Busy Weekend

Had a very busy weekend at the studio while I get my self sorted! I have been distracted lately and started to lose my way a bit. Also the police found a cannabis factory underneath my studio which they raided and we got the pleasure of an invasion of mice!!

I have cleaned my studio, cleared the rubbish and organised some storage. No mice now. I managed to get a bunk bed off the notice board at work, its a single with desk underneath, ideal for current storage and a work place. I have also managed to get my small pc desk underneath as well. Its good as I can do some research when I need to or check emails.

Just have to remember not to stand up underneath - lol.
I have also got rid of the massive table I had, I have a smaller one now that is just for my machines, I have them set up so can just sew when I need to without having to keep getting them out and putting them away. This is the view into the room from the window end. You can also see I have put some scaffolding up on the beams, for storage of stuff I won't be needing for a while. (bubble wrap and some materials etc).
Finally this is the view from the door, you can just make out my easel in the distance by the window, and behind the radiator on the right my snakes.

Next job is to sort my workbooks out and keep my inspiration stuff together. I will update you on my latest project over the next few days.

Slowly slowly

It is taking so long and I am still filling in the background with cross stitches.
I have added some beads to the leaves and some machine stitching.
and for a change, I have done french knots on the satin fabric and edged it with blanket/button hole stitch and herringbone. Also, I have just done a little stitching on the net fabric. Not sure about these at all.

Catch up with Leaves

Just a catch up to show work in progress on my leaves for the botanical work. Still stitching the background, takes ages but I have done some experimental work for the leaves.
This first one is felt embellished with fibres and thread.
These are velvet, embellished with silk, shimmer fabric and some fibres. As I was lazy and didn't change the threads on my overlocker, I painted the edges with green paint to cover the white stitching.
For the next lot, I painted some bubble wrap with acrylic paints and glitter. Then ironed it between greaseproof paper to burst the bubbles and spread the paint. I intended to stitch into it, but the paint just wouldn't dry, so I put pieces of fabric over it, satin, net and the shiney fabric and ironed it again. The results on the fabric are super.
This is the satin piece, which I have started to stitch onto.

Botanical Water update

I posted a picture of my water from the botanical gardens in Glasgow. This is the latest update. I am still working on the background, it takes ages to stitch all the french knots, three strands of cotton, some different shades, at the same time. I am just putting in the rest of the background now, random cross stitches to pull the water together. I can then start to add the embellishments, the surrounding plants.

Finished Water

I have finished my water sample. This is net which I have thread for smocking. Added some silk and embellished the silk and small circles of the fabric. I have used a smocking stitch to create rows then added some beads to the embellished areas. I am pleased with the results. Its a very small piece which measures about 6 inches across.

Water Embellishing

Still looking at water. I have taken some fine net and threaded it as if I was going to use it for smocking. You can get machines to do it, but I don't have one so it was a long patient job. I have dyed it different shades of blue and then using the embellisher, just embellished some circles. I think it looks quite effective. This is the same piece but with some blue silk embellished on top.
On this piece, I added some scraps of material while threading up, so they are part of the base fabric.
I then added more silk scraps, some wool top fibres and some thread which looks like silk but is in fact made from wood fibres.
I will do some surface stitching on them now and see what they end up like.

Patched Postcard

Another Fabric Postcard. Scraps of painted silk embellished onto felt with some wool. Finished with some stitching and beads.

Pond Water

This is another project on the go, I have painted the fabric for the background, its a relection on the water taken from a trip to the Botanical Gardens in Glasgow. Hence the knitted water mentioned previously, but cotton chenille on cotton fabric, when you think how they are made then you would know its not going to work, but I tried. Hopefully you will see more of this in the near future.

Knitted Water

I knitted some water using my own hand dyed chenille, this was to be embellished. It doesn't work. Back to the drawing board - lol.

Ribbons

Whenever I get a present, easter egg, even goods tags that use ribbon, I take the ribbon and keep it in a drawer. Some pieces are quite long, some very short, but all different widths, textures and different patterns. Amazingly I now have a drawer full of technically free ribbons! (its a small drawer)
I will have plenty to use with my new embellisher.

Froggy

As you may have gathered by now, I love frogs. All types and sizes, tree frogs being my favourite, hence my logo (a copy of my tattoo which I designed). So it comes as no surprise that my latest post card is my tree frog! The background has been done on the embellisher, with surface stitching and my frog which I painted onto very fine net.

Weave one keep one

While doing my tidy up and going through old boxes and bags of stuff, I came across some old weaves, the first two I did while I was working on my degree, I think they are two early weaves from the hand loom while I was learning. I am just wondering what I could do with them.


These second two were woven on a rug loom which I purchased when I left university. Unfortunately I didn't have enough room at home, so my older sister let me store it at her bungalow. It was a long trip just to weave and I did do quite a bit, but in the end I had to sell it and my sister moved to a smaller bungalow with her partner.
I think I can turn the first one into a hanging, if you turn it you can see a landscape in it, so food for thought.
This bright one, I think the bathroom floor for this one, but I might mess about with the embellisher on it. In fact that seems more fun, so the embellisher it is - lol.

Fish Postcards

I did some more work on postcard no 1 (on the right), just to make the fish look more like a fish. I then started on postcard 2 (on the left). I think I will call them finished now. Just have to back them and the usual signing etc. I don't think they are too bad for a first effort with the embellisher and first go at postcards. I am working tonight but can manage to squeeze an hour or so in my workroom before I go - lol.

What a Day!

I had to go to the doctors yesterday as he had made a mistake on my sick note, he signed me off for 4 weeks, instead of part time hours for 4 weeks, so I had to make an appointment to see him to change it. My appointment was at 10:15 and at 11:00 I was still waiting, it doesn't help your stress levels sitting in the waiting room for nearly an hour, especially when baby clinic is on and you can hear all the poor babies crying as they are injected with their vaccinations. When I finally go to see him I was in and out in two minutes!! I got home to find that I had missed a delivery, but they delivered to my neighbour. I went round and they had gone out. So I spent the afternoon, cleaning out my pond and popping back and too to see if they had returned.
It was my embellisher machine - yippeee!! I have read so many blogs about them and seen such wonderful work, I just had to try and get one. I found a company that sells them at a good price, so was thrilled to find I could just about afford one.
I played around for a bit on some scraps, then cut my felt to postcard size and started on my first postcard. Mmmm, people came home, but I don't remember having dinner last night. My postcard was designed from one of my blue and white china pieces, well that was the basic idea. I found a site that shows how to draw koi carp on the pc and used that for my fish. This is where its up to at the moment, I am unsure at this time whether to leave it as it is or do some more work on the fish (yes, and obviously back it etc).

Got up this morning, made my cup of tea and just looked into my workroom - big mistake. Next minute the embellisher was on and I was playing around with Emily plays Pop. I have discovered that you can pull the fabric back off if you don't like what you have done, unless you are working on satin and trying to pull off silk fibres, the satin just rip's, so I have had to add patches. Unless its because I have coloured the satin, the fibres go through to the back and can be seen, but don't seem to have come through to the front where I wanted them, so I have added them to the front. Its now a mish mash mess - lol. I have ordered a book from The Thread Studio, can't wait to read it and find out what else I can and cannot do.