Working Hard

I've been working hard at up-dating the website with new fabric and packs of Bondawebbed cut out shapes. I am so out of practice as for the last year I really haven't done much on the website at all. But it is all coming back to me thankfully!










Also I've been dyeing and having fun with disperse dyes. All the pieces on this page are for sale and can be found on the website. I have a class on disperse dyeing this Saturday and I am making samples and doing hand-outs for it.



And much as I'm fighting against it Christmas is rushing up and I have to think of presents to make! I'm also going to have a go at making my own cards this year. Due to circumstances I really didn't do much at all last year but this year I'll make up for it!

 

With all this textile activity the poor garden has taken a back seat. I really need to get out there and tidy up and prepare for the winter. There are still flowers such as nasturtiums and hydrangeas and everything is very green still. Lots of self sown Forget-me-nots which will make a splash of colour in the Spring!

Not a good start!

Well not a good start  in writing the blog!But I had to have a back tooth out and it was the most painful time! Not only were the roots splayed but also one of them broke off in the gum and is still there! But enough of that. I've been busy cutting out shapes and packaging them with the help of my partner Graeme. He is proving to be most invaluable! I've also made a few samples to go with the packs. Here is one of them using the Funky Flowers shapes. This is my favourite pack but I also like the hearts and Christmas ones too.

I now have to update the website with the pack details. So far I have done four sets;Christmas, Funky Flowers, Hearts and Circles. The shapes are all Bondawebbed and ready to go and remarkably quick to use. I took some into class and my students were delighted. One of them made a Christmas picture immediately!

This coming Saturday I have a Disperse Dyeing workshop so I have to get some samples ready for this. It is so easy to do! All I need is time!

Keeping Busy!

 I am having difficulty getting my head round the new editor in Blogger! My photos won't go where I want them to! I'm sure I'll get there in the end but apologies in advance for any anomalies!

Flower Photo-Print Hanging

This is the top of the hanging I'm making using photo-prints of flowers from the garden. I've added dyed fabric in a log cabin style and then used appliqued leaves over the top of the piece. These I have to stitch on (I've started on the top ones) and then back and bind the finished piece, attaching a hanging sleeve. I have been having great fun printing pictures onto fabric and am amassing quite a collection! There are lots of ideas buzzing around in my head for using them. Watch this space! 

My friend has lent me her Accuquilt while she is away in Africa for three weeks. I can't wait to get started. She has a fantastic collection of dies for it with everything from basic shapes to trees, leaves and flowers! I am thinking of doing packs of various shapes and selling them on the website. If you have suggestions do let me know! This is an amazing machine and although it has been around in the US for a long time it is relatively new over here. And we are going to be offering a cutting service for anyone who just doesn't want to cut out hundreds of diamonds, squares, rectangles etc.  I am certainly going to be busy! 

Also many thanks to everyone who has written to me or commented on the blog. I have been touched at your warmth and the simple fact that I am remembered! Having been out of touch for quite a while I duly expected to have been forgotten! Now I must get to grips with bringing the web-site up to date and organising a Pay-Pal facility again. The fact that I work every afternoon doesn't leave a lot of time but I'm getting Graeme involved so in time a lot should be accomplished. Now if only I could get him to use the sewing machine!  

Some more pictures!

I've been busy sorting out pictures for printing onto fabric as I'm doing memory and photo quilts with my students. I took loads of photos while I was recently in Scotland so here are few that I think are interesting!

It rained heavily while we were there and the burns were in full flow. What a few days previously had been rock strewn rivulets overnight became torrents of foaming water!

I came across this ruined croft while wandering in the hills and took a scenic view of the loch through the ruined window. What a glorious view to wake up to!

This is a close up of the view above.

I found these stones and their reflections in the water totally fascinating!

And then to my delight this enormous dragonfly landed on one of the stones!

Loch Rannoch where we were staying. And the photo below is of the view from our bedroom window with the early morning mist curling over the Loch.

And last but not least a lovely tree showing three colours of leaves. The green of summer plus the yellows and reds of autumn.

I am full of ideas as to how to use these pictures in pieces of work and just need to get organised. Easier said than done! And I need to dye a collection of autumnal colours!

The Phoenix rises from the Ashes!

Well I am back from the dead; alive and well! The last year has been a painful one full of ups and downs but now there are more ups. I am fully divorced and have a new partner living with me. Life has become fun again and I'm working on building up my crumbling textile business. It is sad that when one is deeply unhappy one tends to let important things slide but that's the way it was! On the plus side I lost loads of weight and am half the woman I was! My partner is a Scot so I have been spending a lot of my time in Scotland since the New Year. I can almost do the drive to Edinburgh in my sleep! But he loves being in Cornwall as it is so much warmer. We are still sitting on the patio to have our morning coffee! A couple of weeks ago we were staying at his time share in Rannoch and I was able to get loads of pictures for future textile use. I was lucky enough to see an Osprey, a hare and a herd of deer! I didn't catch a fish but I hooked and lost two small brownies! Who would have thought that I would become an avid fisherwoman! It is such a peaceful past-time and I really love making the flies. So creative!

