So these are the bedizeners I have been making over the last week, about 3 dozen, which makes a feast of colour and tiny details that get quite overpowering when they’re all laid out on my photography ‘tray’ (an A2 corkboard with black handmade paper laid on top.)
By the way, laying them out is a good idea if you want to keep an eye on colour balance – it doesn’t really matter, as I will be tying these to railings and trees individually, but if they were all being hung from one tree, just like decorating a Christmas tree, total randomness can look less than pleasing!
I discovered I had made nearly everything in shades of blue (leftovers from all the watery blocks on the chiropractor’s quilt) or purple and oranges (C& G Machine Embroidery colour palette) so I stretched myself and deliberately made some pink and green ones, and some black and greys.
I’ve also made hearts, some from complex cloth, which is where you lay out scraps of cloth and stitch them to a backing cloth, (like quilting without the wadding we assume for modern quilting.) I use ribbons, lace, leftover fabric, sweet wrappers, anything that will hold up to the task I intend the cloth to manage.
The slitheriest and most swearingest part was stitching silk taffeta ribbon to satin blanket ribbon…I set myself a target of 100 metres of thread in an ornamental stitch and by the end I was getting the hang of not twisting the ribbon as it unrolled… 
I then arm-knitted massive chain from this (like fingerknitting, but huuuge!) and as everything is so slippery, the next stage is stitching hearts to the links to keep them in position…
Of course, the ‘more is more’ school of embellishment means that some at least of these complex cloth hearts are being edged with beads and sequins, photos of that stage to follow
Another set of hearts are knitted and some have a crochet edging. As my hands hurt horribly if I knit more than 2 a day of these small hearts, my lovely Mahjongettes have stepped into the breach. Gold star goes to Elizabeth, who has taken yarn home with her to do more (I so owe her cake!) and the moss stitch hearts are hers, with edging by PoetrySue. Eleanor stuck to garter stitch and had fun mixing ribbons in and making faces over my texture yarns. The results are very pleasing!
And of course, all those ribbons and threads and glittery bits and rustly wrappers are very attractive to Nonie…
