Maple leaves book page

More maple leaves. This is my page in a collaborative hanging book, where each player was given a colour of the rainbow. We had an extra player, so we needed an extra colour, I added crimson to the rainbow :-)

As I'd drawn a maple leaf shape to use to draw around for my textured acrylic panel, I thought I'd use it again. I layered up some autumnal colours of organza with snippets of organza between the layers, then used my special Margaret Beal soldering iron to trace around the maple leaves. As I had spare layered organza left, I created more shapes to finish the bottom of the page off.

I painted a piece of canvas with quinacridone crimson fluid acrylic paint, then I sewed the maple leaves on using variegated threads. I finished the piece by adding dots of iridescent gold fluid acrylic, using the end of a a bamboo skewer.

I have everybody else's pages now, they were all gorgeous - I really must get around to binding them into the hanging book, and put them all on display.

Heart felt

Shh, don't want to frighten her off by saying it too loudly, but I think my mojo has returned from her holidays...

Here is a wall hanging, made for a swap on the theme of 'heart-felt' - it had to include a heart made from felt. This is all needlefelted, some by hand, most by embellisher machine, with a little hand beading to finish it off.

Firstly, I embellished two layers of organza together, all over but just enough to hold them together.  One layer was a light shimmery blue, the other was a bluey green shot with a yellowy greeny gold.

I'm not sure you can see the difference in colour, but this picture has the blue side uppermost:

 This picture has the bluey green side uppermost. I like this side better, so this is the top.

I used two colours of merino wool rovings, this colour matches the background colour. I spread it out on my base, and embellished it in.

The colour of the other roving is a much brighter turquoisey blue. I am blending more of the blue into the green with each layer.

Added some more blended rovings.

I decided I had enough general texture, and needed something to take my eye around the piece.  I twisted some of the blue rovings together and embellished them onto the piece in a curvy line.

I added some silk tops to bring in some more colour and a shiny texture.  These are hand dyed by Oliver Twists. I love their stuff. It's probably a good thing they don't have a website, because I *only* spend about £50 a year on their goodies at shows.  If they had a website, I'm sure it would run into hundreds....

You might have noticed that the theme of this piece is 'heartfelt' and there's no heart?  I have not yet mastered the embellishing machine to a high enough level to create shapes, so I got the hand needle felting equipment out. I laid a thin layer of red rovings vertically, another horizontally, and the top layer was vertical again. I put a heart shaped cutter on top, and needled the layers together. It's quite therapeutic, you can relieve tension by imagining you're stabbing voodoo dolls while you're being creative!

I wasn't intending to finish the heart by hand, just to needle it enough so that I could lift it off the brush in one piece. I used a dull red, a brighter red, and then added some more silk rovings down the centre  for a bit of shine and a different texture.

Next, I embellished it onto the background, layering some gold 'angelina' I bought about 10 years ago, when I didn't realise you could buy angelina that didn't fuse together. I knew it would come in handy one day! It just adds  little subtle glitz.

 Just a bit more glitz needed, so I put the piece in an embroidery frame and beaded around the heart, and also onto the curvy line. 

All it needed to finish was to be mounted on gold mirror card, with a mountboard backing for stability. I added a little fine brass wire hanging loop, and put it into the jiffy bag to mail before I could change my mind and keep it....

Hope my partner likes it.

Another great Celyn Textiles class

I have really enjoyed myself yesterday evening and all day today, learning how to dye fabric, transfer designs onto fabric panels, use perle thread in the bottom of my sewing machine, and sew organza onto wood.  And one day I may even finish my wall hanging!

The class, taught by Sheila, was called 'Twisted', and this is the sample Sheila brought to show us.  The corduroy fabric used for the base, and the scrim embellished to it were hand dyed using procion dyes.

We soaked our fabrics in a mixture of water, baking soda and ash, wrung them dry, then squirted the fabric with various colours of dye (made from procion dye powder mixed with urea).  The fabrics dried overnight, and then we started working on them.  The image below is the back of my panel, and I drew the design for my panel on the back with an ordinary rollerball pen.  I forgot that the design would come out like a mirror image on the front, I wish I'd remembered to reverse it when I drew it!

We then cut the dyed gauze/scrim into pieces, made holes in it, distorted it and generally made it shabby before using the embellishing machine to adhere it to the corduroy.

Once the scrim was in place, we 'drew' our designs with machine stitching.

The next step will be to fill in all the motifs with machine embroidery, but I had forgotten to take my free motion embroidery foot with me so I had to skip that step!