I have classes starting tomorrow and I've been planning lots of exciting things for my students to do including printing on fabric and making photo picture quilts and hangings. Plus I've had a mammoth dyeing session and dyed up metres of fabric in yummy colours and patterns. I'm writing this at work so I'm going to have to add in more pictures when I get home! I treated myself to a new all in one printer. It is an HP F4500 and it's great. When printing on fabric I haven't had any problems or snarl ups.

A few of the dyed pieces. Two by half metre and one of a metre. It was a red day!




My next project is to update my website and bring it into the 21st century! I am going to start selling kits as well as my fabric and the site needs to be more user friendly. Plus I am going to have to get my head around inserting PayPal facilities again so I can sell abroad as well as in the UK. So I have plenty to do this coming winter. Onwards and upwards!

Fabric Painting

Well I finally found time to try out my new fabric paints that I got from Laura at the Festival of Quilts. For a link to Laura's site see my last post.
They were really easy to use and I had great fun. I didn't do a lot as time was limited but what I did do I'm really pleased with. Especially the fact that when the paints dried the fabric was as soft and easy to handle as if I'd dyed it. In the past when using fabric paints the fabric has always been a tad stiff after painting.
The reverse technique is brilliant and gives an effect very similar to Batik. At the same time as one is printing that one also prints the plain fabric in the normal fashion so that one ends up with two pieces for the price of one! I am so impressed that I can see I will be doing lots more. I have a coffee morning tomorrow with some of my students so I will see what they think of the results.



The two pieces above are of the reverse printing. Below is a larger view. Click on the pictures to see a larger version.




This piece below is the print from the reverse printed piece,with a close up view next to it.





and the piece below that is the print from the leaf reverse print piece, with a close up next to it.







I can't wait to do more. I love the way the colours mix together.

Festival of Quilts

I had a great time at the Festival of Quilts and will surely go again next year and spend two days there instead of one! I didn't buy an awful lot but I was very pleased with what I did buy. I spent most of my money buying fabric paint from Laura who can be found here.I am really looking forward to doing some of this as soon as possible! She had some lovely stamps and printed fabrics on her stand. It was hard not to buy up everything in sight. But I restrained myself and just bought a kit to start with plus a lovely wavy stamp.I also bought a few books. Only three which is very restrained for me but they will be very motivational and inspiring especially the stencilling one which has a lot of African images.


I treated myself to some lovely beads and a collar to hang them on. They came from Totally Beads and there was a fantastic choice. I bought lots of felt for burning and painting and doing all sorts of interesting things with it. Again I want to get started! Plus a really useful gadget for holding down rulers while cutting fabric. Initially meant for pulling dents out of cars it is now a fantastic quilting accessory. I shan't let my husband see it!



I didn't buy very much fabric but I loved this picture strips with gardening images. And I had to buy the strip with the robins as it will make wonderful cards at Christmas.
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Below are some of the quilts I saw and liked. Those which inspired me. There were lots of those but I have only shown a few for now as it is taking an age to upload them. More another day!

Another bag!

I saw the pattern for this bag in one of the patchwork magazines and decided to try it out. I don't think I'll make it again! It is an octagonal bag and will be useful for my crochet but not really the sort of bag I want to use as a bag!




I 've got my pictures all wrong but the one above is of the shell beads which I attached to the flaps. There were four of them in all.


This is the top. The tie goes through the loops and then pulls the bag closed.


This is the bottom of the bag.


And another picture of the bag with the flaps showing in more detail. I also put shell beads around the top. It was an interesting concept but the instructions were bizarre. As they usually are I find. It didn't take long to make. As you can see from the picture below when laid out it looks a bit like a dead jellyfish!

Ribbon work bag

I have been doing some ribbon weaving for the next class and I wanted to make into something rather than just leave it as a sample. A cushion didn't appeal so I decided to make a tote bag which I'm not sure that I like now I've made it. I sewed strips in a log cabin fashion around it to make it up to size and then used a piece of batik that I had to make the back, sides and top. I have no problems with the lining, that worked very well! Perhaps it's the blues which don't work together? Or just that the ribbon woven centre doesn't really go? Whatever it is I'm not sure about it. I am wondering whether I'll dye the whole thing navy and see how it comes out. At least it will make the fabrics all blend together. I put a tab on it for closing the top but haven't yet sewn a button on. Click on the picture to enlarge. It wasn't easy to get a good picture either as it was so floppy! Anyway it will always be useful for storing my library books!

