Folksy shop is open!

Taken a big step and have opened a 'shop' on Folksy. I've started by listing some postcards and cards that I had in my stock and will see how things go. Stop by and have a look - www.folksy.com/shops/CreatedbyLynn. There are some fantastic things for sell on the website as well as a variety of materials with which to create so it's well worth a look around the whole site.

Lesson 4 complete

This week I've finally got around to finishing the samples from Lesson 4 of Embellish, Stitch, Enrich so here they are ....

Again this is a knitted square, felted to a piece of felt with hand stitching and beads added.

The next four are more of the hand knitted squares which I have machine embroidered between two sheets of Romeo water-soluble fabric using metallic thread. This took me back years to when I did C&G Embroidery. Enjoyed it so much I think I will have to give it another go.

This next sample has squares cut from a piece I knitted using a very textured yarn. I had intended making flowers with it but it came out much thicker than I wanted so I cut it up to felt on to a piece of felt. Again I added hand stitches and buttons to finish. There are also two squares which are fibres felted from the back so they appear like shadows.

The final piece again uses the textured knitted squares which are felted to a felt background and finished with hand stitches. The second one is a detail.

Quilts at the V&A

I had a really good day today with Jo and Christine, two of my friends who quilt, when we visited the Quilts Exhibition at the V&A. It was really good to see such a range of quilts spanning hundreds of years. An excellent exhibition that I would recommend not just to quilters but to anyone interested in art and textiles.

The one thing that stood out for me is the standard we force on ourselves today, or have forced on us. So many of the quilts that were two or three hundred years old were not "perfect" in that the patches may not have lined up "correctly" or the patterns were not quite "right" or the quilting stitches were no "small and even" but there they were, hanging in a museum as examples of a craft of their time. Why is it that today exhibits in shows are expected to be perfect and up the the scrutiny of the quilt police? Time we took a stand!

Yet again, having vowed never to make another quilt, I came home full of ideas of things to do, some of which involved making quilts! Watch this space and see if it happens. Another good thing is Jo and I have finally, after much talking over a number of years, made a date for a regular get together to mutually encourage each other and share and bounce ideas off each other so that we can be more focussed about our craft. I feel very excited about the future, just need to take myself in hand and make a regular time each week for creating.