On Sewing and Memory Lane

It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post which was made on what would have been my mum's 97th birthday. I felt a bit sad and since then my thoughts began drifting down memory lane.  Whilst having a sort out I found this in my (long unused) sewing table.  It belonged to my mum and seems to date from...would you say the 1950's?  It looks as though it has never been used but I do remember my mum mending things often when we were children.  Strangely, although she worked in tailoring until she got married she never made us children any clothes.  Everything we had was bought new for birthdays and Christmas but in a size so enormous that the clothes lasted several years!  We never had a lot of clothes but mum made sure we were clean and tidy for school.  My secondary school uniform lasted me from the age of 12 until I left at 16!  Anyway, I digress....

I decided to do a bit of sewing to make me feel closer to my mum and to try to get back the crafting skills I abandoned once the children grew up.  I used to knit quite well and sew a bit (although in a wonky kind of way).  I used the aforementioned sewing kit and had a lovely hour making these.  I used felt and beaded ribbon raided from my card making stash and some new wadding which I ordered a week ago.  I feel quite pleased with them and more will be on the way, I think.

I try to hand make a few Christmas gifts every year and had another brainwave.  I have some chipboard plaques with pre-drilled holes in and I decided to make gifts with them.

I bought a tester pot of Apple Crush emulsion from Wilkinsons which cost £1 and painted the plaques with it.

After they had dried thoroughly I decorated them and added a hanging ribbon and a 2015 calendar tab (£1 for a pack of 10)  Ta dah!  I know my Sister, Daughter and Best Friend will like them so they will become stocking fillers.  I have other ideas for decorating them and I know some of you will be much better at it than me.  The costing for this one is:

Chipboard plaque 52p
Emulsion(tiny amount) 5p
Ribbon & gems  about 10p
(from stash)
Calendar tab.  10p

TOTAL  77p

The only trouble is that my dining table now looks like this and will remain so for several days :-/

Does anyone else find it hard to tidy away 'stuff'' ....work in progress?  Oh, for a dedicated craft room, (sigh)

Thanks for popping in x