At Last Something to Show!

Click on the picture to enlarge!
The top row in the picture above shows the quilt. I did a simple 9-patch and meander quilted the plain squares. I used my embroidery attachment on the Bernina to add a label on the back and to embroider the baby's name on the front. I hope it will be liked!
The other pictures are of some ribbon weaving that I have done and will be doing in class. The little bag is lined with purple satin and quilted to pick up the pattern of the weaving. The middle piece is to make a notebook cover and the last picture is of a pillow case. I put gathered lace round the edge. This in a smaller edition could be used as a ring pillow. Anyway I am enjoying doing the weaving and as I have lots of ribbon to use up it is a worthwhile occupation! I like mixing ribbon weaving with fabric as I did in the pillow and one can have great fun making patterns.

Garden Inspired Dyeing

Thank you Sue and Shirley for your comments. I have to admit Shirley that it does take up my time! But I have been doing some more much needed dyeing!

And with my addiction to gardening showing no signs of abating I decided to do some dyeing using colours inspired by my garden. I have put a collage of some of them above. The top left above is inspired by my flower beds and flower filled pots. The top right is also of the flower beds but with the green of the overhanging trees and the sky peeking through. Bottom left is the messy area in my garden with twigs and weeds and leaves. And the last one is hydrangea and rhodendron overhanging the bird bath. You have to have a lot of imagination but these are the things I was thinking of as I was dyeing. It was fun and I was pleased with the results!
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I have finished the baby quilt but can't post pictures until it has been received by it's new owner. So in a day or two!

Sidetracked!

I have been sidetracked this week. While looking at other people's gardening blogs I found this site to join. It's called Blotanical and it is possible to view garden blogs from around the world and interact with them making loads of gardening friends and getting help and advice should you need it. It has been so inspiring that I've been mesmerised by it and hours can go by while I surf with the result that nothing is being done.

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I can say however that I have sewn the cot quilt together and bought some Warm and Natural wadding this morning so will be able to put it all together and quilt it. I am not sure how I'm going to quilt it yet. I'm hoping that I'll be inspired when it is layered up. Also I have some ideas in the pipeline for my next project so more of that later unless the garden steals me away again! It's the fault of the weather. It has been so warm and sunny and starting with breakfast in the garden and then gentle pottering I've not felt at all like incarcerating myself inside! They say its going to rain soon! Good in as much as I won't have to water pots and plants and I'll be able to sew and bad in as much as the sun is so envigorating!

Quilting Samplers

The cot quilt has had to take a back seat as I needed to do some samplers for the quilting class tomorrow. We are going to do freehand feathers which I love doing.


And also I've made some squared samplers of different types of stitching so that one doesn't have to always use stipple quilting or meandering.Not that those stitches arn't useful at times and can be very effective.


I shall finish off the quilt this weekend. I hope it all goes according to plan.

A New Addition to our Family!

Our great niece Camilla Evangeline with her doting Dad! Babies are so cute. I'm always surprised by how tiny they are! And we've also learnt today that my daughter is expecting another child next January. A brother or sister for Fenella and Fred.
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No pictures of the quilt yet as it is all in pieces but I shall make a great effort to get on with it! I want to embroider a name and date label too on my machine. I'm going to be busy!

Cot Quilt

I've been busy today sorting fabrics and cutting them out to make a cot quilt for my new great-niece. I'll post some pictures tomorrow but at the moment it is just in pieces. It is amazing how long it can take to sort fabrics, choose colours and then cut out the pieces. I'm doing a 9-patch with a mix of colours, especially moss green, yellow and oatmeal. These are the colours I've been told are wanted! I have cheated a bit and added in a smidgin of pink! Well she is a girl! But I have to say how much easier it is to work in my new room now I have more space and everything is to hand. So far I have found everything at the first go! This has to be a first. Usually after a clear out I'm lost as to the new places I've put things. I'm just loving it all!

Inspiration

We drove down to the Lizard today; a round trip of about fifty miles. It was raining when we left home but the weather was infinitely better when we arrived with even some sun. I was able to take loads of photos. I was impressed with how many flowers were blooming on the cliffs and the colour of the flowers contrasting with the rocks was fantastic. The rocks here are serpentine which is a blacky grey stone which polishes up beautifully. There are lots of shops there selling hand crafted things made from serpentine.


I loved these grasses on top of a stone wall and thought they would be good inspiration for a textile piece in the future. As will the picture below. I wanted to get a photo of the lovely golden brown and yellow butterflies which were flitting about but they were too quick for me. Instead I got several pictures of the stone wall and the wild mustard.This one in particular I thought might come in useful some time as inspiration.