Sheila had the fantastic idea of using florist 'canes' (balsa wood?) as a 'frame' for leaves and shapes made from organza.  

I had a great time in the class, and hope to finish this panel - I'll post a pic when I do.  Meanwhile, the other class members were generous enough to let me take pictures of their half finished pieces to share here, so you can see the variety of pieces which will spring from this class. Don't forget that you can enlarge an image by clicking on it.

Lovely birdie, beautiful colours....

Fabulous colour contrast...

Autumnal rusty shades and beautifully embroidered flowers....

A fishy business...

Variegated threads....

And fabulous free motion work with gold thread.....

Great class with a great bunch of women - and I'm looking forward to the next class in January!

Embellisher machine experiements

About 3 years ago, a friend sent me an email to tell me there was an embellisher machine on EBay at £68 with no bids.  It was collect only, and only about 8 miles away from my office.  So I put the one and only bid  in and won the machine.  

Since buying the machine I have dabbled several times, and have made some lovely scarfettes using silk rovings embellished onto chiffon scarves, as well as a few ATCs and postcards.  But, I know I have never really explored the potential of the embellisher properly, so when I saw that Celyn Textiles was offering a reasonably priced day course near my new home, I signed up.  We explored lots of techniques, and I came home with more than a dozen samples.  

Here are some of the samples I made.

Embellished organza.  

Fancy yarn embellished onto felt.

Moving away from just fibres and fabric, you can incorporate paper into embellished pieces.  Sheila, our teacher, had a lovely piece where she had laid handmade mulberry paper onto felt, and then layered scrim, lace, fabrics and fibres on top before hand embroidering.  It was lovely, and the paper showed through holes in the scrim.

The piece below is embellished brown paper and organza.

To finish this piece off, you could machine embroider over the top, and zig zag round the edges - it would make a lovely book cover.

The next sample is a base for hand embroidery. Embellish scrim and wool rovings onto a velvet base. One day, I will add more rovings to front and back, and add hand stitching.  The colours of this piece are much nicer than my computer screen shows, and I think it will make a great wall hanging.

One simple technique is to just embellish organza onto fabric, then weave the fabric and embellish it together.  I've used two colours so that you can see clearly how it works. You could get a lot more creative in the ways you combined the fabrics than plain weaving - you could explore 'log cabin' patchwork style assembly, or plaiting, twisting, slashing and threading through.

A really simple idea, which gives a really sophisticated finish, is to embellish denim.  Velvet looks nice from the back, too - all the little bits poked through give a lovely texture.

 If you get chance to take a class with Sheila, it's well worth it - and she provides endless tea, coffee and cake into the bargain.  One of today's class had come all the way from Oxfordshire - her husband had driven and he went walking in the Black Mountains for the day whole she played with her Embellisher - which resulted in two happy tired people by the end of the day!

Alphabetica M, N, O postcards

M is for multicoloured.  I punched little flowers from lots of odd bits of handmade backgrounds.  In my mind's eye this was much prettier LOL.  Think I should probably have started with a circle and worked out.

M for mosaic - stamped on a handmade background, using a bit of fun foam stuck on the end of a chopstick!

N for nautical - a Queen Anne's Dresser sailor stamp, with some seashells and texture.

N for nature - this one came out better than I'd hoped - a Distress Ink background, stencilled with modelling paste.  Stencil by Crafters Workshop, coloured with Brilliance inks, Adirondack inks, and a little Treasure Gold here and there.

O for organza.  Pelmet vilene base, sprayed with colourwashes, then layered with organza scraps and hand stitched.  A little label - moulding paste spread onto cardstock, scratched into, and painted with fluid acrylics once dry - and a few sequins & beads.

O for organza - layered organza, scored with a soldering iron, beaded and hand stitched, a la Margaret Beal.

Inspired by Angie Hughes

I've had a bit of a play with my sewing machine.

I've been on a couple of day courses with Angie Hughes, and her work has inspired me whilst making a mobile phone case for Wendy, and a Kindle case for Annie.

This silk lined mobile phone case is red velvet, with layered appliqued green and orange silk squares, covered with a red/orange shot organza.

I hand embroidered the details on the silk squares, then used the sewing machine to sew around the silk squares, and 'free motion' embroider the rest of the case.

I completely forgot about using stabiliser when machine embroidering, so the velvet all scrunched up - this gave a nice texture, but meant I only just had enough fabric for the phonecase (whereas I started with a generous amount and expected to have to trim!). It also means the finished phone case is a bit 'squiffy' (sorry, Wendy, not as good as I'd hoped!).

This sewing stuff is big learning curve for me...

