The second bag-from-jeans is also based on designs from Alice Makabe's Beautiful Botanicals Embroidery. The first side is a simplified version of her 'night in the forest' on page 15. I removed all plants except the trees, and added a moon and two bats. It isn't as impactful as the first bag, but I am very happy with the effect. I've used perle 5 thread throughout. I had just enough of the variegated thread for the leaves.
I began on the face of the owl with silk thread. I had a hank of silk that contained a range of colours I thought might work the whole owl, but I wasn't happy with the performance of the silk , so swapped back to perle 5 cotton in two shades of grey for the rest of the body. Heavier thread works better on this denim.
On the back I worked a version of the circular floral motif on page 12., where it is a small circular wreath repeated around 4 sides of a cloth. I enlarged it a little and worked it in the centre, Then enlarged and repeated it twice to form a series of concentric (more or less) circles, using a silvery-grey Perle 5 in deference to the colours in the owl. Again, it blends rather than standing out as the white does on bag 1.
A remnant of upholstery fabric I bought from Nicola Jarvis 3-4 years ago makes quite a good lining.
I had to take great care stitching it into the bag. Because of a tear in the lining fabric, I had to juggle a little. The lining is non-stretch and it was a tight fit at the top - but I got there.
I am now working on the third bag - made from the back of the jeans with pockets, where smaller individual motifs are a reasonable fit with the more broken up spaces. Quite different.
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