Smoking Caterpillar

I just wanted to quickly share another piece I've done to go with the other Alice in Wonderland themed embroidery. I've taken the character of the caterpillar (of course one of my favourites from the story) and have appliqued him onto a old rose printed pillow case that seemed to fit the theme. You can read some more about the other pieces I've completed so far in an older post.

I started by using some Bondaweb to secure him down and then back stitched around his outline in a matching orange. I added texture to his hair with split stitches and his big moustache with long filling stitches. I thought it would be fun to add some free hand smoke in some funky colours. It was a chance to try some different stitches! What do you think??

OOh and some exciting news! - I'm going to be selling my treasures down on St Mary's Street in Cardiff on a market stall every other Saturday on the run up to Christmas starting on the 22nd September. Come and say hello if you're in town =)

Elbow Patches, Cushions and more!

I thought I'd share some photos from the past week or two so you can see all the different things I've been doing!

Elbow patches and vintage dress repairs for Broken Girls Club

A huge pile of screen printed plushy cushions for Who? clothing

Some more for Droneboy Laundry too

Another of my Dahlias that I've grown from a bulb finally showed its beautiful colours this week. The sunshine's been all over the place so we have a few late bloomers! I spent Friday sat in the garden working on some embroidery and soaking in the atmosphere. The garden is full of spiders and I even had a visit from a dragonfly!

We had a big gathering at Porthkerry Park in Barry after Lucy's funeral on Thursday, a few of us helped set up the gazebos in the morning and I made a pile of tissue paper flowers, bunting and bows to decorate the place. It felt like a mini festival as friends played music too.

 

 

 

 

Love to you all everywhere, enjoy your crafting!!

Ironing Time!

Sorry I haven't blogged for ages but my clumsy side took over last week and I managed to drop my laptop =(  lame! I snapped the pin that the charger goes into so had to take it to the computer man to fix!

I have been crafting silently in the background though. Its been therapeutic making lots of things ready for our friend Lucy's send off which was yesterday. I will blog again later and show off all the things we made for that; this post in the mean time is dedicated to ironing and how the only things that get ironed in our house are the things I'm making!

I managed to put a hole through the board cover with my sharp fabric scissors a while ago and it's just got progressively worst over the past month or so. So I finally gave in and took some time to make a fresh one. It took no time at all in fact.

I was given tonnes of this great children's bedding fabric a few weeks ago and have been eyeing it up in my box of fabric ever since. The style of the print seemed to lend itself well to a cheeky board cover. I started off by taking the old one off the board and using it as a template for the new one.

I was a tad naughty and just cut straight around it rather than drawing it first. Cocky pattern cutting some might say but in reality I always cut corners when I'm making something for myself. It's different when I'm doing a job for someone else, I guess I know what little mistakes I can live with whereas I have more pride I guess in making things for others.

The next step was to cut some padding to go under the fabric, you need a well cushioned board haha! I had a pile of curtain interlining that was perfect and overlocked the two together. I was good this time and did pin it so it wouldn't move!

I stitched elastic all the way around, apart from the top straight edge to hold it down to the board. I think I might add some ribbon ties at a later date but it seems to be staying in place for now!

 

This week.

This week has been a strange one to say the least.

We found out a dear friend had been killed in an accident in Zambia. Lucy was the most beautiful person, it sounds cliche but she really was. Lucy was a caring and generous soul who ran a charity called The Safe Foundation. If you've been following the blog for a little while you'll remember I went to their India project back in February. Luce was a one in a million and my thoughts are permanently with her twin sister and rest of the family. Our friend Emma has set up a Just Giving page so we can continue build the Safe Family in her memory. If you'd like to contribute please go here .


We disappeared off to Shambala festival for the weekend. Its a lovely arty festival with lots of hippies! My friend Grace, who I've worked with in the past on community arts projects, set us up with festival tickets in exchange for helping out with some costume workshops in the kids field. It was a beautiful distraction helping the kids make tutus/ headbands/ wings and all sorts of fun things. Its such an interesting fun interactive festival with tonnes of workshops to get involved in; I learnt to knit in an hour on Sunday!

