My crazy block has come home

Earlier this year I was involved in a crazy quilt block swap with Mary-anne in Canada.
we each pieced a block and sent it to the other person to be embellished.
After it was finished it was then returned to the original person.
My block returned home today after a 10 week journey--maybe it had 2 weeks in the Bahamas and 2 weeks in Hong Kong--a couple of weeks in the UK--2 weeks in Dubai and another 2 weeks in NZ and finally it arrived in my post box today.
It has been well worth the wait though as it is truly beautiful.
I chose the colours because I wanted to see what MA could do because she told me that she could work with any colours not that I doubted her but I thought it may be a bit difficult.
Well she sure showed me didn't she.
Did you notice the red maple leaf buttons and the canadian flag button--I can't believe all the work that she has put into it--I keep looking at it and admiring something new.






MA also enclosed some pieces of fabrics for me which if they had turned up in time would have been perfect for the June TIF challenge.

MA also included an envelope for Ebony but she won't get it until Thursday evening.

I will show you MA's block that I have embellished when it arrives at her place.

Thank you MA it is an amazing block.

More ATC's

Today we received these ATC's from Claudia who is Jo's 8 year old daughter.
Well have you ever seen anything so beautiful from a young artist in all your life.
Claudia is making wonderful ATC's with machine stitching and hand stitching on them and she made the one with the fairy especially for Ebony.
We both love them very much Claudia keep up the good work.
If anyone would like to trade with Claudia please contact her through Jo's blog I can assure you that you won't be dissappointed.

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And below are the ATC's that we sent to Claudia--they are both paper art cards--mine on the left is made from hand made paper which has the flower embedded in it and a snippet of lace also attached--and Ebony's has a butterfly which came all the way from Dubai when her Aunty Susan lived there and a hand made bead(even though it looks like a cigarette butt) and once again lots of glitter.

I so love encouraging young ones to do art and craft and what better way than to swap ATC's.

ATC's received and sent

Recently Ebony and I traded ATC's with Anne in France ----
The top two are the cards that we received from Anne and they are exquisite.
Anne does the most beautiful cross stitch ATC's and we are lucky enough to each have several of them.
Have you ever seen such a tiny cross stitch sampler in you life--
The one on the left is mine and of course the other one is Ebony's.
Click on the photo to enlarge them and see for yourself.

Below are the ATC's that we sent to Anne--
The one on the right is mine and it is hand felted with hand embroidery.
Ebonies is a paper art one with lot's of glitter---she loves glitter at the moment.

Thanks Anne for asking to trade with us and as usual it is a pleasure.

Embellish Stitch and Enrich samples Week 3

My samples for week 3 are finished and each week we learn so many new things.
This week we were doing woven strips.
The first sample is made with strips of sari silk and other silks embellished onto a fine pre-felt fabric called Embellisher Bundles from the Thread Studio.
After the strips were embellished down we had to cut them up and then place them in a mosiac design which was then embellished in place-- I added strips of silk thread in a grid to complete it.








In the next sample I have woven Funky Felted yarns with a felted wool yarn -embellished it and added some hand stitching.

The third sample is silk Slushies on the pre-felt fabric and hand stitching.

Finally this piece is from the same sample piece as the previous one but this time I also embellished lightly from the reverse side which brings the base colour through to the front .

So much fun and there's still more to come.

June TIF

At last I have finished my June TIF Crazy Quilt block and what can I say------
well it is different--but I am happy with it--------
I was struggling with the colours----but I am also happy with the outcome------
I had changed the design--- but I found it harder to do because I had less seams to embellish and bigger areas to fill.
I will do another one in this design mainly because I don't want just one block standing out on it's own.
OK so what do I think about this month's block I like it.






Now I can get on with all the other things that I have to do.

