Sushi brooch

I apologise for the quality of the photo, I have just spent an hour struggling with camera and computer and have not been able to come up with anything clearer than this so it will have to do. I think it's going to be hard for a photo to give you a real idea of what this looks like in any case.

Yesterday I went to a crafts exhibition at Exeter and was lucky enough to be able to attend a workshop by Stef Francis at which we made what she calls a sushi brooch using silk rod carriers. The class only cost £2 and was really good value for money - if only to find out that if you insert your nail down the side of the silk rod you can split it into 3 or 4 layers. We used 3 rods, split them into several pieces and then rolled them up to make flower shapes. We stitched through the centres to hold them together, added a few beads and sequins then threaded all 3 on a piece of ribbon and tied them together. Then we stitched a brooch pin to a small piece of felt and stitched that to the bottom of the flowers to make the piece into a brooch.

Stef had many of her stitched pieces on display on her stand and they were very inspiring and she was bedecked with brooches, necklace and bracelets she has made using the rods and also showed us some lovely little bags she has made with them. Very inspiring! Needless to say I had to buy a couple of packs of rods to play with further