The Garden of the Empress

The main textiles piece covering the inside was made by layering up loads of strands of yarn, which I then covered with a wine-coloured net and sewed together.

The red and green "wheels" are made by cutting a two-tone fabric into strips, coiling it and then sewing it into the "wheel" or "spiral" shape.

I had a thing about pistachio nut shells in this book- no idea why- but I glued them in place with hot glue.

You can see on this page where I coiled some coarse green string up and sewed it in place.

On the textiles above you can see that I've made some stitches in bright blue and red. I've then weaved handspun and chunky novelty thread in and out of these stitches- giving another texture to the piece.

In the fish pond piece and the next pieces shown above I've used textiles piece that I've cut holes in.

The fish on the pink textiles above was made separately (as was the nest piece further back up the page).

I cut a hole in the blue textiles piece and sewed satin stitch around the edge of the hole. I then zipped right across the hole and eventually built up a web of stitching.

The pink textiles was then sewn in place behind the blue.

This fish was the first thing I "drew" when I got my new sewing machine - capable of machine embroidery instead of sewing just backwards and forwards!

The tree on the left hand page above was made very simply by sewing yarn into the simple shape of a tree trunk.

The background was made from off-cuts of old textiles pieces. I make pieces a lot bigger than I need because I worry about the sewing and the melting shrinking the fabrics. I often find I have a lot of left overs that I can use in other projects.

The leaves were made from gold sequin leaves. I ironed the sequins so that they'd roll up and look more interesting. You can often get away with using cheap and tacky sequins by "distressing" them or layering them under sheer fabrics like organza and net.

The leather hands on the page above were originally made for a doll but the doll turned out a lot larger than I expected.

The hands were cut out in leather, sewed together and then stuffed with toy stuffing.

You can't have an opulent garden without a peacock or two!

I love making cocoons.

The one above was very easily made by wrapping a discarded knitted belt around a empty thread spool and holding it in place with some yarn. I then sewed sequins in place and threaded a wooden bead on the bottom.