A Little Dragon

Taking a break from the quilt project I started over the summer, though its not far away (on the table behind me...) I have started on a small embroidery project. Now some time I go I did doodle a design of a medieval inspired piece of a dragon, looking at illuminated manuscripts, but I never finished it largely because I didn't like where it was going. Now move forward several months, I find myself doodling another dragon. This one I am pleased to say showed early signs of potential and thus it will get finished!

As with anything it started with a little spot of preparation, in the form of little satin spikes, and several layers of felt padding.  

Over top of which I then placed a layer of silk dupion, without any soft/ light-weight vilene I had to settle for bondaweb (wasn't about to stop and wait till I could get some...I wanted to get on with it!). With that stab stitch down, I then set about cutting out the head with the help of the bondaweb again, now this was the third attempt as I kept drawing the head in the wrong direction. Got the reverse wrong....

A spot of silver passing couched down...

With the body couching down I heat applied the head to the body, you can't really see in this shot but one of the dragon's ears was stitched, as was the chain stitched tongue, before I properly applied the head, which was then stabbed stitch down. 

I toyed with leaving the teeth as they were, just green silk but I opted to do a spot of padded satin stitch instead, and I am rather happy with the outcome.

Once all the teeth are complete, there will be further work to do...including working out how I am going to do his eye. Now, I have an idea involving a Swarosvki crystal, and some stitching...but you'll have to wait and see the outcome!

Sun = Motivation

It was very much a weekend of doing...

- Learning to Drive continues on a pace. Reversing into a parking bay, think I've got that mastered.

- The hallway woodwork is nearly complete...yeah, slight issue with the paint has meant a slight change of plans, plain white gloss as apposed to grey (actually looks better), though that wasn't quite as simple as I had hoped, issue with the primer has seen me having to yet more sanding and prepping.

- Finally taking photographs of a finished piece of work. The colourful patchwork banner is now hanging up in my study, when the bedroom is done I think it will go in there, to match the patchwork quilt...

- Bedroom Quilt is near ready for binding now! So excited. Ordered two colours, as I couldn't quite settle on either pink or mint. But heck, I might do both. The machine quilting is near complete, a few more bits but by the time the binding turns up next week I  hope to have it all done. Just itching to get the binding on and done! Then...well I can start thinking about the next one, right?

- I've done my February page for 12 Pages for 2015 project. The theme for this month was Boat, Broken with the bonus extra of using Watercolours. Spot of mucking about and I came up with a floating pinkish red watercoloured chipped teacup, floating on rough sea of torn paper. Simple, but fun. Added extra is that you can move the teacup about!

Cake was baked, housework was done, plenty of tea was drunk. Wistful thoughts on what projects to work on next, Mother's Day card made, and motivation to get myself going again. All in all a bloody good weekend. I have to say I think the sun that made it's brief appearances helped with the above.

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily

Zig Ziglar

Set Sails for New Projects on the Horizon

A new year, and new projects.

I've started to find my embroidery mojo once more. 

And the result of this new found energy is the start of a new project. 

Originally was just going to be a play about, to work out how I was going to do certain areas of the design but is slowly becoming I think probably at the very least a finished example piece for a range of custom items. But we'll see...I am just going to go with the flow on this one, and at the rate I am going stitching it I am sure it will end up being complete next weekend. 

Patchwork WIP and 2015 Projects

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all made it in one piece. 

I thought I would skip over a review of 2014 and just crack straight into what I've been stitching, cause frankly getting back to stitching and mucking about with fabric has really gone me into a happy place and got me in the zone for looking forward to 2015.

It feels so good to get back to stitching and working on projects that have had to put aside for months in order to concentrate on deadlines and so forth. The quilt I started last Christmas was brought out once more and I cracked on with putting together the last four blocks, tidied up the size so they were all an even 12" square, and then..finally started to add sashing! It really is satisfying that before I return to work next week that the major part of the quilt is finally, finally complete!

Working out the placement of the blocks...but changed it again before I machined the sashing on.

And as you can see the border is now on! Love, love it! It's not an overly complicated design but it's tested me for the first proper patchwork quilt I've put together. Really looking forward to sorting out the backing fabric, as I have so much of Petite Street Fabric and white left over there might be another larger patchworking on the back. Then I can get the wadding and then...then I can do some quilting. So excited. Okay, I know I wanted to get it done before this Christmas just gone, but still I feel fairly accomplished that I've got at least this far and from here on it's at least likely to get done by winter 2015 now.

