, is a more lovely sentiment in celebration of our friendship.

Wishing you all the most wonderful weekend. Take time to perhaps pick a pretty blossom......or two....oh.....and of course drink in their fragrance.

Until the next time........

Linking up to lovely Stephanie's, The Enchanting Rose.

A confectionery of ribbons

Firstly, let me say a warm thank you to everyone, who left such sweet comments concerning Fiona's heirloom quilt. I'm happy to say this pretty has gone home with Fiona to live happily ever after in her glorious 100 year old school house. Oh and I might add Fiona did love it....so much so that she has given me a few more stitching orders for me to fashion.....really, really fun tasks....but more about those another time.

After finishing Fiona's quilt, and having completed a few humdrum orders I hankered after a little more fun stitching. Boring orders punctuated with some pretty stitching always perks me up.

My fingers were itching to fashion oodles and oodles of pretty ribbons into oodles and oodles of floralicious delight!!

So, whilst away on a little road trip last weekend, meandering along the countryside in our faithful ole tin lizzie, in celebration of a BIG birthday of my significant other,  I sat happily in the passenger seat coaxing silken and shiny ribbons into  bloom after bloom, collecting them all together on the dashboard.

My, my......don't pretty ribbon flowers add to the countryside??? Me thinks every dashboard should be bedecked with a ribbon blossom or two!!

Back home again..........high tea anyone??? Tier after tier of French wired confections of pansies, roses, fuchsias.....so, so delectable.......so, so much eye candy!!

We cannot only have a pretty, tiered cake stand of ribbon delight to tempt the eyes, now can we?? A 'must have' is a Royal Albert, fine bone china teapot, overspilling with a pretty palette of blossomy delight!!

Mmmm.....very pretty, I hear you say.....but what is the purpose for all this ribbon delight??

A little over a year ago I fashioned another heirloom quilt for a very dear friend, whose home (which both she and her husband designed and built) and everything she and her family owned was destroyed in a devastating bushfire. I wrote about my friend and the fashioning of her quilt here.

I decided I wanted to stitch a lovely cushion to send to my friend, to perhaps sit alongside the quilt that I had fashioned. My friend and her husband have been very kind and and generous in their friendship to my husband and myself these past couple of months, so I thought I would thank them with this little gift. A cushion is always a fun pretty to stitch. AND......fashioning a basketful of gorgeous, ribbon delight is always the best fun.

I chose a pretty cream bridal damask that I had stored away in one of my armoires. It has climbing roses and leaves rambling their way across the fabric. The basket is a vintage doily which lends itself very nicely as a basket.

So......let the playing begin!

Each blossom was stitched to the basket; pretty, ruffled roses, fancy-faced pansies, dainty fuchsias and scrunchy, green leaves. I added a snippet of a doily and a pretty bow.....and voila......all pretty as a picture. I always find it joyous stitching baskets of overspilling flowers with their pretty, blossomy faces smiling back at me. I never tire of coaxing shimmering and silken ribbons into fanciful bouquets of blooming fantasies.

In closing my friend and her husband decided not to rebuild as the costs to do so were too exorbitant and prohibitive. So many  building codes, rules and regulations would have the costs go through the proverbial ceiling. They have since bought another home and are slowly beginning to gather and collate treasures. They are slowly continuing their biography, in which new chapters will be written and new memories shaped. My friend perhaps will tuck this bouquet of flowers somewhere near her heirloom quilt in her boudoir adding to the basketful of memories which our friendship of many, many years enjoys.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.....I don't suppose there will be any fashioning of pretty ribbons for me for a little while, as that bright pink front door has opened once again to those delightful kiddos who visit my humble abode and stitch a little.......toodles!

Linking up to Mary's Sweet Inspiration Linky party.

The frill of it all

It's safe to say that I love ribbons. Indeed, my sewing room houses many a hat box and many a suitcase filled with a plethora of gorgeous, frilly ribbons. I seem to be forever fashioning oodles and oodles of flowers out of an abundance of pretty ribbons as embellishments; adding them  to whatever it is that I am stitching at any given time......quilts, bags, cushions, a hat, a jacket, et cetera. So often a project is begging  to have a cabbage rose, a pansy, a ballerina-like fuchsia or some other floral pretty to add a little pizazz, a little bit of oomph to it!

Mmm.....well I did say that I LURVE ribbons!!

It's also safe to say that I love cushions. Cushions are quick and easy to stitch. There are a gazillion ideas that one can pluck out of one's brain pan, to fashion a cushion, and they always add the final decorating touch to a chair, a sofa, or perhaps a bed.

So, I decided to stitch a cushion............a cushion in the guise of a basket with an overspilling abundance of beauteous, frilly, ribbon flowers to sit atop the basket. I selected a pretty floral fabric as a base for the bouquet of flowers and an upholstery fabric which reminds me of a basket weave for the basket.

 So I gathered a profusion of rainbow hued ribbons and began to fashion many flowers and leaves.

 

I fashioned masses of flowers and leaves; wired ribbon roses, pansies, ruched frilly zinnias and stitched them onto the cushion until they resembled a floral-filled bouquet of vibrant, dancing colour!

 

Every bouquet of sweet smelling flowers requires a butterfly to rest atop the pretty blooms. After all, Hans Christian Anderson once said, "just living is not enough, said the butterfly. One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower." Oh, I so agree, though I must have many, many flowers!!

And......of course every basket of flowers requires a sentiment of love to be attached.

 

An everlasting floralicious bouquet, pretty forevermore.

Sitting  ever so prettily atop one of my upholstered parlour armchairs (upholstering preloved chairs is another love of mine) that I upholstered a li'l while ago.

Ooops....I don't know how this 'pretty' slipped into this post.......but this is yet another basket of flowers, cushion, which lives on the bed in one of our guest rooms. A room evoking a Japanese flavour.

 

Aaah yes......cushions, cushions, cushions....a gal can never have too many, can she?? After all, they add the finishing touch to any room!!

Linking to Randi at Show and Tell Tuesday