Embroidery Hand Stitching

  What came first then? I love walking about the wild areas near where I live.  They are not big spaces, they're spaces people have forgotten and not used! As I walk I ponder on life's stuff and look about me.  I know this sounds deep but I do like the freedom of it!       I had already started this fabric...sewing lime green shiny fabric onto a muslin base adding hand dyed lace in places on top.  The fabric was sewn down in gathers and pleats in waves.     Don't know why but I decided chocolate coloured lining fabric is what was needed between, beneath the pleats.  Then green lining fabric was added to balance the lime green...        Lots of machine stitching to bed the chocolate sections in. It was at this point I decided to cut the piece into 3....for better or worse!  As this is now a piece that is in the making for months...how many I've forgotten....   ...

I am so happy!!! My little girl is now a Mrs!  She makes me very proud of the way she has conducted her life so far.  An honest, hardworking, empathetic smasher of a daughter! She lives in Australia now with her new husband and they had decided to get married here in Liverpool, UK!  So not only have we all had to cope with the 'stress' (if that's the right description?) of arranging a wedding but poor daughter and husband had to do it long distance! Any hoo after 8 months the wedding went off beautifully!  I had to walk her down the aisle as her own dad died 17yrs ago...I cannot remember being that shaky nervous EVER!   They look lovely together!     Arrhh well back to 'normal' life and plans to get myself over to the land of Oz for a hol!       I had a good week selling my wares last week...(well won't pay the bills yet !!)...most important sales were the fabric I make and the dyed fabric I sell.   F...

      I love fabric dyeing! I was looking at the fabric I have for sale on my ebay shop and the fabric that flew off the shelf and knew I had to replace....woohoo!! Which colours was the question, as I'm walking my dog through the wildflower meadow in my local park!  Ah yes meadow colours! Buff no brainer!   So here we go kitchen and diner transformation...ta da....chemistry lab! No really everything has to get covered by a cover, as the dyes get everywhere!     My complicated and expensive tools (!) Although the metal measuring spoons and the thermometer are essential and a brilliant buy as they make ME more accurate in my measurements!    I use 100% cotton calico PDF ready to dye fabric.  The fabric is steeping in warm water to open the fibres to take the dye.   Keeping an eye on the temperature of the water, it should be around 110 degrees to add to the powder dye.    Yes...

Other things that get made as experiments! My ideal work life would be to teach part time and fibre make for the rest of the time.  I'm probably the same as most people who make things it would be the dream to make a living from those makes! Well it happens for some so why not for you or me?   So while we wait....what do you do to get through the reflective non productive times? Me......I love just making fabric.  I just make a piece for no use or reason.   This little number has a rectangular pottery vase/plant pot inside it, not in this foto tho!  It sits on my en suite bathroom window ledge.  I loved every stage of creating it just for the love of creating!       The base fabric is unbleached RTD calico.  I wet the fabric and added silk paints in semi random blobs. I then hand stitched straight stitches linearly in various yellow colour threads, thin/thick/yarn across the whole piece. The next step was to ...

  So what do you do when you're trying to sort things out?   I doodle, play with words, write out my woes!!   I was fed up trying to sort things out so I decided to set my mind on a creative task instead....to fill up a sketch book.   I wanted to use yellow as it so prominent in my life now...and has been for over a year. Needless to say it's obvious connotations are Cancer and yes it pertains to that. So I'm describing my thoughts and feelings in the images I create on each page.     Each page has a yellow acrylic wash.  The lettering above is in liner pen.     Torn strips of fashion and lifestyle magazines in hues & tones of yellow.  Glued onto the page horizontally.  The background is wax crayon in yellow & orange.  Masking tape is then attached in pattern as a resist to the top coat of white wax crayon.  The masking tape is taken off revealing the hidden colour and ...

Why do things take longer than you think they're going to?! Lets see what have I finished since last I wrote? The Staying true to you embroidered bowls have grown into a family!  There are smaller baby bowls to be boxed up to be (hopefully) sold at Neston Crafty Market on the 1st March.  Mustn't forget to utter white rabbits 3 times on that morning! The new bowls are 11cm diameter by 5,5cm high in Green and Black.  It took a few weeks humming and ahrring over the storage/presentation boxes I tell you. I do love them they make me smile! After those I made up some fabric for others to buy and make their own items from. The first is the Seven Seas in bluey greens and embellished.  I thought it would make really nice book covers or ipad holders and equally nice bags as the base of the fabric is calico so very robust.   It is embellished with over sewn organza fabrics, couched sari silk thread and beading in select places.  ...