Holey Moley Club samples

I have signed up for Dale's online Holey Moley workshop which started last week.
As usual Dale has put together another good workshop but the good thing about this one is that it will run over 12 months.
The lessons come in every 2 months and there are 6 of them which gives us plenty of time to do our samples.
Plus Dale has been giving us little extras now and then to keep us on our toes.
We are making holes or mayby I should say circles in my case -because with the first one I didn't make the holes inside the circles.
The first sample is made using the Flowerstitch foot.
I love this foot as it is so creative once you master it.
By using the different patterned stitches on your machine you can create amazing flowers.
I even managed to make a star and if you click on the picture you can see it better--it was made using the scallop stitch that I have stitched out on the left hand side of the sample.




The next samples were made by wrapping the thread around some different sized knitting needles several times and then buttonhole stitch was worked over the wraps.
The biggest sized one was made by using the cardboard tube from a toilet roll.

In this sample the apricot one is made on a 20mm knitting needle (which is huge) and I have worked the second ring through the first one.

With the green one I worked halfway around the wraps on the toilet roll tube and then I wrapped the thread around my finger several times--and worked on these threads doing the buttonhole stitch- then I re-connected to the main wraps and continued around the toilet roll tube until I had finished.

I am now thinking up different ways to explore this technique.

Oh and I meant to say that in the very first part of the lessons we were using paper-tyvek and lutradur but I haven't done mine yet--naughty me.
I can't wait to see how this all ends up.

Fibre Fever Pages.

This is the finished woven picture from a few posts ago.
This month I had to make a page for Maureen and her theme is trees.
I wanted to make something different so I made the background that I had shown earlier.
The trees are made using small chopped up pieces of different colours of green fabrics-stitched between 2 sheets of solvy-then washed to reveal the tree tops-which I then stitched to the background after I had added the trunks.
I did some free machine embroidered grasses to add a bit more texture.



Below is the page I received from Ritva--which has a beautiful hand stitched butterfly and lots of beads and the large butterfly is printed on the fabric with more stitching added.
I love it Ritva.

July Calendar Girls Postcard

Here is my postcard for the July Calendar Girls Group.
I should have had it finished earlier than this but I kept adding more bits to it trying to get a certain effect.
I started with a base of very fine white mohair fibre to which I added streaks of some fine silver fibre that looks like steel wool which I picked up from the recycle table at the Embroiderers Guild.
This gave a darker shadow over the Mohair.
I ran this under the embellisher to blend the two fibres together.
Then I added strands of white knitting wool and then a layer of pale blue organza and ran it through the embellisher again.
Next I tore off the rolled hems from a pale blue silk scarfe and embellished these on top and some fine fibres of the mohair just to keep it all held together
Then I hand stitched some silver thread down but this didn't show up very well so I finally hand stitched some bugle beads on top and now I think it's finished.
This will be off to Jenny in Wales tomorrow--I do hope she likes it.
.





Below is the calendar page that we are using for this months inspirstion which is Pippa's choice.

If you would like to see what the other girls have done follow the link here

I'm on the road again-------

The creative road I mean-----
Finally I can show you something that I have done or should I say I am doing.
Another of my friends owns a patchwork fabric shop and she was saving me these tiny strips of fabric that she had left when trimming up the fat quarters----rather than open the fabric out and cut along the fold to get the 2 fat quarters she would leave the fabric folded and put the ruler along the fold and run the rotary cutter along and trim off the folded piece.
Me being who I am asked her could I have some as I was sure that I could do something with them.
I had thought of knitting them together and some other stupid ideas but I came up with this weaving idea.
The frames were made by my husband from some concrete re-enforcment and he painted them purple and put some plastic tubing on the ends and I was away.
I wrapped thread up and down over the bars to give me the warp threads and then I selected colours to represent sky -hills-grass and flowers and wove them in between the warp threads.
I ended up with a scene similar to the one I have here--
Then I would I put iron on interfacing on the back to keep it all together and then put a backing and border around it and add a bit of machine stitching to finish it off ending up with a little quilt.




This is what the frame looked like with the warp threads.

I will show you what it looks like when I have finished.

They are here

Todays post revealed the 2 books that I have been eagerly awaiting.
Lynda and Carol's Stitching the Textured Surface and Maggies Greys Stitches,Straps and Layers.
As usual Maggies book is great but I am truly amazed at what Lynda and Carol have achieved in their first book.
The quality of the samples in the book and the photos are outstanding and they are both to be congratulated on a top effort.
Now if anything is going to get my creativeness back this book sure is the answer.

On another note I would like to thank everyone for their comments and e-mails regarding my sleep problems.

I am pleased to say that I am improving in leaps and bounds.

Last night I slept for 9 hours except for a small break when the smoke alarm outside our bedroom door started beeping intermittently because the battery was going flat.

I climbed out of bed- got the step ladder and removed the offender and then went back to bed again and back to sleep.

Oh joyous sleep.

No Photos just words

Being creative in not part of my life at present--I have not been in my sewing/craft room for three weeks except to get things for the two Sashiko pieces that I have done while sitting watching TV in the evenings.
I have been having problems with my sleep patterns---creating at nights when I should be sleeping--sleeping in the daytime when I should be creating.
Because my brain was over active when I finally went to bed after midnight it wouldn't slow down long enough for me to stay asleep.
Then by early afternoon I was falling asleep for several hours.
So I have had to sort it out -hence I have stayed out of the sewing room -and it is working-I am sleeping better at night-but I can't settle down to do the creating during the day.
I have always created at night-sometimes into the wee small hours all I have to do now is to get my creative juices flowing during the day.
I am trying believe me-but it is so strange.
Hang in there something will eventuate.

Sashiko 2

I have finished the second piece of Sashiko embroidery and I am pleased with the outcome.
Well it is not hard to do seeing as the design is already printed on the fabric but believe it or not I think I did half as much unpicking as I did stitching.
I kept seeing stitches that were crooked and so the reverse stitching process would have to happen.
I found working on the dark background harder on my eyes than working on the white one.
Even though Sashiko is just running stitch I didn't find it boring because of the rhythmic movement that I had going.
The only problem now is after 2 weeks of hand stitching my hands (especially my thumbs) are telling me enough is enough.
I'll have a few weeks break ---------and---



----then I will have a look in the UFO box and see what else I can find.