Needlefelt pincushion

I sent off a pincushion for the swap on the Yahoo UK Embellisher Group and this went to Jean in Devon, known as Genie. I was given some blue roving which I needlefelted into one large piece and cut out the shapes. On the long piece that forms the side of the pincushion I needled some organza ribbon as I like the effect of organza being scrunched into felt. After some hand embroidery I added a couple of circles of yellow felt and added a rainbow button.

This design was loosely based on the pretty little pincushions on Big Jen's Flickr site (she also has a blog link from this, though I have to admit this pincushion didn't seem little, but I was quite pleased with it.

I've now taken a pic of my painted postcard from my last posting on it's own. I've now added this to the "try something new"challenge on the Arts in the Mail Yahoo group, for August. This should be winging its way somewhere soon. I think this looks very pretty in spite of not having much embellishment on it. I know now what to do with my stitching samples as it turned out very well.

Another bag done!

Here's my August bag made for the BQL Bag Challenge (link to the Challenge blog on the sidebar). I've just finished it this morning having cut out the pieces earlier this month. I didn't have any heavyweight Vilene so having bought that on Saturday I set to on getting it done.

It's a clutch bag with a band (in the check fabric that wraps around and goes through the tab on the front. Although it looks turquoise its actually blue and olive/gold shot lame fabric. The lining is in the olive/gold lame. I bought the fabric some time ago and looks just right for an evening bag. Just need somewhere posh to take it!

Playing around

Recently I've been playing around with a few things just to see how they work. The first pic is of rust dyeing. When I was at the Festival of Quilts I met up with a few people from the BQL Yahoo Group. Sandy Snowden's stall was the meeting place where she showed examples of her rust dyeing and gave some instructions. Someone else mentioned that they used salt water to soak the fabric and sprinkled wire wool onto the damp fabric. Hmm.. I have salt in the cupboard and some wire wool too, let's try it. The damp fabric was placed overnight in a plastic bag with the wire wool and was washed out the next day. I'm quite impressed with the little speckly bits on the fabric so I might do this again sometime.

Another thing that I have tried is painting on a quilted piece. Other quilt artists have used this but I've never tried it. I have this piece of "quilt sandwich" on which I did some free machine practice for one of the bags that I've made (2nd pic), so cut to just bigger than post card size (3rd pic).

I've painted with white acrylic paint as a sort of primer, then mixed purple with the white and painted over that. I had some Stewart Gill bronze metallic paint which I dabbed over the whole thing with kitchen towel

The result is in the 4th pic on the top right of the photo (should have taken one on it's own really) when I'd finished paining and sandwiching together for a postcard.

The other postcards in the 4th pic are finished off UFO's that were hanging around. The one on the top left is wavy quilted using variegated threads on fabric paint dyed fabric. On the bottom left are oak leaf prints with a layer of Bondawebbed organza on top with hand stitching. The bottom right is a fabric woven card with Chevron stitches.

The last photo, which is a bit on the fuzzy side is some mulberry bark which I've glued onto calico then painted with some acrylic paint (that's on the left). After painting the surface of the plastic was quite wet so I took another piece of calico to soak up the wet paint. Not quite sure what to do with these two pieces. I'm sure the paint soaked calico will find its way to becoming a postcard back.

Seems to have been quiet on the blogging front from me. I'm still sorting through loads of stuff (where did it all come from?) so I'll have a little less to take with me when we move.

ON THE MOVE!

This is the chaos that is my sewing bench - which is on one side of one of the bedrooms, the other side has the computer and its paraphernalia. The reason for such a mess is that we are on the move.

DH was made redundant from his job this month after having a month of being "under threat of redundancy" we both knew what the outcome would be.

He has found another job which he'll be starting in October, which is good, however the down
side is we'll have to move....to Sheffield. After over 20 years of being in Poole, it is a very big move for us. But of course we must go where the work is.

The plan is he'll go up there, find somewhere to live and I'll follow later probably at the end of October, beginning of November. We'll rent a house and let our own house out down here in Poole.

So started the weekend with a clear out of one wardrobe, then another and there is soooo much stuff that the bedroom looks the mess that it is, these pics were taken last night but it was so much worse on Sunday afternoon!! It is amazing how much stuff accumulates - and it's not the end!

I hadn't got around to posting the latest postcards that I made at the end of July. Hot on the heels of the July bag I finished off the butterfly postcards that were due to be swapped on the BQL Postcard group. My postcards were made with butterfly fabric background with organza on top. Cut out butterflies were bondawebbed on top with another layer of organza and free machining to hold together. So far have had 3 postcards in return the picture below. I always find it amazing that one theme can produce such different results.