Dilly Doily

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was hoping to use doillies as part of the wedding decorations, and indeed I did! They were also part of the finishing touches of my wedding dress and bouquet.

But before I get onto that, I wanted to show you some of the other pretty things I found while trawling Pinterest...

1. Cute doily clouds from Hart + Sew 2. Pretty lit doily wreath from Martha Stewart 3. Sweet doily necklace I found on the Book of Deer blog 4. Buttons and doillies on an embroidery hoop - this gives me an idea...!

I'd seen a few 'Pins' a long time ago with the fabulous idea of creating a table runner using doillies. Similar to the necklace above I love the way they look when they're all hunched up together, contrasting patterns, colours and materials.
It took quite some time to gather together enough doillies to cover nine 9ft tables (!), and there were a few times when I really did question my sanity. It ended up costing a small fortune considering it looks so 'collected' and thrifty!

Piles and piles of doillies all over the house for pretty much five months, I really should count how many we actually ended up stitching together but I'm a bit too scared to!
What is lovely though, is that some of them were donated by my mum. There was a set from a holiday to Malta, and several that were actually made by my great grandmother, including an amazing hand-embroidered tablecloth which we didn't actually use. I must post some photos of it another day.

I'll show you the final results in a moment, but I also found the below on Pinterest, and having all of this source material to hand seems too good an opportunity to miss, so I'd really like to do some doodling different doily shapes, possibly onto shrink plastic. I've been hoping to find some buttons for a forlorn coat of mine...perhaps I can make some with this technique?! Ooh...exciting!

Anyway, here are a few snaps of the doillies in action. After all the pain of sewing them together (and some of them are mighty difficult!) I loved the results. I hope you do too...

This was a section of the skirt of my dress! My bridesmaid Sarah gave me the little embroidered monograms which my dressmaker sewed into the skirt. The crochet was actually a table runner! An amazingly lucky find in an antiques market in Nottingham.

 

 

A single doily was wrapped around my bouquet along with a strip of fabric from my dress

And that is probably not the end of my dalliance with doillies, so don't be surprised if they get mentioned more often!

Em xxx

Say it with flowers...

I'm busy collecting things for the tables and other decorations for the wedding, here's a sneak preview of my idea for the table arrangements...

Do me a favour...

Because I am easily distracted and am thinking more about the fun bits of the wedding planning, I'm considering what we might give as favours.

We've changed our minds several times between not bothering, bothering, or not bothering, and so this morning I have decided that maybe we should bother. Either way, I am certain it would be much more thoughtful to hand-make whatever treats we end up giving to our guests.

I have a little idea in mind that I might try and have a go at this afternoon (if I can be bothered nipping to the shop for some butter), but in the meantime have found these lovely ideas for homemade favours of the edible variety which I love, love, love!

1. How cute are these gingerbread button biscuits I found on Briggslekehus?! I reckon these would be really easy to make just using circular cookie cutters and a skewer to do the holes...

2. I love the idea of creating my own sweet packaging! The recipe AND the label artwork is available for these from Bakerella, but I suppose even just bagging up shop-bought sweets would be a nice touch. Might spoil people's dinner though...

3. These cookies are a little more 'grown-up' but I do love the decoration. Even one or two of these with some lovely packaging would do the trick. Amber Spiegel is selling them through her Etsy store, which is just as well as I'm not sure my decorating skills (or patience) can stretch that far!

4. I absolutely LOVE this little pot of homemade Rosehip Jelly! The recipe for the jelly itself (along with many other lovely things) can be found here on the Fancy Tiger Crafts blog and is such a brilliant way of using up fabric scraps. I have a pile of old Liberty fabric swatches just begging to be used for something. Perhaps this could be it!?

Em xxx