Lavender pillows - and sulky sons.

So, it was my nephew's Toby's girlfriend's birthday, (so glad I got the hang of the possessive apostrophe thing!) and he asked me to stitch her a personal sampler. 

This was a week before the Birthday Meal and Gift Presentation.

I love him, but in such a short time, I just couldn't produce a sampler that would be personal to her, especially as I had never met her and therefore, apart from her name, knew nothing about her. 

So instead I made a stack of little lavender pillows.

You know when you think to yourself "Tons of time for these little things"?

The Birthday Meal was an hour's drive away and we were due to meet at 6-30. 

At 4-30 I was still stitching the beads around the last one.

I had warned my son that I needed to devote all the time I had to finishing these pillows or else we had nothing to give. 

I sat in my stitching chair, shouting 

'Bring me stuffing', 

'Bring me lavender' 

'Bring me beads'

These, to my son, totally obscure demands, were interspersed with hysterical screams of

'Not that cupboard'

'Second shelf, SECOND shelf'

'They ARE there, just LOOK'

By the the time we settled into the car for the journey we were both exhausted, and I must say, ominously quiet!

But Heyho.

Emily loved them and we loved her. You know when you meet someone with your sense of humour, who can build on a story and create absurd pictures? That's Emily! 

I must say, my gift wrapping, through the necessity of having no time at all, was inspired. I stacked the pillows and tied them with ribbon. Crumbled up lilac tissue into a round box, added the pillows with more tissue on top, put on the lid and tied with a broad organza ribbon, but the really clever bit, in my opinion, was grapping a few stalks of fresh lavender from the garden as I rushed past and inserting them into the ribbon. It looked so fresh and smelled divine.

So here are the pillows, starting with the largest.

I really cheated quite a lot to do these in the time I had, as well as shop, and eat, and clean - oh - and sleep.

I pulled a few variegated threads in green and lavender, mostly GAST, and just interspersed them where I felt I needed to. It saved a lot of thread changes and still looked pretty.

This final one I thought could be a key or scissor fob and I tied it onto the ribboned stack.

Oh - I could have out it in the outside!!! Just thought of that. Darn it!

My sister took the pictures for me, I just didn't have time.

And sadly, I don't now!

Thanks for stopping by, comments always welcome and gratefully received

Love

Irene xxx