A bit of layer, stitch and slash!

Whilst waiting for the bondaweb to dry, I got sidetracked into trying a few ideas based on a library book on machine embroidery techniques and this seemed like a nice one to try:

Layers of muslin, then wadding, a piece of background fabric with several layers or partial layers of assorted sheer fabrics topped with a piece of lace finally a large piece of sheer organza and hand basted together to hold secure.



Sew (dropping feed dogs) over the layers of fabric, stopping from time to time to cut away at layers to reveal patches of the underneath sheers which include netting types before adding more stitching.


The lace piece was a mistake!
I realised it just after I'd started and decided to attempt to cut away at as much of it as I could, initially I thought the project doomed! but after leaving it a couple of days I picked it up and stitched some more.
Its not quite finished but almost at the point at which I'll start to embellish it.
Provided it looks halfway decent I plan to use it to cover my rather dull looking main sketch book for the creative textiles course!

I would do this technique again with a bit more thought and understanding.

Bondaweb beginnings

I based my design on the same image picked up from my little cheapie arty book and blast it! I forgot it transferred back to front didn't I!! never mind ..
(its meant to be a flower, btw, in case are wondering what the blobs ARE ..)

Here is the first, bondaweb painted with aforementioned acrylics and bonded onto some green silk dupion which is the least successful in my opinion which is a pity as I'd hoped the lovely fabric would complement it nicely. I've not embellished it yet.

Here is the 2nd, bonded onto a layer of muslin and hooped with another two layers under for added body you can see I've started to stitch this one with some rather odd looking embroidery stitches picked out of my new embroidery stitch book. It looks (slightly) better in reality and am hopeful that after flinging pile of beads at it will at least look glitzy!! I've done a bit more since taking this photo but it doesn't apparently look any the better than this shot and at least you can see more of the bondaweb!


This was the most successful transfer! onto pelmet vilene which I bought a small piece of at the recent sewing for pleasure show and the insert says it IS particularly suited for both machine stitching and bondaweb transfer! It looks a bit stark at the moment, not sure quite what to do with it other than look at it mind!

More bondaweb experiments

Lets just say I've seen better efforts from my lads when they were pre-schoolers at play group.
However, I have to say I did have a couple of hours of fun this morning messing about with pots of acrylic paints and dabbing about on bondaweb in preparation for my planned project which I'm a/ not sharing yet and b/ not telling yet either!
(the samples are drying on the sunny windowledge, and IF successful, I will be back to screech enthusiastically about how marvellous it all is, if NOT, then we'll just leave it at the photo's below and quietly ignore it ...)


Bertie being his usual helpful self, helps HIMSELF to a drink of my paint-y water and gets his whiskers turned pink!
Interestingly most of my paint eventually turned dark blue, its a good thing I don't have desires to become a dyeing expert, unless, of course, I specialised IN dark blue ..

Lilly, meanwhile, was too busy seeing off an intruder to the garden, I mean to HER garden. Here you can see the two cats carefully positioned so as to not quite see each other and I watched for about 10mins as they studiously ignored each other while managing to make it perfectly clear that the intruder was NOT welome but that said intruder was NOT going to budge either!

In the end I felt sorry for the pair of them and fearing one of them would eventually tire of this standoff and start getting claws out, I opened the door and effected to go and hang out the washing which meant, of course, that the intruder FLED .. followed at a safe distance by Lilly who managed to fluff up her tail to quite impressive proportions and if she'd only manage to do same to her tiny skinny frame she'd have looked quite good. As it was she just looked like a weird sort of crossed with a squirrel cat.


She's now sat IN the patch of grass looking all watchful.
Bertie, in case are wondering, (big-girls-blouse!) was sat curling his massive muscular bulk into small as he could wrapped in the folds of the curtains INSIDE the house. (Great big cat like him, you'd think he'd be out there seeing off the intruders or at least helping his tiny skinny bit of a sister!).

Most of my samples are now dry! I'm going to attempt to do something creative with them now.

(The weather, btw, is GORGEOUS and I've got two lots of washing outside on the line and plan to eat my lunch outside - provided it holds for another hour).

Finished: the blue lap quilt

Finished my pretty blue lap quilt, I used mostly from stash having to buy some 90cm of plain blue for the backing and binding only which makes it a nice project to have made use of some of my stashed fabrics.

I did minimal quilting - just a bit of stitch in the ditch to hold it all down in place as I don't expect this to be used much beyond the cat lying on it!!



As you can see, this is typical of the response I get when presenting someone in the family with a handmade gift! My son is doing his very best here to look as though he's not actually NOTICED me flinging and then artfully arranging said quilt and taking a photo! Mind, he HAS opted to keep it on the foot of his bed "for Bertie" who sleeps there most nights and I must admit I got a much more satisfying response from the cat who stuck his claws in and rolled around for ages before settling down for some fur shedding and a good wash!



We made these little pin cushions for the charity event at work and charged .20p for them, I selected a nice bright red tartan silk and teamed it with a bright yellow felt and stuffed it at home using my good filler! They were very popular and the 13 we made sold very well.



