Hello Again!

I'm rather embarrassed about the length of time since my last post.  Started off with the excuse that we moved to Dorset but that was now over three months ago so I'll just move on.......

We have settled well in our new house and as it was brand new, we were able to move in without any further work.   We have had the garden to do so that has taken some time recently but as it is quite small, I can't use that as an excuse.   I got my workroom sorted quickly too and the best thing is I have my own room so no more having to clear away when the grandchildren come to stay.

It's not massive but I managed to get all my things in and with less space, I have to keep it tidy. So far, so good!

My only regret is that my large Perspex table that I used with my Bernina is too big for the desk so at the moment I have had to resort to the small extension table that came with the machine.  I have seen that Cotton Patch do a similar one (a lot cheaper than the Bernina one!) but I am having trouble deciding which size to get.

I have been busy with a few projects......

... the first one was a quilt for a friend's new baby boy.   We are caravan neighbours so I went for a seaside theme.   Baby Paul has now arrived and Mum and Dad loved the quilt.

 

 

I have also decided to have another go at selling online, this time giving Etsy a go.  I will start with some of the items I already have ready and will also include some of my framed textile art.  I've also planned to make some mounted arrangements of inchies, something I have done in the past as part of my themes on rust and maps.   For these new ones I am going to have colour themes but choose colours that can relate to occasions and anniversaries.  So far I've done purple (just because I like it!), red (Ruby Anniversary) and white/silver (Weddings and Silver Anniversary); will go on to gold next.

 

For each set I started by creating a felt base on my Embellisher, incorporating various fabrics and fibres including organza, scrim, netting and silk.  I then added beads, buttons, sequins, ribbon, lace or hand stitches before finishing the edge with buttonhole stitch.

 

 

 

I have also done some work in my sketchbook, but not as much as I wanted to.    The first two pages are based on some of the many photos I have taken of beach huts we've seen since we moved.  I've included photos, some gelli plate printed deli paper, some stitched applique and some hand stitching.   I found the colours particularly inspired these pages.

 

 

 

The second page uses car park tickets as the background which I printed with the gelli plate, adding some cut lettering to finish.

 



 



 

Hopefully there won't be a long wait until my next post.

 

 



New work - Exhibition booked!

The first piece in my Rust series is finished! The hanging is strips of fabric which I dyed by wrapping around various rusted objects. An earlier post mentioned the problems I'd had with breaking needles as I tried to free machine quilt the piece. Most of the quilting was done without the feed down which meant it took much longer to quilt than I anticipated. I also planned the piece as a triptych but thankfully there was not enough fabric to go into three pieces! The pieces of rusted metal were cut from a strip of twisted metal that I found on Selsey beach which had been one of the metal pieces I used to rust the fabric. So glad to get one piece completely finished!

Another piece that is finished but still waits to be mounted when I've decided how to to do it. I find this the most difficult part - deciding how to present the finished work.

I rekindled my love of canvas work by felting some fibres around piece of canvas I had painted with some bronze fabric paint. I loved the stitching so much I might just have to do some more canvas work.

These last two pieces are experiments / work in progress .......

The first one was knitted using some yarn that I had needle felted different organza, sheers and chiffon to. It's quite thick so I don't think I will work into it any more so may well just make in into a bag.

The final piece was a piece of felt into which I cut slits and wove through silk, chiffon and scrim and then needle felted together. I think I will stitch it with running stitch - kantha style. I seem to be seeing Kantha work all over the place and it has taken my imagination. Will definitely have to do some.

And so to news of my forthcoming exhibition.

As I mentioned back in July, my friend Jo and I made some enquiries about a venue for an exhibition that we would like to hold next year. I had a call last week and it's booked!!! We're both excited, scared and slightly panic-struck all at the same time!! We've been meeting regularly each month over the last few months and the time we spend together is very rewarding and enriching for us both. It's so good to have a friend who can be supportive but push you creatively too.

The exhibition is at The Hawth theatre in Crawley, West Sussex from 21st November to 3rd December 2011. It might sound like a long way away but I have a feeling it will come round very quickly.

First "rust" creation complete!

A productive few days away have resulted in the first of my "rust" series.

