Altered Flower Book [p39], Mail Book [Pussy Cat], Felt Brooches

the flowers on the left are made from paper and painted [close up below], the one on the right is both fabric an paper, machine stitching, wrapped string [stem], string centre

I took the photo of the wild mouse below, it was eating from a coconut shell in my garden. It looks big below but it was really a tiny cute little thing.

click to enlarge

I thought I would try my hand at making a brooch from felt, then I tried making one in leather [left]

Altered Flower Book [p38] and Mail Book - Dracula

on the right - made flower from dyed fabrics, papers, stitching, string [in the stalk], painted skeleton leaf, on the left - paper flowers, painted with acrylics, pen centres

painted paper and aged with distress ink [click on picture to enlarge]

Altered Flower Book [p36,37]

flower made from painted papers, organza, machine stitching and string

the poppies on the left are an inkjet print on fabric with machine embroidery

Scissors Keeper, Illustration Friday, Mail x 3, New Rolling Stamps

I quite often doodle while I'm watching TV, but last night I thought I would doodle with a needle & thread instead. I didn't have a pattern, it just developed & I just used a running stitch o keep it simple.

Below is my offering for the Illustration Friday challenge - Fearless. I put two of my doodles together for this. Is the rabbit fearless or just stupid?

Another one - which is the more fearless, the rabbit or the sheep?

Mail - Beauty & the Beast

Peter Pan & Captain Hook

Teddy Bears Picnic

These are 2 new rolling stamps I tried out today - just textured wallpaper on a tube, I cut around the flower

Mail Book - Rupert Bear, Tom Thumb, Sugar Plum Fairy

Take a Stitch Tuesday and Crazy Patchwork Hand Bound Book

This weeks stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge is Cloud Filling.

A friend showed me how to book bind last week, which I enjoyed and will do again. I finished the book ends by wrapping the boards with some crazy patchwork and hand embroidery. The book is quite floppy, but it is my first attempt and I now know to do it a lot tighter. [It is easy to open though which is handy for sketching etc] It is also my first attempt at hand embroidered crazy patchwork, although I have done machined crazy patchwork.

Altered Flower Book [p 32 -35]

painted pages, fabric print [my design] skeleton leaf, sweet paper flowers

painted pages, skeleton leaf, fabric screen print [my design] beads

painted pages, skeleton leaf, dyed honesty pods

painted pages, stencilled leaves, real leaf

More Mail - Thomas the tank engine, Snow White, Squirrel Nutkins

tha album contains actual pictures of Thomas's friends

More Mythical Mail - Jack Spratt and Toad

click on the images to make larger

Bleeding Heart and Altered Flower Book [p28-31]

A photograph of a 'bleeding heart' [Dicentra Spectabilis] that I took in my garden yesterday, it has lots of flowers on this year.

painted pages, robin -watercolour, tree, flower - photos, real petals

painted pages, robin - watercolour, flower - altered photo, honesty seed pods, coloured, skeleton leaf, sequins

painted page, real leaves

paint effect, fabric flower - machine embroidery, sequins

Doodle to Fabric

Another from the 'Layers' collection.

This started out as a doodle in my sketchbook [below]. For the fabric version above I started with vintage patterned fabrics which I patched together [not sewn] then painted it with clear gesso. I drew on the picture, not exactly the same as the doodle and then painted it with acrylics. All the outlines were machine stitched and the fabric was then wrapped around a canvas frame. 61 x 61cm

For more images click here 

TAST [week 9]

TAST challenge - continued from last post

Raised Herringbone Band

Take a Stitch Tuesday [weeks 5 to 9]

Continued from yesterdays post......

to find out more about the TAST challenge click here

week 5 Knotted Buttonhole Stitch

My plan was to see what stitch was in the challenge & then do it at a later date from a book as my sewing stuff was downstairs.... but not all the stitches are in my book [thought it was a good one too, having said that there are hundreds of different stitches]. Anyway in my book there is a different version of the stitch above and the knot is at the other end. So I now have sewing stuff in this room too and I followed Sharons instructions instead, which incidently are very good.

week 6 Buttonhole Eyelet Flower

week 7 Rope Stitch

week 8 Fancy Hem Stitch

for some reason I did this twice, which I didn't realise until I was putting them in the book .. I worry about my memory sometimes

And this is todays challenge - Raised herringbone Band

I deleted the picture because it wasn't very good, it will be on my next post