Stumpwork

I have been having fun with a bit of blossom, not from a photo, but I think I got some of the colours right. I remember the streets where I grew up, were planted with Almond Trees and as the blossom fell we walked ankle deep in flowers.

I spent ages thinking about how to do the stamens and ended, up making them by dipping perle cotton, no 8, in dilute fabric glue several times, then when dry, mixing orange fabric dye to glue and again dipping to get pollen.

I have also started a new quilt for across the end of our super king size bed, it is an oatmeal colour with a linen weave look base I got in the USA (although it is from Japan!) I've bondawebbed hand cut leaves, now half way through blanket stitching them, then I will back and bind it with the lighter blue/grey batik, the colours perfectly match our bedroom curtains, hopefully it will take away the stark white of so much white duvet cover!

Lots of embroidery

I've been enjoying doing a bit more embroidery lately, finished the needle painted Squirrel, which I am pleased with.

The project before that was a pattern taken from an Inspirations Magazine, but using stranded cotton instead of the recommended threads and doing my own thing with some stitches and colours.

Today I finished a stumpwork Blossom, had fun making the stamens using watered down fabric glue to stiffen white threads and added orange dye to the glue to dip the ends to create pollen. I will ung it in a box frame soon.

Recently finished another 4 triangles, smaller this time for our embroiders guild joint project which will go first to Melton Mowbray Carnegie Hall Exhibition, I also entered an individual piece, that I have on my Home page.

Quilts

I have nearly finished another small quilt for the Linus Project, I had tried a bit of Bargello a while ago with the "jelly roll sewn into a long tube, then cut into different width strips, unpicked a block up at a time and sewn back together" method - I  hope that made sense? So, I wanted to do something with the sample, found some fabric for sashing and binding and knocked it up yesterday.

Something to take to stitch Group and hand sew the binding tomorrow. I finished the latest flower embroidery and need to find something else - I am months ahead with the pieces for the travelling books, so I am itching to do something for myself........ a little photo of a red squirrel is calling me, maybe I should give in and have a go!!!!

I titled this quilts as I also had 4 blocks put together in "Floating Stars" using an EZ template, in some awfully bright Kaffe Fasset fabric my daughter gave me, and some bright orange sheeting, so yesterday I also made up another 8 blocks, and put it together with sashing round, the binding is going to be all the bits left over joined in random lengths. Really not my kind of thing, but it is bright and breezy, so hopefully suitable for Linus! And a good bit of stash busting!!!

Well off to find something to embroider a squirrel on - maybe a nice bit of linen and dyed with walnut or onion, courtesy of Jackie and last summers natural dyeing session!

2016 - lots to do.

I am still doing a few bits of playing with rust dyeing, then embroidering them a bit for the travelling books. Currently about 4 months in front.

Did a nice embroidery on linen, with bullion knots, feather stitch and french knots, it came out well, not sure what to do with it, but have mounted it. I have also knocked up a scarf  from fabric a friend gave me for Xmas, with a multi colour wool curled onto it and sewn in place.

I posted a photo of a french knot blossom tree on the Textile Arts group on Face book and got 491 likes - so that was nice - we do these things because we like to embroider and have "something on the go" so to have fellow embroiderers approve of your work is a lovely boost!

Talking of having something on the go, I have just started another flower, leaf, ribbon bouquet embroidery on old linen, so far I have done the bigger leaves in a long and short shading, using stranded cottons. The pattern is scaled down from an old copy of Inspirations magazine, but I will change the threads, stitches and colours and as usual do my own thing!

Christmas

Finally having a break from all the festivities, and realised that although I made lots of presents, I did not take many photo's before wrapping them up! I did a hardanger piece for my daughters future mum-in-law, plus 2 hardanger xmas decs, 3 heart shaped woven ribbon hanging lavender bags, a embroidered Christmas tree picture, some bunting, 2 Alice in wonderland tree decs, a pom-pom wreath, several appliquéd cotton shopping bags, and a dressed rabbit, made of felt (kit from http://www.coolcrafting.co.uk/ called Luna Lapin) complete with dress and coat, which was all top stitched with tiny button and button holes!!!!

This was taken before I made the coat.

I probably made a few more things too - sort of lost count!!! Still now I can settle down and get on with a few more projects.

I have a child's quilt to quilt, for the Linus project (http://projectlinusuk.org.uk/) a member of my little quilting group started it, for a grandchild, but gave me a load of blocks and fabric and said she hated it and could not work on it any more! So I trimmed the blocks and put it together with some sashing,

 made up the binding and hoped she would want to finish it. She didn't and thought Linus would be a good idea - I might even use it to practice a bit of free motion!!!

My current project is some embroidery for a joint Embroiderers Guild competition, just finished them.

 I have enjoyed the small bits of hardanger I've done lately, these are 2 recent embroideries.

End of November

How is it nearly December? This year seems to be rushing to the end so fast!

I went to Manchester on Friday night, driven by my daughter on a very cold and snowy night over the moors, where we had a very nice Thai meal and then stayed in a Premier Inn so as to get to the Kristy Allsop Christmas Craft Show in the centre of Manchester nice and early on Saturday. It was a nice small venue compared to the places like the NEC, and had some interesting stands where I managed to get a couple of presents. I treated myself to some new hardanger scissors, but I did avoid buying any more fabric, as I currently have the fabric laid out for a least 5 quilts on my craft room table, all ready to start, and drawers full of my stash too!!! 

I have been doing various little bits of hand sewing and have cut out a White Christmas Luna Lapin Rabbit from a  http://www.coolcrafting.co.uk  kit (from Manchester Show) that will be a present for my daughter. The kit comes with a dress and lovely red winter coat which will be much more difficult to sew than the rabbit!

I have nearly finished a berry and leaves freehand embroidery on hand dyed linen - not sure what I will do next - I need some hand sewing to take to the embroiderers guild next week, I suppose the rabbit will do, if I do not find something else!!!!

Various crafty things

Been a funny few weeks craft wise, working on a Hawaiian quilted bag and a few bits of hardanger as Xmas decorations.

Completed some bits for travelling books for Embroiderers guild. Also took a hardanger angel I did a few years ago to the guild to go on the groups tree in a Xmas tree festival.

Had a go at a felted and embroidered polystyrene ball, did a peacock feather embroidery and finished a large layer cake quilt with machine quilting,