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

 

 

 

 

 

BLOG 462

Blog 462

 

And finally, the Serviette Box is finished! This is going to make a lovely gift for a friend, especially with the robin serviettes that I have chosen to go inside.

 

 

              Serviette box

 

 

            Serviettes

 

And another ‘and finally’, my playroom is up and functioning, hurrah! This is such a comfort to me as I am at my most prolific at this time of year. I have yet to get started mind you but I have no excuse not to now! I also have a beast of a heater now and will not need to wear a coat when I go in there during the winter months!!

      

           Playroom 1

 

 

              Playroom 2

 

At our fortnightly get-togethers at Suzettes, my project has been to sew flowers onto a dissolving medium. As I have quite a collection now I thought it was about time that I did something with them. I dissolved away the medium with hot water and here are the results. This time they are drying on a plastic cutting board and NOT on a paper towel like last time because the paper stuck to the flower and took ages to remove! I left them to dry in the sun on a window sill. I am very pleased with them so far and will probably make another bell-pull type wall strip to hang on the wall when the others are finished. I particularly like the way the shear fabrics add a blush of colour beyond the edges of the thread work.

             Dissolved

 

 

          Drying

 

 

           Foxglove

 

 

              Sunflower

 

              Echinacea

 

 

 

            Nasturtium

 

 

                                                                                                    

           Hyacinth

 

            Potential setting

 

 

 

 

BLOG 461

Blog 461

 

I have put in a lot of work in my studio but, as you can see from the pics below, we are not there yet! I have filled bag after bag of ‘stuff’ and I gave them to my husband to burn immediately. If there had been any delay, I was afraid that I would want to go through the bags again and reclaim some’ stuff’!! I had hoarded about 10 years of course material from art classes which I have rarely looked at, so out went the portfolios without a backward glance. I had hoarded teaching files, workshop hand-outs, multiple patterns and pictures; all have gone now apart from some favourites that I couldn’t release. I feel cleansed! The final push will be to sort through my archive material and find some way of filing it for posterity!!! This I will do when I sit in front of the fire of an evening.

 

            Studio view 1

 

 

                  

              Studio view 2

 

SERVIETTE BOX continued

 

Here is the sequence for a simple decorative design for the top of the serviette box. I glued the pre-cut square of wadding to the top of the box. I then cut out a piece of the lining fabric (1” larger all round than the top of the box) to work on.

 

              Box top

 

 

I looked at the motifs on the outer fabric to decide what was worth cutting out and I ironed Bondaweb onto the back of a strip. (NB I have a box of fusible bit and so I used these smaller off-cuts to cover the WS of the fabric, over-lapping where necessary. Over-lapping still works the same because whatever touches the fusible sticks to it) I cut out motifs which I thought would work on the red background.

 

           Fabric

 

 

           Fusible bits

 

 

 

             Fused fabric

 

 

             Motif 1

 

 

              Motif 2

 

 

           Design pieces

 

 

            Wreath

 

 

 

              Extras

 

I drew round the top of the box with a pencil to give me a guide line for size and I played with the cut outs until I was happy with the design. Once I had removed the backing paper, I was able to iron the motifs in place. After adding another square of wadding behind the red fabric for ‘body’, I used a wandering leaf quilting design to cover the edges of the motifs to prevent fraying, making sure that I didn’t go beyond the marked line. I trimmed away the excess wadding to the size of the top by folding back the red fabric. I stuck it in place with spray glue. Follow the process outlined for the lid of the coaster box to complete the box. Another Xmas gift completed, just requiring the selection of appropriate serviettes to go inside.  

               

           Thread work

 

 

            Trim wadding

 

 

               Attach to the lid

 

 

           Sew the strip

 

BLOG 460

Blog 460

My wonderful daughters have just cycled from London to Paris in 3 days as part of the Women against Cancer campaign. Many people have taken part from club cyclists, to regular cyclists, to those who have trained up for the event. Along the way there have been trials and tantrums and tears but they have done it! As a group they have raised £23,000+ and I am bursting with pride for them; what an achievement! This is especially poignant for us and remarkable for Tess as it was exactly 2 years ago that she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

           Tam and Tess

 

 

 

            Tess

 

These are the trophies that I won at Harrogate for my quilts. I wasn’t able to attend the presentation on Sunday myself, having already been at the show on the Friday, but one of my friends collected them on my behalf.

 

 

                Trophies

 

PROJECT

Here is the first part of the instructions for the serviette box, another Xmas idea for you following on from the coaster box. The procedure is the just the same as for the coaster box which was featured in Blogs 457 and 458; it’s just on a larger scale. With this box I am going to pad the inside of the base and base sides too and I intend to make a decorative top.

Here is one I made earlier, in true Blue Peter style! The sides on this box are deeper at 3” and 3 packets of serviettes will fit in it. Although it is really faded now, it is a sentimental piece as my mother did the beautiful crossed stitched butterfly on the lid.

             Serviette box

 

 

THE SERVIETTE BOX

Cardboard Requirements: Cut the following accurately from strong card

Base: 7” x 7”

4 Base sides: 7” x 2”

Top: 7 3/8” x 7 3/8”

4 Top sides: 7 3/8” x 1”

                Cardboard

 

Other requirements: fat ¼ metre of lining fabric and ½ metre of outer fabric, a small amount of wadding, Pritt stick, masking tape and threads to match the fabrics.

            Fabric

 

 

Cut out wadding to fit the base of the box and the 4 base sides. Also cut out 2 pieces of wadding to fit the lid but not the lid sides.

 

 

 

        Wadding

 

 

Cover all the pieces of card with the lining fabric as detailed in Blog 457, placing the wadded sides onto the fabric.

 

 

          Lining

 

 

         Sticking

 

Construct the top and bottom of the box in the same way as the coaster box. Part 2 next week.

            Construction