BLOG 463

Blog 463

And didn’t it rain?!! Rain is always good for me as it means I can’t get out in the garden. It’s that time of year when I am supposed to be cutting back all the shrubs, knowing that whatever I do this end of the year will benefit the garden in the spring! There is still a lot of colour in the garden and plenty of leaves on the trees so I don’t want to be too premature in my savagery of the borders!

 

There is just the re-vamping of my design wall left to do before my playroom is totally finished, but when the polystyrene sheets arrive next week, I should be up and running. I can’t wait to see what creative ideas surface!

In the meantime, I have been content to do some more labels for my collection; these are small enough to start and finish in no time at all. The first is a left over motif from Tessa’s quilt that I made (a patch for each day of her breast cancer experience). This is followed by a little cross stitch design made by my sister Gwyneth for a greetings card. I always felt it was too good to send so I kept it and now it has found its place in my collection.

           Tessa’s patch

 

          Gwyn’s cross stitch

 

 

 

When I went to art classes, so many years ago, one teacher included many different techniques during the course. I came across some silk painting that I tried, not very successfully it has to be said, and I selected a small portion for another label.

          Silk painting

 

 

The final label is a technique that I was shown with ribbon and decorative machine stitches. Once sewn, the ribbon is stitched by hand at intervals to produce a textural surface. (I don’t want to do this again as I didn’t enjoy it!) The labels are waiting for the edges to be satin stitched.

 

             Ribbon and stitch

 

 

 

         Textured surface

 

PROJECT: Christmas Candle wall hanging Part 1

 

The pattern is taken from a Christmas book by That Patchwork Place and I am doing it as a project with my local craft group. This will be another of my Xmas gifts this year. I have outlined this method before so here it is in a nutshell.

*Trace the pattern onto the WS of the foundation fabric (calico).

*Start anywhere on the design and apply the fabrics RS up onto the RS (unmarked) of the foundation as follows:-

Place each fabric in turn RS up on the unmarked side. Pin in place and sew (by hand or by machine) along the marked lines ALL ROUND the shape where this fabric will stay. Trim away any excess fabric on the outside of the stitched line on the RS.

*Build up the design in this way to cover all of the foundation fabric.

              Pattern

 

               Pattern onto fabric

 

            Placed

 

 

            Pinned

 

 

             Sewn WS

 

 

           Sewn RS

 

 

 

              Trimmed

 

             Corners

 

              Flame 1?

 

            Flame 2?

 

 

              Work in progress