September Bookmark

 The September bookmark is a reminder of the many spiders which were out weaving webs during that month. 

Happy New Year

I have made a New Year resolution to use up scraps, so my New Year's Eve job was to make a cheerful banner, hopefully reflecting a cheerful year to come! It is machine appliqued onto thick felt (which is why it sticks temporarily to the Woodland Quilt in the kitchen.) Every scrap is different, enabling me to get rid of some if the tiny bits that are still too good to throw out.

I've also been playing with scraps of fabric weaving, which give an effect I like very much. There's lots of little patches of this in the Woodland Quilt, but they all had the edges sewn down by hand which was very time consuming. I'm also trying to limit the amount of hand stitching to protect my hands. Therefore, I experimented with different ways of using the machine to secure the weaving. The beanstalk leaves were quick and fun to make - I have visions of a whole beanstalk growing somewhere in the house. 

The unfortunate collapse of the Christmas tree took its toll on a very old handmade angel, who was left with only a head and arms. She's been repaired with a cosy felt dress, decorated with chenille wool and tiny beads. 

This little chap comes from a kit by Corinne Lapierre and is currently in residence on the bookcase, awaiting some more members of his family. 

 

Sketchbook to stitch

I thought I'd have a go at interpreting a sketchbook doodle into a small embroidery. I like drawing with dip pen and ink in the sketchbook, with lots of tiny details, squeezing as much as I can onto a page. Contraptions are fun to draw, especially with random objects added in. This contraption makes fish tea, apparently. 

I drew a simplified version of the contraption onto calico, using the same pen and ink as in the sketchbook. 

Then I painted it in very watered down acrylic paint. There was a bit of bleed in a couple of places, but overall, the colour came out well and the fabric stayed soft. 

I used felt as a backing and tacked the calico firmly on. I used a running stitch around the outlines, in embroidery silk and very fiddly metallic thread. I've used tiny seed stitch on some of the areas, such as the teapot, and satin stitch on the knobs. 

Finally, I quilted round the design and trimmed a raw edge. This was a bit of an experiment, but I was pleased that it captured the feeling of the original sketch. I'll definitely be trying out different ways to use painted fabric in the future.

 

Hare and Hounds

The Hare and Hounds Quilt started out as a scavenger hunt, inspired by the ideas of  

 Heidi Parkes . We worked out our own list of things to represent, such as favourite food, animal, place, toy, book, birthstone, something we touch everyday and flower. We also added a season and a sun and moon, along with our hand prints and initials.

Our first job was to choose some base fabric - we decided on a plain light green cotton. By Friday dinnertime we had our first few motifs. At this point the sun was a circle and our birthstones were chunks of coloured material. We decided topaz could be blue, as I didn't want a chunk of yellow!

Hard at work! The sun is a much livelier brilliant red batik with carefully cut points (Which would be regretted when it came to sewing on!) The hare is on, and Deb has drawn out the hound. At this point, everything is just placed loosely on the base.

More of the motifs have been cut and we are playing with different layouts. Here we tried to make a trail of items around the sun and our initials were combined. We ditched the birthstone chunks and went for a more pictorial representation - Deb has added her amethyst. The silver moon had a bit of night sky and some stars and Deb's black fabric scissors are looking very convincing - we both tried to pick them up to use several times.

By Saturday evening, we had most of out motifs cut out and placed. In the end, we went for a random design, with gave a better balance of shapes and colours overall. The moon has changed from silver to blue, which shows up much better, and we have added the four suites of a deck of cards, and a little symbol for mum and dad. We have tacked down the shapes and started sewing them on using the machine. Deb bravely tackled the large sun.

On Sunday morning we added a blue mosaic border, a couple of leaves, some hexagons and ....

... some fabric chocolate buttons! 

We managed to get it all tacked into place before Deb left on Sunday afternoon. 

We were very pleased with the colourful result. I am going to finish the machine applique, and Deb is working on a label for the back. Then we just need to quilt it! 

 

How small is a scrap?

 Like a true squirrel, I'm reluctant to throw anything out, especially if it is the last little bit of a favourite material. Some of my scraps are less than an inch square, and they are all lovingly popped into whatever container is nearest and sorted through every so often for later use. They are useful for trying out new techniques, which, of course, creates a new, worked-on scrap, which goes back in the basket in a never-ending circle of reuse.

Every so often, I sew some of the experiments into pots, which have the advantage of being useful

These two are 'tatty pots', just hand sewing bits onto a cross-shaped base fabric to make a lidless cube, and then stitching up the sides.  I keep cards and dice from some of my games in these, as they are practically impossible to knock over. You'll notice the little owl material turns up a lot!

The pencil pot on the left was made of scraps where I'd practised machine applique. I quilted it very solidly onto a backing fabric, then sewed it into a cylinder. The house pot was made from two bits of applique, with a whole selection of try-out stitches which don't bear close examination! The hardest parts of making these pots is getting the bottom to stay on. A large amount of fabric glue was used up, and the end result is as hard as nails! 

Boots the Cat lives on the shelf with the pencil pots.

A lucky find at the bottom of the scrap box means that the squirrel on the woodland quilt finally has a tail; I think it was a bit of an old chenille scarf. Two frogs on that quilt are still waiting for their eyeballs - a dig in the sequin box should hopefully sort that out... eventually.

I also like using tiny scraps in collage. This little fabric doodle is a work in progress. combining Inktense pencils, fabric scraps and stitches onto calico. The triangular trees are about 1cm tall and the flowers about half that. I've stuck them down with glue, because the edges of such tiny pieces are too fragile to take much sewing. Tweezers and a cocktail stick are my favourite tools for fiddling about with these. 

So to answer the question, the smallest scrap can be the size of a thumbnail and can (just about) still be useful!

Garden visitors

It has been a good summer for wild visitors to the garden - having the camera handy at the right moment is a different matter. However, I managed to creep up on these unsuspecting chaps.

Here is the rogue sunflower in all it's glory - not bad for a bit of bird seed that fell down the crack in the paving stones!

 

A surprise visitor

This little lizard came throught the drainage hole onto our front deck when we were moored up near Rawcliffe Bridge.  

It was about 6 inches long and when it settled on a piece of rug I carried it out onto the bank.