Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hi.  Huge sigh of relief.  You know how it is when you think you've got it, then it goes wrong, but you think you got it, then something else, then something else, then......  I really nearly gave up on this one.  Many times.  It's not my thing, I don't have time, I can't sew, the batteries (yes both of them) are dead on the camera, the computer doesn't want to download.  Just enough juice for one picture, it better be a good one. Arrggg......

Ok, so the story is Artful Times wanted us to dazzle them with a fabric tag.  Oh dear, terrible seamstress.  No really, terrible!  Oh, maybe I'll give it a go.  Very short of time.  Trying to get everything tidied up before running off to England to visit the family and help celebrate my mum's 70th birthday at the end of the month.  So a couple of false starts and then I gave up.  Not enough time or talent.  But I really wanted to try this.  I had half an idea and I like Von and Neet's challenge blog and it's definitely not something I would have chosen to do so I think that makes it something I should try.  Stretch yourself.   Yoga for the soul.  So as the time to catch the plane draws near I realise I have 90 minutes on the plane and then 3 hours of trains.  There's my time.  So chuck some things in a bag, fabric, wool, thread, beads, buttons, scissors (oops can't take them on the plane, might want to alter the tailoring on the cabin crews uniforms) unpick ( maybe that will escape the beady eye of the x-ray machine).  That will have to do and we're off..........

So this is it.  Just in case you are wondering, I slept on the plane, and the lighting was awful on the train and the sewing I did was so bad it was embarrassing.  I'm not putting that on the world wide web!!  So as I am sitting there looking at my little disaster I thought I would have been better to have glued it together and used a pen to give me some faux stitches.  Ahhhhhhhh.  Eureka as the scientist said.   I have used a piece of plain red fabric as my tag.  The bauble I cut using a sizzix die (that was before plane time) from some gorgeous fabric I had had the inspiration to buy at an earlier time.   I glued it on and used a gold gel pen to do some faux stitching effects around the edge, although they don't show very well.  I used some fancy wool I had which when cut gave nice fluffy ends.  I used the pale blue shading to white to give an icicle sort of effect.  I sewed them at each end, and also the loop in the corner.  I used the darker blue wool to ground the design at the bottom.  Icy lake???  I don't know, it worked for me.  Then I used cupcake buttons (fortuitous foresight there!!) for a little whimsical, glitzy, bling.  If I had had gold glitter glue here I would probably have jazzed up the background a bit but I must admit I am quite pleased with the final result.  Thanks Neet for this challenge.  It's amazing what you can do when you give it a go.  

I have a friend who bakes fantastic cupcakes so maybe I'll send this to her.  Or maybe I should give it to my sister who was so good to sit and wait for me at midnight when the trains were drowned, delayed and cancelled because of the floods yesterday.  That was the automobile.  Now blogger keeps saying there's a problem saving.  It better be having a laugh. 

Anyway, thunder, lightning and Acts of God not withstanding I want to enter this for the  Artful Times Challenge 17 - a fabric tag