It's set in the grounds of this beautiful house, I spent quite a bit of time chilling out by here!

So to top the strange week off it was my 30th birthday on Saturday! So ..... yeah.... 30.... just another day! I've been given some beautiful gifts but I wanted to share a few favs.
Grace made me some rad door knobs! I can't decide where they should go. Custard creams and Jammy Dodgers, my favs!!

 
I went and picked up my sweeeet ass parcel at the post office from Miss Appletini this morning too.

Loved the wrapping!

erm I can't work it out haha ... is it just backwards?

Super handprinted card!!

Inside was some lovely surprises!

Dinosaur erasers! Woo, I do love a good stegosaurus! As you can see below it's debatable whether I've actually turned 30!

 

 
An amazing Hectopus felt pin badge that matches the card and a really cool cross stitched bookmark! I'm notorious for turning down pages so I can whip this bad boi out instead now! She's a delight ain't she!

And the best bit are these incredible trousers! They fit just right thank yooou!
Ha we totally need to paint the skirting board, oops!

The boyfriend's mum gave me a gorgeous bracelet too.

So as you can see I've been spoilt rotten! Thank you lovelies.
I'm working on a personal swap wit someone in America and lots more cushions for Droneboy and Who? so plenty to keep me distracted and busy for the next week. Love you all x

Wonderland Embroidery

I've started a personal project. I've fallen in love with the hoopla craze; I blame Crafster for this! Also there are a few large blank walls left in the house which are just asking for decoration =)

I bought a beautiful pair of vintage Alice in Wonderland curtains from eBay many moons ago and had (with hindsight now I'm gutted) chopped them up and made handbags and purses galore to sell at craft stalls. I remember they sold really well as it's really unusual fabric. I was in my early 20's and was eager to use good fabrics I guess; I'm so much more precious now. Going through the crazy fabric stash the other day I came across scraps of the curtains that I'd saved - go me not throwing anything away!! I decided it would be fun to applique some of the characters and use big enough pieces to fill my hoopla need!

Here's what I've done so far and some progress....

The Queen's announcer is in a 10" hoop and the Tea Party is in an 8". I've bought a selection of other sizes too for new ones.

The edge of the tea party is the actual fabric and the rabbit is appliqued onto the pink stripey background. Its a lightweight cotton that I thought matched quite well. The pictures below show a closer view of the stitches I've used. The pink stitched line work is back stitched to secure the fabric as well as decorate. You can just make out little french knots in the whites of his eyes. For the fur I've free stitched to give him texture but kept it to the outline for a more minimal feel. I've created stripes on his tunic and outlined the heart in split stitch as it's nice and neat. The screen print itself is terrible, the registration (lining up) of the colours is well off but it adds to the quirk I guess. I like the effect anyways.

The Tea Party was really fun to embroider into. The wonk on the print meant there was lots of bits I could tidy up. I've been wanting to do a pile of french knots for ages, what a perfect fit for a bunny tail, eep!

I've since added a few more stitches across the bridge of his nose to hide that yellow bit of print.

I made a little cross stitch pattern to his jacket to try and give a tweed impression and I satin filled in his lapels too. His waistcoat buttons have little french knots. I'm thinking of trying out some chain effects on the pocket watch.

The tea cup was originally just plain white, so I thought it'd be fun to put a little pattern on it!

So once again the running theme of the dodgy registration meant that Alice wasn't too pretty. You can see in the photo below she was missing a nose and her eyes were doing something funky haha. I used a split stitch to add different shades into her hair and then with just a single thread from the skein I stitched into her face to add more detail. I hope I've done her justice!

It was fun doing the little scallop on the bottom of her apron; I've enjoyed using new stitches.

There's still loads to do on the big rabbit one and I want to do more so I can have a big wall of hooplas but this is a work in progress so I guess I'll just keep showing you updates along the way =)