I found this box…

Another one of those ‘While I was looking for…’ moments yielded a box containing a pile of scraps of embroidered chiffon from old saris which as usual I had fallen in love with, bought without any idea what I might do with them and consigned to a safe place in the cupboard whereupon I promptly forgot about them.

But with my upcycling head on it occurred to me that some of the motifs could be used to make jewellery components, perhaps gathered over rather ordinary looking vintage buttons. Time for some experimenting.

The chiffon is very filmy and in the end I found buttons too heavy, so I gathered the motifs over circles of felt and pelmet vilene at the front and just a circle of pelmet vilene at the back before ladder stitching them together. The super sheer black chiffon has a layer of black silk underneath which helps the motif stand out but the whole double layer was fiendishly slippery to stitch and get centred over the circles.

Not sure what to do with the black one yet, but I used some filigree sterling silver leaves from a broken vintage brooch and some silver beads to turn the purple discs into a pair of earrings.

I stitched all the elements together rather than running a headpin through the middle of the purple disc which made them a bit interesting to get to hang vertically but it’s kept them light.

I’ve also been slowly adding the tiny picots to this poinsettia in a single strand of silk thread called ‘Tart’s Knickers’!

I plan to set it into this lovely alpaca and abalone pendant in place of the missing black resin section so it spills over the edge of the setting.

I was going to do just one layer of petals but it looked too empty so I’ve ended up stitching the back layer on behind the first which is possibly not the easiest way but the picots are quite forgiving and move easily out of the way.

Three more to stitch!