Kimono hearts

I seem to have kimono hearts coming out of my ears at the mo!

It's countdown time to the Designers Makers Market I'm doing on Saturday 16th May and I am now refining the look of my stall. I have been making some pretty padded kimono hearts and decided to string them together to make a garland that will festoon the front of my stall.

I'm really pleased with it!

The garland looks really nice on my kitchen wall!

I used pretty shades of red, pink, cream and turquoise.

Each heart is made from vintage kimono pieces and is lightly padded.

I am now selling kimono heart decorations in my store.

They look really pretty hanging in a group from pussy willow branches.

You can find them here.

Weekend delights

I hope you all and a great weekend, mine was lovely!

I spent Friday and Saturday down in Devon with my good friend Sanna. She recently moved back to the UK after living in Tokyo for about four years, which is where we met. She is now living in a beautiful converted house in the depths of the countryside, surrounded by luscious rolling green fields and clean air. It was a tonic for the soul to spend some time there, catching up, eating good food and going for a very long walk - 14km in all!

When in Devon, one must partake in a cream tea and we certainly did that!

The cream was so thick, it was like ice-cream, all served up on a pretty floral tea set.

The local produce is all organic and tasty. This tomato was the size of two fists!

Fruit artfully arranged in a Japanese wooden bowl. It's amazing how well their Japanese furniture fits into their very English new home.

On Sunday I got busy making more padded kimono hearts.

Here's a little sample of some of them and they should be in my store soon.

Have a heart

I've been busy sewing more hearts and rather loving it! I do love a pretty, soft kimono fabric and it lends itself so nicely to these padded hearts. They are made as decorations and could be hung on their own or as a group. I have them hanging from some pussy willow in my kitchen and plan to slowly add to them over the next few weeks.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the lovely mothers out there, especially to mine who is the loveliest!

I wanted to make her a card, but it ended up becoming a hanging decoration instead! It's heart-shaped and made from pretty vintage kimono pieces that I had in my collection.

 I chose two pink and red kimono pieces which I then cut into heart shapes.

 The kimono fabric is quite fine, so I added a cotton backing to each one to make it stronger, and pinned a turquoise ribbon loop in place.

I then sewed around the heart shape and when I got close to the end, I stuffed the heart with wadding before sewing it up. I then finished the edges with pinking shears to stop it from fraying.

I think it's quite sweet and am thinking this could be a new addition to my Cheeky Leopard store….