A flower-flower obsession

Folks,

Over the few years I've been selling my bags, I've often come across women who are very anti-flowery prints or anything associated with flowers. Not only are they openly vocal about their anti-flowery prints stance, they show the seller of such prints (me) the same disdain. Some of these women would try to persuade me not to buy flowery prints in future because they find them too "Auntie". In Singapore, to be called "Auntie" is not a good thing because it really means you're not fashionable.

Of course "Auntie" is also a term used to address an older woman. The older women don't seem to have an issue with being called "Auntie". I on the other hand am quite likely to poke your eyes out if you were to call me "Auntie". The only people who feel safe enough to call me "Auntie" are my relatives and my kids' friends.

Back to the flowery prints. If by association with flowery prints means I'm not fashionable then I'm cool with it because I don't care about being fashionable. I LOVE flowery prints and love illustrations of flowers. Right now I'm digging flower embroideries.I'm not so into the real flowers though because sometimes the smell makes me sneeze or gives me a headache.

When it comes to creativity, sometimes I'm hanging by a thread and sometimes I feel like I'm riding a tornado. Right now, I am still on a high after my brooch run in a previous post. This time I'm mainly using lazy daisy stitch also called detached chain stitch.

This is the first one I did. Three sunflowers in a classic pose. For the stems, I used stem stitch which gives a very nice texture. The leaves are done in fishbone stitch.

And I made another one with the same red sunflowers in a slightly different pose. When I made this batch of zip pouches, each time I complete one, I would show it to my son who sat next to me. He clapped his hands for every zip pouch except this one.

Yep, the same three red sunflowers - this time on a grey brooch.

I knew at this point if I made another "3 red sunflowers" it had better be different so it had to be on a linen brooch. I could feel the tornado waning.

If you're wondering how I sewed my sunflowers, it's simple. I draw a little circle and sew lazy daisy stitches around it. You can vary the look of the flower by changing the size of the circle.

While tidying up I saw these paper packaging which my SIL had given me after her trip to Japan. The 2 containers had little chocolates in them. Is it wrong to like the packaging more than what it contained?

Check out these gorgeous Japanese flowers. I don't know any Japanese so I have no idea what the names of the flowers are. For all I know the words could say: Little chocolates - very nice to eat. Pardon me, reader-san. These Japanese flowers gave me a second wind.

I went pink. Pink french knots all over apple green stems.

Back to sunflowers again. What's so versatile about lazy daisy stitch is you can vary the length or angle of the stitch and you're able to give the flower a little character.

The best part about embroidery is you need not base it on reality. I liked the idea of blue sunflowers. For the buds, I used blanket stitch (sewn on an arc) and straight stitch. In the end, I think straight stitch does the job better.

And I finally made the chain stitch flower on black embroidery into a zip pouch. Would you believe this is the first time I've made a zip pouch using a solid black fabric? This black linen has been in my stash for a while and it was only after purchasing some black fusible interface recently that I felt I could make it work. Would white interface show on black fabric?

And here are my 6 lovely flower-flower zip pouches. I've listed a few in my Etsy shop. Please have a look. I think I've got a few more flower-flower zip pouches left in me but I'll save them for future weeks. You see the tornado has left me with a giant migraine. So will go lie very still for a few days. See you.

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