Calendar Girls Postcard for Susan

It is becoming harder each month to come up with something new for the postcards but this month was even harder for me.
I struggled for inspiration from the picture and in the end I decided to used the right hand side of the page instead of the main bunch of flowers.
I used artists canvas as the base and painted it mauve-- I then added red wire edged ribbon and 3 golden flowers attached with brads.
I printed the first three words of the verse and trailed off omitting the rest of it.

I hope you like it Susan.

ATC Swap

Recently I swapped ATC's with Kim who lives in NSW Australia.
I am sure that Kim doesn't have a blog but I met her through the Stitchin Fingers group where we arranged our swap.
There is so much work on this beautiful ATC--bead stitches-embroidery and lots of charms etc.
A lovely ATC Kim





This is the ATC that I sent to Kim-it is a felted background and I have done hand stitching on it.

Thank you for the swap Kim.

Two Postcards

I received these 2 postcards from Sharon this week------
The first one is my card from her for the Callender Girls swap.
Sharon has used the verse on the calendar as her inspiration-it said--------------

Seek the friend who's hand has helped you
And tell them what they mean to you.

The verse is printed around the hands.
If you would like to see the other postcards that the girls have made you can see them here






The next postcard was from Sharon in a one on one swap that we had.




Thank you Sharon they are both beautiful.

Embellish Stitch and Enrich samples

I am doing the Embellish Stitch and Enrich online class with Dale at The Thread Studio and I must admit I am enjoying it so much and learning a lot.We have finished week 2 and here are some of my samples.
The first one is my challenge piece and it is my interpretation of a Bluebell woods in the UK .
The photo that I used for my inspiration was taken by Helen Miles and she has kindly allowed me use it.
The base is green felt with 2 different coloured pieces of scrim on top-then wool tops were layered to resemble the trees and fields.
I then put the wool threads down to resemble tree trunks and branches-and finally added some hand stitching.
The photo really doesn't do the sample justice as it looks so much better in real life and is better viewed from a distance.








This is the photo that Helen took while she was walking one day near her house.





This is a piece of embellished felt with 4 squares taken from one of last weeks samples--with silk fibers placed on top and then embellished and then I did some running stitch in between the squares.








Next I have used felt with gossamer fuse ironed on to it then blue foil -then several different of hand dyed scrims-next was some blue and red chiffon scarf.
I then zapped it with the heat gun and sprinkled some bonding powder onto this and added some gold foil.

This is a close up of another sample----hand dyed scrim on felt--embellished- then a layer of nylon organza which was zapped with the heat gun and stitched.

This workshop is so informative and the work done by all the students is exceptional.

Dale will be running a second workshop beginning in August so if you are interested you can contact her at The Thread Studio.

June TIF half done

I am half way through the embellishing of my June TIF block.
I thought that I would piece a different design this time because of the colours and also because I have a lot of committments this month I was being a bit lazy.
But I will be honest with you this took a bit more brain work than I had expected -because I only have 4 seams to embellish it was difficult to choose what I wanted to do--but I am happy so far.
I think I will put a spiders web on the cream section across the top because it will be hard to see it if it were anywhere else.

I should have this done in a couple of days.

Purse and Album class.

On Saturday I went to another workshop and made this lovely purse and concertina album.
The kit is by 7 Gypsies and contained the purse and album and the different papers to cover it were seperate
We used about 6 or 7 co-ordinating papers plus 3 different colours of cardstock.
Here is a front and side view of the purse and it has a handle made from Grosgrain ribbon.




This is the front view of the concertina album------------




and the inside of the purse with the album -------------

and several views of the concertina pages in the album--we collaged the papers on all the pages and now I could add photos (if I had some time that is).

another view-------------

and another--------------

and the last one.

This was a great class but I had to finish most of the album at home in the comfort of my own "mess" as I hate being rushed to finish things in class sometimes .

Beautiful ATC's

This week I received these beautiful ATC's from Janet through a one on one trade we had--but I must say I got the better end of the trade.
The two cards on the right are mine and Janet also included the one on the left for Ebony.
They are wonderful cards as Janet is an amazing artist and draws beautiful faces.
The coloured ones are done with watercolours.
If you would like to see more of Janet's beautiful art click here
Thank you Janet I am so happy to have some of you art in my collection of ATC's


.