It's not the only patchwork piece I've been turning my hand to, because I have a stupidly large stash of scrap fabric from the embroidery work last year, the quilt and so forth I like to every now and then just do a little hand sewn scrap quilt. No plan to it just going with the flow. In fact what started as a small square is now looking likely to be a long panel which I think might go in the bedroom to compliment the quilt. You can follow the progress of this here and over on instagram. 

I've also decided as this is the year to being creative as possible. Being creative makes me happy, and keeps me focused on that. So one thing I signed myself up for as a bit of a mini year long challenge is a project my friend Nini of Made By Nini has set up 12 page in 2015. I didn't stop and think as to whether or not to do it I just signed myself up and so not to backtrack on it I set about making my little 12 page journal. Rather cute if I do say my self and made completely from one box. The first prompt has been announced, 'New Beginnings, Friends and with a bonus of Washi Tape. I look forward to spending an afternoon working on my page. Again keep an eye on instagram. Oh, and if you are interested in participating, not to late to join, lots of folks from around the world are taken part.

Got a project your working on or planning to start?

I have some doodles in mind for future embroidery projects, as I am nearly ready to get back to doing some more intricate stitching.

Oh, and one final thing I have the sale still going on!

Christmas Tutorial: Merry Bee Picture

Merry Bee Tutorial

Before you begin this project before sure to read through all the instructions first, and then there will be no stopping you. If you have any questions at all feel free to leave me a comment. You'll also learn a couple of new ways of doing things, such as transferring the design using tissue paper.

For this very Merry Bee you will need:

• Print out of the pattern
• 6” Embroidery Wooden Hoop (or a size that suits your preference – feel free to blow the design up or scale it down)
• Background fabric of your choice, if your using the 6" hoop you'll need a piece 11" square
• Scraps of Wool felt: yellow, white, red and black
• Stranded Cottons: Black, brown and burgundy (I've used DMC 310, 300 and 815)
• White machine thread or white stranded cotton will also work
• Needles
• Pins
• Tissue Paper / light box / transfer crayon
• Pencil
• Sharp scissors

1.       If your background fabric is fairly see-through then you can use a light box or your window to transfer the design onto the fabric. Then place the fabric into your frame making sure it’s taut, then skip step 2.

2.       If your fabric is too thick or dark for the methods listed in step 1, then you could use transfer paper or you can use the method I use, which is using tissue paper. Place your fabric into your frame, making sure the fabric is taut and trace the design onto your tissue paper, and pin it onto your hoop.

3.       Whatever transfer method you used we are going to start at the same place which is the dashed lines. Thread up your needle with two strands of black cotton. The dashes are stitched in multiple back stitches, a dash line roughly equates to three tiny back stitches.

4.       Time to move onto ‘Merry’ is also stitched in back stitch but using two strands of burgundy coloured thread instead. Keep your stitch sizes regular, this will make sure the finish is nice and neat.  Skip step 5 and 6 if you've not used the tissue paper method to transfer the design. 

5.       Using your white thread, running stitch around the main bee body, and the wings.

6.       Now the fun bit you can start to tear off the tissue paper, be careful around the stitches, if any tissue paper gets trapped under a stitch, you can either tease it out with a sharp needle or use tweezers. Whatever you have to hand.

7.       Stitching the padding on the bee body: The body is made up of several layers of yellow felt. Using the template cut out the three sizes marked as bee body. Starting with the smallest piece, pin it loosely in the middle of the shape (as shown). As this is a padding layer, it doesn’t matter if you use yellow cotton or white to stab stitch around the shape. When you’ve stitched the first layer on, stitch the next size up over the top of the first.

8.       Wings: As with the body of the bee, the wings have padding. Cut from the white felt the two wing shapes. Stitch the smallest layer down first, and then the larger piece over the top. I used the guidelines on the background fabric to help the felt piece keep its shape, these guideline stitches will become hidden by your stitching and the felt.

9.   Time to stitch the line that separates the wings. Thread up your needle with your white cotton thread, and using your print out as a guide, back stitch a curve as shown below. If you’re not sure where the line should go, use the tissue paper technique.

10.   Return to the main bee body. Before we stitch the top layer on, you need to cut out the three thin stripes from the black felt, and stitch them onto the largest yellow shape. I used a single strand of the black thread and running stitch up the middle of the black strip to attach it to the yellow. As with the padded layers, you will stab stitching the layer all the way round the edge, this time make sure you’re using a matching yellow thread, and keep the stitches small and neat.

