Someone very dear to me is going through a pretty torrid time at the moment, I saw an advert on facebook recently for a silver ring to give to someone to wear as a reminder that you’re always there for them, I rather liked the idea but not so much the ring they sold. A quick scoot round Etsy and I saw a silver ring with the outline of a mountain, it was just a generic mountain shape but it looked remarkably like Catbells which is very dear to both of us…Perfect!

It came in a little muslin bag and of course I decided to make more of a keepsake bag to give the ring in. I found some nice white linen in my stash, there was a piece just big enough for what I had in mind.

I sketched the outline of Catbells on paper first to make sure my idea would work…I then extended the line to end with a heart and the words ‘With love’. I used my lightbox and a Frixion pen to transfer the design onto the linen.

I stitched the outline in split stitch in a soft blue-green, DMC 502 I think, the heart and ‘with love’ were then stitched in a soft purple using satin stitch for the heart. The one disadvantage I’ve found with Frixion pens is that it is not so easy to see bit’s you have missed until you press it at the end and the lines disappear…then it depends if you want, or can be bothered, to go back and fill in the gaps. I decided to go with the slightly faint look.

I stitched the side and bottom of the bag with French seams on the sewing machine, I hand-stitched the top hem as it was just too little and fiddly to try to stitch it on the machine. For the gathering ribbon I simply threaded a length of silk ribbon and stitched a running stitched around the top edge of the bag. It won’t be at all robust but it does look pretty. I added a few beads to the ends of the ribbon and the gift bag was ready.

I found a suitable giftcard in a little book of gift tags I got free with a magasine, just big enough for me to write a special message in. I even ironed some tissue paper to wrap the ring in!

She loved it 🙂