The Box is Finished

Yeh----it is all stitched up-amd I am pleased with the outcome.
It was a very time consuming job stitching all the individual pieces together and the more pieces I had stitched together the harder it became but I got there in the end.
I have tried to take the best photo that I could without showing some of my donkey stitches (big and uneven) so that you still believe that I am a neat sewer.

At least it hasn't become another UFO tucked away somewhere.

The Two Faces of Ebony

This is a photo of Ebony that I took earlier this week.
She has had her hair braided by her mother and no it isn't all her own hair-she has hair extensions in it.
Oh and no she doesn't wear glasses either there are no lenses in the glasses--she just likes doing things like this just for fun.
She was also wearing a pair of red and white striped sox that came up over her knees and she had on a pair of dark blue denin shorts as well.
I am always amazed at what she turns up wearing but then her dad was the same when he was her age.




This is what she looked like the week before.

A surprise gift

Recently I sent Jen a pile of old paper patterns for her to use in a mixed media project.
Yesterday I received this wonderful journal as a thank you gift from her.
She had used the patterns to make a fabric by stitching them together and then she painted them with gesso (I think).
Next she added some embellishments----------------------oh so beautiful.





Here is a close up of the embellishments-------------





And this is a close up of the back cover...................

And the inside sleeve and journal pages.

I love it Jen and thank you very much for making it for me.

Guess What?

I'm doing some knitting---------------- Now knitting is something that I don't do much of anymore but I saw this strange looking fibre in our local fabric /craft store and it had a funny looking scarfe displayed near it that took my fancy. Well the blurb said it only took one ball and could be knitted in a couple of hours so I thought why not.

When you stretch the fibe out it looks like this-----

You loop the R/H needle through the pieces that I have pinned out above making 5 stitches then you turn the 5 stitches around and taking the next 5 pointy pieces you knit them through the previous stitches like normal knitting-----

and you end up with this ruffle scarfe..

Confused---well it is easy to do just not easy to explain.

Here is another view of it hanging.

I now just have to find another 80 minutes to finish it.

Makings of a box

Recently I did a class at the Embroiderers guild in pattern darning and I did a sample of Kogin darning -you can read about it here. A couple of weeks ago in our Creative group we were shown how to make a box and I decided to use my Kogin sample for the top section. I did two rows of running stitch around the edge of the section to give it a border and made the lid of the box. For the rest of the box pieces I used a fabric that I had rescued from the Op-shop which was made out of had dyed Shibori fabric. This is the base of the box------ These two sections are the sides of the lid (top one) and the sides of the bottom of the box (bottom one). It took a bit of fussy cutting to get all the sections out of the same design but I think it will be worth it in the end. Sorry about the pins sticking out of the top one but I still have to stitch it and the others. All the top pieces of fabric are plain and the sides of the bottoms have the same pattern on them

Hopefully I will get it finished soon----:-))

Fairies in my garden

This morning when I woke up and went out the back door I was greeted by a heavy fog---but that was not all. I could see that the spiders had been busy overnight on my clothes line. Because we have had a rather wet summer this year there has been a lot of those long spindle legged spiders all over the place. As soon as we remove the webs they are back again. Anyway this is what greeted me this morning-------

Very pretty with the moisture from the fog on them.

Oh and these pictures will definitely "embiggen" just click on them and see.

Ta Da

The Church banner is finished----and it will be officially hung on Palm Sunday April 17th. The sides are straight even though it looks as though they are slightly curved in. The cross was sewn on first but the sections where the crown of thorns and the palm leaf go under the cross were left unstitched so that I could slip them under at a later time. I am not sure if it is noticeable if you click and enlarge the photo (or as MA says "embiggen"it) but the crown of thorns has thorns that are 3D. that stand up. I also added rows of stitching in variegated thread on the cross to resemble the look of the grain in the timber.

All in all I am rather pleased with the way it has turned out.

Oh and I received my Cloth Paper Scissors magazine this week after it had a holiday in New Zealand.