11.   Finishing Details: The eye is a French Knot, in a single thread of black cotton and three wraps of the needle. And the smile is also in a single thread of black, and is in back stitch. 

12.   Nose: Cut out a small circle of red felt, owing to how tiny it is a template isn’t necessary, think a size of a sequin. Stab stitch it down with matching red thread. Don’t fancy cutting out a piece of felt that small? Then you can use a small red pompom.

13.   Antlers: I’ve used two strands of brown cotton and back stitch. You can use your tissue method to transfer the antlers lines or free style. 

14.   With the stitching complete you can use the design to adorn anything such as a cushion or part of a Christmas quilt. Or for a temporary solution, so that you use a hoop again, follow these simple instructions:

a.       Using the hoop that the picture will be framed in, cut back your fabric so that you have a seam allowance of about 2 inches all the way round. Then thread up your needle with thread and do a gathering stitch around the edge, once you've gone all the way round pull the threads in to gather around the inner hoop. Once your happy that the gathering is neat and the gathering thread is secure, you can then cut off any remaining thread. Add a ribbon to the tightening fitting on the hoop and hang up! 

Viola your done!

Hamish says hello and other things

Anyone else find writing a title for a blog post really difficult? There are times when I just haven't a clue what to call a post. But at least this one is pretty much spot on, Hamish has popped by to say hello, in a rare moment of opportunity I managed to get this shot of him and it pretty much sums him up...

If he can get behind anything, squeeze through cracks he's your man. You know the more I look at that shot the more I notice the look of 'put the camera down'. 

So aside from trying to take photographs of my elusive hamster, baking and cooking (I'm a real autumn/winter cook) I've been working on the project that cannot be named... That's pretty much all I've been doing this weekend. Granted I've been squeezing in a bit of time for my own things. I've purchased a couple of small bundles of felt this week which arrived rather speedily, thank you Paper & String. The felt is to be used for two things, one a new batch of snazzy brooches (more on this next week) and secondly to make a couple of gifts. Naturally like everything else I am working on lately I can't really go into too much detail as it's for some ladies that I know swing by the blog. But you might just make out an owl...the actual design comes from a freebie from Issue 5 of Crafty magazine 'Woodland Storage Boxes', I'm going to adapt the cute little owls and trees to turn them into little felt wonders. Well that's the plan...

I'll keep you posted!

Before I dart off go and check out Feeling Stitchy's latest competition.

Halloween Crafting: Make a mini Pumpkin

Following on from my wee little broomstick tutorial its time to make a wicked, little pumpkin. Make several and your'll have your self a little pumpkin patch. Great decoration for your table too.

You will need:

• Orange, green and black pieces of felt

• Matching threads

• A Needle

• Sharp pair of scissors

• Toy stuffing

Step 1

Cut out a circle of orange felt that is 12 cm in diameter, of course, feel free to make it bigger or smaller. To get a perfect circle I found it easier to draw round something. Thread up a needle with a fairly long length of thread that will allow you to do a simple gathering stitch around the edge of the felt, stitching 5 mm from edge. 

Step 2

Grab both ends of the threads and pull to gather it up, stop half way to put some of the toy stuffing in, then carry on till you have a nicely gathered up shape (bit like a little bun), which will end up with a small opening. Sew the ends in to stop it from undoing (do not stitch up the hole). Then with a blunt end of a pencil, push more stuffing into the opening, keep going till you get a almost firm feel, but not too over stuffed that you can't push the pencil into the middle.

Step 3

Cut a strip of green felt 9 cm (length) by 2.5 cm (width), before you begin to roll it up tightly, get a needle and thread ready as you will need this to make a few stab stitches through one end to keep it together. Do as many as you feel will keep it from unrolling.

Step 4

With it rolled up, simply stuff it into the small opening at the top of the pumpkin, leaving 1 cm showing. Stitch the stem into the pumpkin, using the orange thread. Test to make sure it doesn't come out.

Step 5

Here comes the fun bit, designing what you want the face to look like. Once you have, cut it out of black felt. Now there are two ways in which you can apply the face to the pumpkin, small dabs of fabric glue, or stab stitch (small tiny stitches around the edge and middle of the black felt), I did the latter...because I am a sucker for punishment. 

Huzzah you now have a tiny little pumpkin. Go nuts and make a patch full of them!