sew-p operas and fasten-ating accessories

Earlier this year I made an embroidered Dot Cotton portrait for a friend who loves Eastenders.  I should add, so as not to mislead, that I love Eastenders too!  My friendly local craft entrepreneur spotted the original picture on my flickr and offered to sell my embroideries on her lovely website, Miso Funky.  I was so pleased to be asked and very excited about taking the first step on the road to fulfilling my dream of pro-crafting, so I jumped at the chance and got sewing!

I started by making another Dot.  Dot is probably my favourite Eastenders character ever.  Her iconic status and distinctive hairdo also make her the easiest character to sew a likeness of!  She lives in a traditional wood effect frame, just as I'm sure she would like.

I decided to expand my repertoire a little and also made a Pat.  Like Dot, Pat hasn't changed her look since the eighties, making her easy to capture.  I couldn't get a leopard print or gold frame (I know that's what Pat would want) so went for a classic black.  The close-up below really shows Pat's years in the school of hard knocks.  Hee!

I can't help referring to these two as Dot Cotton and Pat Butcher though, of course, they are now Dot Branning and Pat Evans.  I loved Jim so much (the early 21st century episode where he accidentally killed Dot's budgie when using a hoover to clean out the bird cage, and exclaimed, "'E's gawn up the bleedin' vac!" before rushing the recently deceased bird to the local doctor for an attempted resuscitation will surely go down in the annals of greatest tv moments) and thought it was a stroke of genius to get him and Dot together but I didn't approve of Dot's name change at all.   I don't suppose there was any way round it.  Dot's status as upstanding member of the moral community would never have allowed her to live in sin and it just wouldn't have been right for her to keep Charlie's name when Jim was...  A-hem!  Moving on...  (I did tell you I liked Eastenders.)

I tried to make embroideries of Peggy and Den and Angie but they didn't work out.  I'm going to keep working on it though.  Any special requests for characters?  I love Bradley and Stacey but I can see Bradley being problematic...

I decided to make a miniature version of Dot for myself.  Here she is:

So tiny!  I love her and am going to put her centre place in my wall of many wonders.  The normal size is 5 inches by 7 inches by the way, much bigger than this little beauty.  Even the small size took a good 3-4 hours to sew though.  Is this normal?  Will I ever get faster?  If not, my potential pro-crafter's hourly rate will never be anywhere near minimum wage.  I guess that's the cost of living the dream...!

This selection of my zip brooches is also up for sale at the same place.

I made some new labels for these using my logo stamp.  My logo stamp still excites me rather a lot!

If you think your life would benefit from an Eastenders embroidery (whose life wouldn't?) or a zip brooch then you can buy them here.