Gertrude finally finished

I'm celebrating completing the stitching on Gertrude. Gertrude and I have become firm friends over the last month as I slowly stitched away completing her colourful outfit. 

I love the little duck, what a great addition to the stitching. I was a little confused as to why Gertrude was carrying her bra in the top of her bag but I'm sure there is a perfectly logical explanation. We had a little chat about it but I never got to the bottom of the story. When I got to stitching her jewellery she became a little demanding. She wanted pearls and a gold chain and she was in luck as I had some beads left over from an earlier project.  The chain for her heart pendant was stitched with some fabulous metallic thread that my mother gave me years ago. The thread was a free gift with Classic Stitching, an embroidery magazine that she used to buy.  

My mother died at Christmas 2002 and it was some time before then that she gave me the threads. She didn't like working with metallic threads and at the time neither did I, however I accepted the threads and they spent a long time languishing in my work box. Earlier this year I used one of them in a project and realised how good they were. They didn't tangle or shred and the finished result was great. Now I'm looking for opportunities to use them. Unfortunately there is nothing that tells me who manufactured the threads although I think they may be Guttermann. Anyway using double thread I was able to do a chain stitch necklace for the pendant with ease. 

The bag lady for May is Hildegard and with any luck I'll be able to make a start on her tomorrow evening.

Compared to Gertrude she is the quiet retiring type but I may be wrong about her.  

I've got lots of things to tell you about but for now I need to link up with Barbara from Cat Patches for her end of month bag lady link up. 

Lyndsey