Cushion and TAST 15

I've been making a cushion this week for my new conservatory. I didn't want to buy any new fabrics so I used fabrics from my stash. The background fabric is quite old but the patterned fabrics I bought a couple of months ago from Fat Quarters,  a dream shop for quilters [hard to resist buying something even though I'm not a quilter]. They were just a small pack of coordinating fabrics and they go really well together. I appliqued the fabrics together using 'heat and bond' and then stitched around the shapes using the machine. Hand embroidery and beads came next before making up.

click on the images to enlarge

The stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge is stem stitch. This is another of the stitches that I'm not really keen on and I don't much like the sample that I have done either. On the sample there is ribbon, transfer printed ribbon [the patterned one under the felt], needle felting, a slice of organza bag and a slice of painted/stamped paper. There is also decorative machine stitching, running stitch and the stem stitch and it will be another page for my fabric journal.

One of the first embroidered pictures I did, many years ago, had a lot of stem stitch on it and it took me years to complete. Maybe that is why I'm not keen on the stitch?

It was a kit from a magazine. Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, it has been a dark day. The bright circle of light is the flash from the camera.

Envelopes and IF [suspense]

I created this envelope on the computer using a free label from here and doing a few alterations such as space for a stamp. I printed it and made it into an envelope. The envelope below was already a cute little square brown envelope. For this one I used a purchased stamp to decorate around the edges.

Illustration Friday's challenge this week is 'suspense'. I used this drawing from my sketchbook of a giant prawn and a man on a beach. Are the tables turned? Will the prawn eat the man instead of the other way round?

Sketchbook 15 [pages 57-63]

Bag Winner and Boats

The winner of the Snowman bag giveaway, chosen by a random number generator is

Sherry Edwards

I started a sketchbook earlier this year with the intention of filling it with things boat/seaside connected, so far I have but I'm not finding it very slow going at the moment. The drawing above is from a different sketchbook but done around the same time [probably was the nearest to hand].  

Two collages below