This piece was inspired by the colours and texture of the sea wall at Pagham shown in the last post. The construction was based on some work of Jane LaFazio's shown in the last issue of Quilting Arts. I laid down some layers of wool fleece, sari silk and silk wste which I roughly needlefelted into a felt background. Then some scrim and organza was placed on top and needlefelted again before finally I needlefelted some lines of wool yarn to reflect the lines of the layers on the rusted piece and act as a guide for the hand stitching.

I then spent several glorious days hand stitching to add the texture I wanted.

I am ashamed!

Ashamed that it is over a month since my last post!

I could give a long list of reasons why I haven't posted, but instead I will be positive and post a few photos of a few things I have done.

I'm slowly getting on with the Embellish Stitch Enrich course, having reached Lesson 5. This has been a "heat it and see" lesson, mainly using kunin felt which is suppose to melt when heated. i say "supposed" as I had varying results. The black felt melted without any problem but the mauve colour scorched rather than melt.

This first one worked a treat. it was just swirls of wool fibred placed in a spiral and felted to the kunin felt. I then felted various yarns before applying the heat gun from the back.

With this second one I added some chiffon to the top. The felt would not melt and as you might be able to see from the detail, it scorched.

In this final one I had Tissutex on top of a felt layer with various things - silk rods, foil, fibres, threads - on top

Felting catch-up

I've managed to find some time over the last few weeks to spend on the embellishing machine. These are the samples (with details) from Lesson 4 of Embellish Stitch Enrich. There are a few more to do from this lesson and then it's on to Lesson 5.

For this first one I knitted up a plain piece using a varigated wool and then cut it up and felted it to a piece of felt. Hand stitches and buttons finished it off.



The second piece also has knitting on it but this time I left the squares intact and felted them, again to a piece of felt. The smaller pieces in the centre of each knitted square are pieces of left overs from previous samples. More of the same yarn that I used for the knitting was felted around the squares.



For the final sample I first felted some small pieces of organza and silk between felt and a piece of black lace. I then cut up the piece into squares, machined around the edges with metallic thread and felted them on to a foiled piece of felt. Stitches and beads were added to finish.



As with previous samples, I have also made a small square sample using similar techniques. The first three are all similar to the above samples.

For this last one I first knitted a very textured yarn which I felted. However, it came out much thicker than I thought it would as I had planned to use it for making some flower brooches. Having cut out a flower I'm not sure whether or not I will carry on with the plan. However, the bits left from the cutting out were used for this square which I felted to the felt background under some organza. Yet again I couldn't resist adding the buttons to finish!

Needlefelt samples

In this first sample I felted various fibres to a piece of felt that I had foiled and then felted organza over it. The whole piece was then cut into strips and woven together.

In this piece I felted some dyed scrim on to felt, cut it into strips and then wove it together. I want to add some hand stitching but haven't quite got the right colour thread so this will have to wait until a trip to the shops.

In this piece I felted various yarns into felt and again cut it into strips and wove it together. I found I prefered the back side of the piece as it was more muted in colour. I feel I need to do something more to this but at the moment I can't quite decide what it is. I've decdied to leave it and see if inspiration comes to me. If anyone out there has an suggestions, feel free to share them with me.

The final ones in lesson 3 use sari silk which I felted to a felt background. The whole thing was then bonded to a piece of Bondaweb on which I then cut into squares cut on the cross. The tiny pieces were then assembled onto another piece of felt and bonded to the background. I stitched down each join with a cotton perle thread using fly stitch.

Before cutting

After cutting and assembling

Detail

One of my 4" samples

This final piece was the challenge from Lesson 2 which was to interpret a photo of the Kimberleys in north-west Australia. For this I felted small pieces of felt, fibres and fabrics to a felt background which I had foiled first. Again a put organza over the top and felted it. The lines of dyed yarn were couched on with a copper thread and to finish I added some beads. The final photo shows a detail.

Don't forget the ideas for these experiements come from the EmbellishStitchEnrich course I'm doing with Dale Rollerson - her ideas, my interpretation.

Birthday postcards

Had to take a break from the EmbellishStitchEnrich work this weekend as i had to get some Postcards made for some upcoming birthdays. I suppose it wasn't much of a break as I embellished sari silk for the background and added hand stitching and buttons to finish.