Cranes and Doodlewash

WIP - I've started work on a picture of cranes for an embroidery. I drew the pictures digitally, printed them out and as the design is bigger than the A4 paper I had to join several sheets together. Then I transferred the design to fabric by using a light box and a Pilot Frixion Erasable Gel Ink Pen. The pen lines can be ironed off if they have not been covered up by embroidery.

Also on the theme of cranes, I used the same birds for a Spoonflower fabric design and added a digitally altered watercolour background. I entered the design into their weekly contest, I came 491st out of 769 designs and received 32 votes. The winner got 393 votes!

The design showing a single repeat and below as a repeating pattern.

Doodlewash

Seal

Pyramid

Yo-Yo

Part of the A3 page

Happy Paint Party Friday

WIP and Collage Pages

WIP - I've painted the fabric with Inktense blocks and pencils. Then I outlined the main features with black thread using free hand machine embroidery. Next came the hand embroidery which you can see some of above.

After painting

With the machine embroidery

Below  are pages from the collage book

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Stay safe!!

Doodle and English Paper Piecing Update

 A doodle worked on my tablet, then multiplied to make a pattern

If you were wondering if I am still working on the English Paper piecing, here is the backside. I'm working on the edges at the moment because I am getting short of fabric in big enough pieces.

WIP

Butterflowers and WIP

I drew the flowers and butterfly on fabric with a pen, painted them, cut them out and stuck them to a re purposed  hankie. Then I enhanced with running stitches - thread not drawn on.

I think this one looks better in real life.

I'm working on a bigger piece, bet you can tell what it is.

WIP - Squares on Brown and Whitework Peacock

One of the items I started recently is the above. I had some upholstery samples lying about waiting to be put to good use. I'm hand stitching them on with running stitch. I may put fancy stitches on after....not sure yet.

I've also had this piece of linen in my stash for years so I decided to do some white stitching on it. I decided to use a page from lovely colouring book [Secret Garden by Johanna Basford] a gift from a friend for my birthday. I printed it on Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy and stuck it to the fabric. 

Since starting it I have had a few problems:

my stitching is not very neat nowadays

I had to print the pattern on more than one page [I enlarged too] and I am finding the edges keep lifting especially where they meet

the needle keeps getting sticky so I have to keep cleaning it with isopropyl [rubbing alcohol] 

 I won't see what it looks like until I've finished it and rinsed the solvy off

 keep changing my mind on which stitch to use

It will take a long time to stitch!

TAST, WIP, SC2

These are both 'work in progress' and embroidery stitches for Take a stitch Tuesday.

The top one is beaded long tail chain stitch [TAST 114] with threaded running stitch.

Below is whipped long tailed chain stitch. [TAST 115] I used ribbon for the whipping and stitched onto hand made paper. Join in at Pintangle.

No 2  Spoon Challenge - Mountain

WIP and TAST 111

I've worked a couple more TAST stitches on my hand printed fabric. I used Tast 111, zig zag coral stitch as a couching thread to keep the organza in place on top of the printed fabric [light blue, perle thread]. As you can see I sewed it in a random manner rather than all the same size. I also used Tast 114, Long tail chain stitch together with running stitch to define the leaf pattern [dark blue, flower thread]. 

Join in? - Take a Stitch Tuesday

WIP and Dog Fabric

Work in progress Wednesdays - See Pintangle

My WIP is a quilt, all hand quilted. This is the back, I will show the front when I've done it. I started it for a competition but the deadline for registration with images is the 26th, tomorrow and it most definitely will not be finished. It may have been finished if I'd not gone away on holiday, I didn't know I was going away when I started the quilt, it was a last minute offer we couldn't resist.

I hope I don't lose interest in finishing it now though.

Also a new fabric swatch from Spoonflower, the design was for a beard and moustache contest. This one was printed on performance pique, a stretchy fabric that does not fray.

Various WIP

WIP - an acrylic painted abstract, collaged

WIP - a collage. I painted the middle of the paper with gesso, then stuck on some paper from a book cut in the shape of leaves. I then painted it green. This was a mistake as I should have painted it before sticking as it puckered. But it doesn't look bad now that it is stitched.

WIP - page in a sketchbook. Drawn lines with real skeleton leaves stuck to it. I can't make my mind up whether to leave this as is or add more to it.

WIP Art Quilt and Dubai Gifts

My friend Marian has recently come back from a holiday in Dubai and she brought me some gifts in the cute little bag above.

Inside the bag were two other bags and in the blue one were some empty tea bags. We have seen art made with teabags and assumed that people emptied them to use in art but it appears you can buy them empty and in different sizes too.

In the pink bag were these adorable miniature embroidered shoes or slippers. I should have put a ruler next to them so you could tell how big they are but I never thought at the time. Anyway they are about 5" long. 

Love those curly toes.

Even the underside looks great.

WIP - art quilt

This is a start for an A4 art quilt of a hare on a bank of flowers overlooking the fields and hills. The background was painted with inktense blocks, the hare was a print on fabric done on my inkjet, and I've added some embroidery, first on the machine then hand ......but I'm not sure about it. The hare is quite pale [but they don't want to get noticed in real life either], the background is quite bright. I don't like the sky. Anyway I don't know whether to carry on with it and hope it looks better when it's done [some things do] or leave it and start something new. I have spent quite a bit of time doing the embroidery but there is a lot more to do. If you click on the image you can get a better view... any thoughts?

WIP

Ideas for a small A4 landscape art quilt

Quilted Cushion, Eggs and WIP

I've still got lots of purple pages to show but I thought I would show something different today.

I bought a fat quarter of my kokeshi doll fabric from Spoonflower and made this cushion. I didn't have the right size cushion pad so I've borrowed a couple of flatish ones from other cushions.

Before I made the cushion up I quilted around the six dolls in the centre.

I did the eggs below for a challenge - I thought it was for the Sketchbook Challenge but that seems to be 'natural surfaces' this month.  I suppose eggs are a natural surface, but mine don't look natural. My challenge now will be to find where the challenge really came from!

There was a contest with Spoonflower for painted eggs but that would need to be a repeating pattern for fabrics...... and it finished yesterday....

Work in progress......This is a heart in the making

TAST 37

Take a stitch Tuesday - Pistil Stitch

This is a variation of a French Knot which I have never done before, why not I ask myself as I love French Knots. It is written about in my stitch book under another name, but there are no pretty pictures to go with it, so that is probably why I have never done it. 

A pistil is part of a flower, and I've used the stitch to make my version of alliums. I used cotton pearl threads, two shades on the lower picture, although the colours look very close. I used the stitch for the stalks too, although I wished I'd used a different shade of green.