When I was taking photos of my Round Nesting Boxes recently, I rooted out some of my old badges and brooches to put in them.
Before putting them away again, I took some photos as I thought you might like to see some of them. In the smallest box there's what you could call my magpie brooches - shiny ones!
I love the pretty costume jewellery you find with a coloured stone surrounded by metalwork.
The ones on the right are useful for keeping shawls in check; I've had all three of them for many years. The rest of the metal brooches are a mixture of fun ones and those associated with particular places / organisations / groups - I can't think of a word that covers them all.
The yellow oval is from the Children's Liver Disease Foundation, the charity I support through my work and the blue one next to it is from the Ring of Tatters. The three crests below represent the Universities my children and I went to. The one in the middle is Birmingham where I read English in the early 1980s. The red birds are Queen's where Jack read Maths and the last one is Lincoln where Rose read History.
There are felt ones, beaded ones and a few based on Dorset Buttons, all made by me ...
I recently got a wonderful new book on Dorset Buttons from Gina-B Silkworks (their website is a great place to lose yourself) and am looking forward to working through it. When I do, I'll share my progress with you. In the meantime, here's a little brooch I made recently for a friend's birthday/
The other handmade brooches are much older, dating from the 1950s and 60s.
Patterns for these embroidered brooches would have been found in magazines of the time. Several of these were embroidered by my Mum as a young woman, others have been bought by me in antique shops.
What's next? More pretty old brooches.
My collection of china posy brooches, mostly dating from the mid twentieth century. These were made by various Staffordshire potteries and I just love them.
Most of mine were picked up in charity shops and the like but I have one given to me by a friend that belonged to her late mother and that dark red one was my Great-Grandmother's. One day I'm going to make a little fabric cushion to display them on.
The last two boxes have more humdrum contents. First, there's my collection of Shakespeare badges.
Before being struck down by Covid (and the never-ending Long Covid) Jack and I were regulars at the RSC which is only half an hours drive from here. As well as the programmes, I was building up a good collection of quotes badges too.
'
'Though she be but little, she is fierce' (Midsummer Night's Dream) struck a chord with so many that you can now find it used on all sorts of merchandise. Also shown are quotes from 'Love's Labour's Lost', 'Much Ado About Nothing', King Lear', 'As You Like It' and many more.
The contents of the final box might best be described as 'all the rest'.
There are book badges ...
... lots of puffins as I'm a collector of Puffin books. The Elmer badge was one of several I made for a session at the Puffin shop in Covent Garden in 1991 when David McKee was signing his books.
The little boy at the front of the picture is my son, Jack, then aged three and yes, I knitted his Elmer jumper.
A few political badges next - that 'Don't blame me, I voted Labour' badge has been useful far too many times since I got it in 1983.
'For the many, not the few' was the slogan of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party - says it all.
These next ones are a mixed bunch. I particularly like my 'Santa's Little Helper' badge and the one about turning into your mother - happened years ago here! Quite a few of these were bought at News From Nowhere, a wonderful bookshop in Liverpool.
I also bought this card at News From Nowhere which is part of my Christmas display every year ...
The last collection are my knitting badges. And, before you ask, no, I can't remember where I got them but I think it was online so you could probably find them.
Aren't these great? Which ones do you like best? Perhaps the fact that I like 'Knitting for the Resistance' and 'Armed with pointy sticks' says something about my less than placid nature!