The silk lined Kindle case was made using similar techniques but I remembered the stabiliser (I used pelmet vilene), so has a much smoother finish, and the background free motion embroidery is granite stitch.

Hanging ATCs

I had a moment of inspiration and made these ATCs, incorporated into a hanging device.



The ATCs were made using an embellisher machine and silk rovings embellished onto felt. I then cut some circles and leaf shapes out of silk fabric and embellished them onto the backgrounds. I added simple hand embroidery stitches - just fly stitch, backstitch and french knots - to add texture to the silk 'flower's and' leaves'.


I used some of the silk rovings to make 2 felt strips to hang the ATCs, and then embellished organza circles onto a piece of organza to add texture and tie in with the embellished circles on the ATCs. I embellished the ATCs onto the organza hanging background.

I made some art!

Well, it's been a long time since I posted to this blog. A lot has changed in the last few months, and the desire to create has been channelled into work activities and sorting through my belongings to only keep things I really can't bear to part with, and decorating parts of my house to make it more likely to sell quickly.

This week, my good friend Annie came to stay, and we went to Ledbury for two days with Wendy, and enjoyed ourselves in workshops with Angie Hughes. We learnt to make fabric tag books using printed tissue and fabric run through an inkjet printer - the possibilities are endless... We also learnt how to create print blocks from heat mouldable foam, and used these to print and overprint on fabric with acrylic paints and fabric paints. I will share some of those projects when/if I finish them.

Maybe two days spent relaxing and creating in good company got my muse excited because yesterday I made two sets of ATCs and today I made some more! And I enjoyed it. I have made some art over the last few months to fulfil my swap commitments, but I didn't really enjoy doing it.

This first set of ATCs are made form fabric paper backed with felt, with gold stitching round the edge. The images are from PaperWhimsy, I found some collage sheets I bought years ago when I was cleaning and clearing, and decided to use them. I laid organza over the images and stitched the organza all around the images, trapping them on the ATCs. I added rainbow organza ribbon, overlaid with deep red satin ribbon, and added beads as I sewed the ribbons to the ATCs.


The second set are also made from a fabric paper base, using some Xmas tissue wrapping in the process. I sewed some ribbon left over form Xmas down the side, and added more PaperWhimsy images, frames with Stickles. I sewed a sequin and bead in the corner, and stamped some words onto fabric scaps, before adding them to the ATC using Bondaweb. Annie suggested the words after looking at the faces of the three girls, and most appropriate they are too!


I'm still feeling quite creative, but am off to stay with a friend for a week, so may not get chance to make much.

I'll try not to leave it another 3 months before my next post!

Fabric postcard

I have been on a couple of Angie Hughes courses at Ledbury Artspace recently. The first course was all about working with velvet, transfer foils, organza and stitch. I have a half finished piece from that course, but as I have very little experience of free motion embroidery I wanted to get more before I try and finish it off.

So, I thought I'd make a fabric postcard as a practice piece.

I took some red cotton velvet and masked out some rectangles then ironed bondaweb all over it. I covered it with organza and stitched around the rectangles, then used vermicelli stitch to cover the area around the rectangles, using a variegated thread. I hand sewed little flower sequins and beads into the rectangles. Finally, I backed the piece with pelmet vilene and finished the edges with a zig zag stitch. Frankly, I was surprised at how well it went, because I still don't feel competent with machine embroidery!

Fusing Fabric

I have been fascinated by the concept of fusing fabrics and cutting them with a soldering iron. I bought Margaret Beal's 'Fusing Fabric' book a couple of years ago, and had a little play using a Walnut Hollow hot tool but it was so hot I had no control over where and how fast the organza I was trying to fuse went up in smoke!

I visited Margaret's stand at the NEC in March, and bought her own brand of soldering iron, which has a much longer and finer tip than the hot tool I'd been trying.

So, I took the plunge and had a little play. I laid some acrylic felt on a ceramic tile, laid 3 layers of organza (or two of organza and one of net) on top, then used a metal flower shape to 'cut' around with the soldering tool. It worked beautifully, but I need more practice to work with the layered fabrics to fuse them together without cutting right through!

I sewed my fused flowers onto a bookmark made from pelmet vilene and gauze fabric - both coloured with Adirondack colourwash sprays in Espresso and Butterscotch. I beaded the flower centres with coppery blue 15 delica beads.



I used a slightly different flower shape for the reverse of the bookmark.


This was fun. I am attending a 2 day course with Margaret Beal in Chepstow Castle on 20th & 21st November and look forward to learning more about fusing fabrics and having more control!