Denim Jacket now has shells

Two shells have now been added to my denim jacket, adding to the seaside theme with the seahorse.

I've again used a range of stitches including French knots, herringbone, blanket, split stitch, chain stitch and cross stitches, all worked in stranded cotton.

I've also added some foliage and flowers around the mandalas I worked earlier so they are more joined together.   These were just simple back stitch and lazy daisy with a few French knots.

Solar Photography

For Mother's Day this year, one of my daughters bought me a Solar Photography kit which she purchased from Boo To A Moose - well worth looking at their Etsy store as they do wonderous things with polaroid prints.

At the time of Mothers Day, we were well and truly still in the depths of winter so I put the gift away until summer and the sun arrived and, I'm glad to say, this week was sunny enough to give it a go.

I started by using some shells which I thought all had good outline shapes but sadly they did not work as well as I though as the depth of them meant the shadows cast interfered with the outline shape.

I then tried with some stones from my collection of heart-shaped stones.  These worked a lot better but were still a bit blurry.

The original layouts look so promising so I will have to put it all down to experience!

For my third try I went for something flat and decided on some lace which was flat enough to be clipped in the frame that came with the kit and therefore produced a much better print.

I've still got some sheets left so I will have another go soon.  In the meantime I will read up on the process and have a better idea of how to get good prints.

Sea Glass

Since living close to the sea, we have become avid collectors of sea glass and never visit a beach without wandering along the shore line to see if we can spot some.

Most times we are lucky but it can vary from 2 or 3 pieces up to our best day when we found over 40 pieces.   The quality can vary from beautifully frosted pieces to those that look as though they were tossed in the sea the night before (these go straight in to the recycling bin).   We usually find white and green pieces, together with a few which have a bluish/turquoise colouring but we have high hopes that we will one day find a greater variety of colours.  A few weeks ago we found our first piece of real blue glass which caused great excitement!

This is typical of a 'normal' haul - including the first blue piece

For some time I have been wanting to use the glass for something but not sure what.   I've seen loads of jewellery made from sea glass, in fact I own a pair of earrings bought for me by my eldest daughter, but I don't feel the urge to get into making jewellery.

Finally I decided a do a small hanging just to see what it came out like and how easy if would be to glue the glass.   I started with an artist canvas and stuck the glass with normal pva glue which worked so I will just have to wait to see how long lasting it is.

The pieces at the bottom are the ones that had a blue tint to them, some being better than others.

Quite pleased with it!

Sew4theSoul

With the fourth stitch sampler complete I am taking a break from Sew4theSoul as I have too many ideas swimming around my head, several of which have come during the time I have been doing these samplers and getting back in to embroidery.

This sampler introduced me to Colonial Knot and Eskimo Lace stitches, the latter which has already been put to good use in my Summer Seasons hoop that I have already blogged about.

Weaving, Colonial Knot, Threaded Running and Eskimo Lace

Now all four are finished and mounted I have hung them in the dining room, with space either side to add more!

Journal Quilt for June

Moving on from yellow, this month's JQ is yellow and green.

I started with a random pieced panel in the centre which was created using fused fabric which I bonded to a backing fabric and then cut to shape.  This was then bordered as a log cabin first with yellow which I then cut at angles before completing with a green border.

I was a bit worried about the raw edges on the centre panel so decided to machine quilt narrow lines and hope it was enough.

You may recall that one of the criteria for my quilts this year was to include some fabric that I have gelli printed.  Well, I got so carried away with creating the quilt that it was only when I had finished that I realised I hadn't used any printed fabric!   The border came to the rescue and I printed some fabric with fabric paint using my own foam shape blocks on the gelli plate.

Seahorse Embroidered on Denim

Another embroidery has appeared on my denim jacket - this time a seahorse.

I decided to add some sea-theme motifs as I love the seaside so much and last year I did some embroideries of shells and a seahorse so they became my next project on the jacket. The seahorse is finished and hopefully the shells will be finished in the next few days.

The stitches I used include French knots, couching, satin, herringbone, fly, chain, split and stem with feather stitches for the seaweed.

Summer Hoop

Continuing on my plan to have a seasonal display on our mantelpiece, I created a hoop ready for Summer.

There was really no great planning to this as my first thought was to have beach huts as we spend so much time on one beach or another, particularly in Summer, and beach huts appear on all of them. It's only when you are designing within a hoop that you realise how little space there is so I did plan a bit so I got the size right.  I wanted three huts and it was a bit of a squeeze but I think they look okay.   Like the Spring hoop, I couched the same border of thread not that they will ever be displayed together, but my OCD mind required this!

The beach of sand and shingle is hand embroidered in French knots and close fly stitch with a few straight stitches between huts and beach.  The fabric for the huts was bonded and then hand stitched with back stitch and running stitch.

It just happened that week before I learnt a new stitch on my Sew4thesoul project - Eskimo lace stitch.  It starts with a running stitch and then a loop is added from below through the straight stitches - not a good explanation but there is plenty of info on the net if you want to know more.  I experimented with various colour combinations and then tried stitching it in a circle.  It worked so well I used it for the sun, adding a spiral of split stitch to fill the centre.

The pieces of shell were stitched on but I had to cheat with the shell which was glued on!

The hoop is in its place wait for other creative bits to be added.