Here is the ATC that I sent Janet--it is made of hand made felt with machine and hand stitching.

I've Dyed and gone to heaven

I had a great day yesterday with my friend Suzanne dyeing fabrics -thread and silk ribbon.
We used Procion dyes and mainly only used 3 colours--obviously red- yellow and blue.
I wanted to have fabrics- thread and silk ribbon in the one colourway and I must say I am absolutely thrilled with the out come of this lot.
The fabrics are- on the left cotton and on the right silk georgette--the silk ribbon is in 3 different widths and the cotton thread is perle 5.




These fabrics are cotton and cotton scrim

This is silk organza and it has such rich colours in the middle piece but they are hard to see here.

There was a small amount of black added in here somewhere.

Another piece of scrim--------

This is cotton fabric again and here is a small section to show you the colours.

I really am pleased with the way these pieces have turned out--I love hand dyed fabrics but am not a great lover of dyeing my own fabrics because I am not always sure of what I am doing--but I was in very capable hands with Suzanne.

I have a few ideas as to how I will use all of these but we will just have to wait and see.

I made a journal

On Sunday I went to another class at the same place where I made the box of cards last week.
This time I made a gardener's journal.
We used "Basic Grey" papers (aren't they lovely).
The cover is chipboard which we covered with the paper then stamped the name on an extra piece of card stock.
We added the embellishments last.
After we had made the pages and decorated them all we constructed the book and then added the spiral binding by machine.






This is a close up of the embellishments on the cover.





Here is the first section which is for Summer.
There are 6 pages in it--2 each for December -January and February and each month has instructions for jobs to do in the garden (in Canberra).

Here is Autumn and the months of March - April and May with there instructions as well.

Now we have Winter with June -July and August and ditto notes.

Lastly is Spring with September -October and November in here.

I will have to find someone to give it to because I don't like gardening and I can't send it too any of my blogging friends overseas because they are all upside down to us.
I haven't been able to take very good photos of this book because it just doesn't like being photographed and it keeps moving.

Anyway you get the idea as to what it's about.

Last samples for week 1

These are the last samples that I did for week 1 of Dales Embellisher course.
The first one is my challenge piece and it has a background of a painted baby wipe that was embellished to a piece of commercial felt.
I then punched in some wool threads to form a grid.
The flowers are cut out from a sample piece made by embellishing some silk throwsters waste fibers - wool fibers and scrim bits onto a scrim background--then I cut out the flowers -put the centres in and then embellished them slightly to the background--I like the look of this one.




This last one is made from all the bits that I cut off my other samples when I trimmed them off.
I put them onto a fiece of felt and voila something to make some more postcards out of.

Now for week 2

Embellisher Workshop

I am doing the online workshop run by Dale at the Thread Studio and here are a couple of samples of what I have been doing.
I made these 2 little houses that I will attach to another piece of felted fabric later.



This is a baby wipe that I used to clean my stamps when I was doing some cards and I ironed on some painted vliesofix then some gold foil--I then put this on top of some felt and run it through the embellisher I will make some ATC's with this.

This is some wool fibers embellishe onto felt-------------

And the same coloured silk fibers on felt as well so I can compare the difference.

I am enjoying this workshop very much and have learned a lot even though we are only in the first week---I can't wait to see what the other 5 weeks brings.

If anyone is interested in doing this workshop Dale will be running another one later on.

Postcards in and out

I received this lovely postcard from Mary-Lou in Canada during the week and had forgotten to post it onto my blog but better late than never I say.
Mary-Lou is one of the ladies that I have been swapping with on the Stitchin Fingers site and I am sure that she doesn't have a blog.




This is the postcard that I sent to her and she should have it by now.
The background is felted with lots of hand stitching on it.

I hope that you like it Mary Lou and thanks for trading with me.