Red Sky at Night and Embroidered T-Shirt

We have had some really colourful sky recently

I bought a plain t-shirt and stitched on some flowers. The t-shirt is actually a lot darker and a different colour than the photo looks, it's like a really dark jade. Instructions below.

I drew a sketch on paper, then I put some stabiliser on top [something like stitch and tear although I think mine was regular stitching stabiliser]. As you can see through the stabiliser it is possible to copy the design onto it, I used a pen.

Pin the stabiliser to the right side of the t-shirt where you want the placement, then embroider - I used back stitch.

Then carefully tear off the stabiliser. Job done.

Another 6 Fabric Swatches

8" fabric swatches

Fabrics printed and available at Spoonflower

Girl with embroidered dress

Digital/tablet art. The background is an altered photo, it is the view from the house where I was staying in Madeira last month. I used one of my embroideries for her dress.

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?

More Fabric Swatches

All available on Spoonflower

Dotty, Spotty and Square

I got my latest fabric swatches from Spoonflower today, among them was a swatch for a design I entered into a contest last month and it came in the top ten. It was for a small scale geometric design for shoes. See the other winners here.

I did a range of fabrics using the same colours and dots and squares.

The fabrics are available to purchase at Spoonflower here

Woven Fabrics

Woven fabrics and stitched with a decorative machine stitch.

The fabrics were two pieces that I had painted and stamped and were quite stiff because I'd used acrylics. It was quite tricky keeping the pieces together before stitching, I found it too hard to put pins in. Inspiration from the book by Anna Faustino - Simply Stunning Woven Quilts.

This is the back, I like it as much as the front. I need to work out what to do with it so both sides can be seen, it would be a shame to hide the back.

Purple Profusion

Garden Overalls

The faux stitching from Monday's post has been used to make these jazzy overalls. {digitally}. The  orange part of the flower was a Marigold growing in my garden. 

WIP Flannel Patchwork

When I went to the Harrogate quilt exhibition I bought a pack of flannel squares. I stitched 9 of the squares together on the machine and have started a bit of seam embroidery decoration.

The stitches on the squares above are fern stitch and detached chain stitches.

Below is a form of laced running stitch

This one is a raised chain band done on open chain stitch instead of the usual straight stitches. I did just one row of the chain band but more could be added, looking at it now I may add more. 

It was one of the stitches [version 2 - week 81] shown in Take a stitch Tuesday. Click on the link to see more or join in.

Another of the TAST stitches, this one is week 82 and Spanish feather stitch. Plus French knots.

An old favourite, fern stitch and French knots

Another TAST, week 83, Siennese stitch. The stitches were quite spaced out so I stitched in between with a thinner thread.

And week 80, raised chain band V1, a bit untidy

I'm a bit naughty for not using a frame and this did come out a bit puckered although it is flatter now that it has had a get together with the iron.

Faux Stitching

Created on a tablet [Samsung Galaxy Note]

Butterfly Rose

A butterfly I saw on a hanging basket the other day.

And a dying rose, I've got a thing about dying roses

Dogs in Dresses

Drawn on my Samsung tablet with sketchbook pro. For their clothes I used the doodle pattern I posted the other day, seen here. I used a photo for the background altered in pixir-o-matic.

New Fabric

Spoonflower have launched a new fabric called 'performance knit'. This is a swatch sample of it printed with one of my designs. I think it looks better in real life than in the photo, the colours are very vibrant. See more details here