Tangled Hoop

I absolutely love Tangled, and it has fast become one of my favourite Disney films! Who could fail to love a film with a sword fighting horse, magical hair and a hilarious chameleon! I've wanted to make something Tangled themed for my ever growing hoopla wall for quite a while now and have had this one planned since before Christmas. I always loved the sun symbol you see all throughout the film, and this hoop is based on the purple flag Rapunzel has with it on.

I'm pretty sure it's framed in a 12" hoop. I started by wrapping some purple ribbon around the outside ring of the hoop, and left enough at the top to hang it with. I then pulled some purple satin material taught across the hoop, making sure it was totally flat and nice and tight. I found an image of the design online, printed it out and then cut out two of the suns rays to use as templates. Using the lens cap from a telescope a traced out a circle onto some yellow felt and then pinned the two paper templates onto more felt and traced around them. The larger rays are made using the same felt as the circle, whilst the smaller ones are from a slightly brighter shade of yellow felt. Once all the shapes were cut out I then pinned them all onto the hoop.

All the felt was then stitched down using two strands of thread. Once they were all stitched down, I couched some sparkly Russian gold braid in a swirl in the centre of the sun. I thought this would a bit more sparkle to the hoop. I love how the hoop turned out and is already hanging up on my hoopla wall :) I think it only took a couple of hours to stitch up one evening, and was the first piece I completed from my '50 Projects 2012' blog.

Thanks for reading, Vicki x

Roses, Roses, Roses!

About a week and a half before a Tudor event I did in June I was asked if I would be able to make 8 Tudor Roses for use on a Yeoman of the Guard Tudor Livery jacket. There were 4 jackets, and a rose was required to adorn the front and the back of the livery. It was decided the make the roses out of wool, and applique all the sections onto a piece of linen. I think the most time consuming section was actually cutting out all of the pieces needed - 8 linen squares, 8 red roses, 8 white roses, 40 green leaves and 8 gold centres!! I spent most of that day surrounded by an ever growing pile of material.

After all the cutting out I set to work pinning down all the pieces so that I could get sewing! All the sections are stithced down using two strands of thread.

The centre of the leaves are embroidered with some silk thread from the Silk Mill, and extra detail has been added to the petals of the white rose. In the centre of the flower gold thread has been couched down. Here's a pic of the finished rose.

And a shot of the finished article on Adam's Livery jacket at the Blickling Hall event.

(The livery jacket was made by Prior Attire and is not my work. You can find Prior Attire here - http://www.priorattire.co.uk/ )

All in all it was a bit of a mental time trying to get these finished in the time I had!! After getting the phone call I had work for several days. I tried to find some suitable fabric in Bath, but the so called fabric shops there are pretty rubbish for decent quality material, and the prices are often ridiculously expensive for the quality you are getting! In the end material was sent out to be from off cuts of the livery. This arrived 5 days before we set off for the event. During this time I was moving house, repairing my costume, and on a mission to make as much blackwork as possible for the event. Pretty much the whole journey in the van to the event was spent sewing them and frantically trying to get them finished in time. 4 were totally finished by the Saturday morning, and the 2 more finished by the Sunday. I then thankfully, had another week and a half to finish the last two. Mental times!! If I'd had more time I would of fancied them up a bit more, but oh wells :)

Vicki x