A very quiet bank holiday for us, I didn't sleep terribly well last night and as the weather looked grim and the family mumbled about wanting to watch the NUFC vs. Chelsea game this afternoon, all plans to "go out" were abandoned and I spent the afternoon in my sewing room!

Back to normal tomorrow, work and school for them, day off for me - hurrah! and of course I've got the crochet workshop to attend on Friday!!

Finished my mini blue quilt

well NEARLY finished! what I mean is I've finished bar the actual finishing ie the binding!
Its turned out really quite nice and due to its minature size I plan for this to be a sort of throw it on the end of the bed for the cats to lie on type of quilt!
When I've done the binding, I'll upload a photo of it.
It made good use of my FQ's and was a nice peaceful sewing project and terribly quick and EASY! best of all has released space in my quilty cupboard for MORE fabric!!

Yesterday our no.1.son went out with some of his pals for the day and had a sleepover to enjoy this new game that they are all apparently mad on, we got a telephone call at 9.15am this morning to pick him up which we thought was a bit early! normally they don't surface until the afternoon! turns out he and one other lad had stopped up ALL NIGHT! (the other two fell asleep about 5am!). We let him go to bed and sleep until about 3pm but dh was left with instructions to NOT let him sleep all day and consequently I've come home from work to find one VERY tired and grumpy teenager thudding about the house and lolling all over the place with his lanky legs all over the place!!
(still. I suppose there's worse to come when they disover alcohol and girls!)

Vintage Patterns and memories

I promised a colleague I'd look out some of my old childrens' shirts and waistcoat patterns as she has a youngster to make a birthday gift for and do you THINK I could find them! any of them! I'm certain I'd not have thrown them away as I'm quite sentimental about that sort of thing, the only thing I can think of is that in one of my tidyups I perhaps put them in with the garments in question in a bag for the loft!
Anyway, in the tidying up I came across a few files of treasures! Some of the old patterns that were my Late Mother/Late Grandmothers! Some of them certainly brought back memories for me as I can remember either wearing the school jumpers OR playing with my dolls that were dressed in the knitted garments!





Super afternoon looking through my box of magazines and old patterns, these are just a small selection!

Crafty bits and pieces

After getting some great ideas for the bondaweb idea from the course this week I decided to buy a set of acrylics, below, a box for £5.99 - might have a go at it today - quilt permitting, of course! Matt thinks he'd like to slosh a bit of paint about too this weekend, and being a bank holiday its bound to be a dreary wet weekend sew why not!

At work yesterday our department took part in a month long charity raising endeavour and I supported it by buying the following:


A lovely beaded bookmark! my colleague had actually made me one a couple of years ago for Christmas but Bertie had finally got his claws and teeth into it and broke it! For £2 it was a super buy, the beads are lovely far nicer than the photo suggests!

Another colleague dries his own lavender and brought in a large tub which another colleague used to make this super lavender bags:

I paid £1 for this one but she'd made little "sacks" tied atop with ribbon which were sprinkled in clusters with beads that were very pretty and suitable for popping in a drawer!

The same colleague is also an avid card maker! I paid £1.50 each for these (I bought another which I wrote out and left at work for another colleagues birthday tomorrow which was a nice "pink" card). Its quite hard to find decent cards for men and these are just super!!

Another of my colleagues had made some SUPER Japanese themed cards and she has kindly made me a lovely card for the occasion of another colleagues forthcoming 60th birthday - I shall take a photo of that as its really NICE!!

Finally a shot of the blue quilt:


You can see I've added now all the possible variations of squares from my 4 x FQ's to this panel it took ages to sew! (all of a couple of hours!! lol!! amazingly QUICK and super easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!!)

Our cats are super MAD today!
They are racing about like MAD things, like KITTENS!
Mostly because a customer happened to mention she'd discovered that HER cat loved valerian and promised to bring me a couple of calico filled squares of it. Three times she's been in with them and didn't want to leave with any of my colleagues due to the rather unfortunate "smell" which really IS rather disgustingly like manky old socks!! She flung them at me yesterday! and I managed to keep a seat home on the bus all to myself!! ha-ha!!

I didn't really think the cats would go for anything as whiffy! but I was wrong! I tentatively flung one in Bertie's direction and he promptly went mad rubbing his face and licking at it before doing a "silly" and having a cat-mad-moment! I felt sure that Lilly would be far more ladylike and refuse HERS, but she promptly set about Bertie and started FIGHTING! I managed to make her realise there were TWO of the smelly things and we spent most of yesterday wrinkling our noses and twisting our faces!!

Andrew is eagerly waiting his birthday copy of GTA IV for the PS3 which his uncle has ordered for him and is due for delivery very soon (we hope!) and in time for the bank holiday weekend.

Very finally, and sadly, our half-brother shared the news that his Dad (the step father I grew up with) who has been ill for a while now has been told he has stomach cancer. We don't know too much at this stage, only that they won't be operating.