Foliage to Fabric

Fabric Leaf embellishments

From foliage to fabric

I love using transfer mediums especially

fabric crayons and paints

The simple leaves from my yellow rose were perfect for taking rubbings from with the crayons

I painted over these with the transfer paints

and cut them out

I laid these out face down onto white cotton fabric, covered with more fabric to hold the paper cut outs in place then pressed them with a hot iron.

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I didn't get a good picture of the transferred images before the next stage but have since did some more of these and decided to iron the image onto pale green cotton shirt fabric to good effect.

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Transferred images covered with little pieces of chiffon and organza fabrics

 free machine stitched around the outlines

You can still see the leaf crayon imprints through the organza

Then I went a bit mad and had some fun with some more free machine embroidery

 trimmed to the stitched edge

Fabric Leaf embellishments

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial

Transfer paints by Decca

Fabric transfer crayons by Crayola

The Soul of the Rose

A beautiful title for this lovely painting by John William Waterhouse and one of my favourites by the artist. It perfectly describes the feelings it evokes when I admire it.

I have decided to work within the theme of roses on my experimental journey .....

I've been making lots of mess in my little studio......I'll show you a little bit of what I've been up too

 I wanted to spend more time exploring thread sketching. Some of you may have read my post here about my little play around after seeing it in issue of Cloth Paper Scissors.

So with my theme of roses in mind I had another little play around,

first some sketching.......

I used cartridge paper from a sketchbook

then I added some printed text paper to highlight

I then painted these with artist watercolours and free machine stitched, highlighting the shapes and lines.

 I used an embroidery foot, regular black sewing thread and dropped the feed dogs on my machine.

I forgot to photograph the roses before I stitched nor the stitching process, when I get excited about going on to the next stage I sometimes forget opps

 I also added some gold foil and coloured cellophane from Cadbury's roses chocolates

here are some close ups

textured paper

a leaf skeleton

embossed paper....

pink textured foil

purple cellophane sweet wrapper

I'm pleased with the results..............

here's a better view of the ochre one, I think the paint is a little thick on this, I might wet it and remove some..... see what emerges

 I like the shape and flow of this one....

picture is a bit blurry,

a closer view.

Its great fun to thread sketch .....have a go if you do I would love to see

Pincushions & Cake

I decided to add a flower to my apron after all

........ in the form of a pincushion.

Then I made some bigger ones ...

Peachy Pink Flowers

Pale Pink Rosebuds,

 Peachy Pink Rosebuds

...all available in my Esty shop shortly

Boxoftrix 

I made a cake for Mothers day, I was not overly tempted by any of the cakes or deserts in the supermarket so I decided to make my own

Victoria sponge

..... topped with butter icing and pink caster sugar,

decorated with a sprinkling of silver dragees.
 

........ filled with strawberry formage frais and blackcurrant jam

Delicious it was...even if I did make it myself :)

12/04 Update : I should have got around to it before now but I seem to be saying that to myself a lot these days.

I took some pictures of the lovely gifts my four children gave to me for Mothers day

Wine, Chocolates, two beautiful plants, in colours I love :)

Can you see the beautiful pink glass plant pot just behind the chocolates

There was a chocolate orange too but we ate that before I managed to get a picture

and these are just so cute x
I feel very lucky and blessed to have 4 beautiful children

Bright colourful sparkly

Inspired by my latest collection of jewellery

16 Jewel coloured inchies

Available for sale in my Etsy shop

Photograhic prints of all my inchie sets also now available here

New Textile Jewellery

Im happy at last to be able to finally post pictures of my new collection of textile jewellery.

These new pieces are silk with machine embroidery and hand finished with beadwork.

Big Heart Brooches

Only three of these are available each is unique in colours, shape size and embellishment.

Pendants

delicate layers of silk, machine embroidered

and hand stitched with a selection of tiny beads

crystals

and tiny french knots

with a felt back and hand stitched finished edge

again each one is unique in colour, shape, size and embellishment. 

these are just three of my favourites

The full collection can be seen in my Etsy shop.

Hanging Hearts

 Been having fun playing around with a simple stitch pattern on my sewing machine, some hand embroidered french knots and red ribbon

some free machine stitching with silver thread and added my favourite heart shell buttons

Two hanging Hearts.............

Needle books & patchwork revisited

I'm still working my way through all the half finished projects using up drawer space in my studio.

Here are two needle books I just finished.

Both have silk backgrounds with machine embroidered embellishment.

The flowers on the pink one were an experiment with fabric scraps trapped in crystal organza and machine stitched. They look much more sparkly in real life than the camera can capture.

Both are now available from my folksy store.

Also,

 I decided the next step along the way with the hexagon patchwork quilt.

I wanted to use a woollen blanket, or rather half of one that I have left over from another quilt. I like the weighty feeling that proper woollen blankets give to a quilt, especially one this size, not too big, to be used as a lap quilt it measures 53 inches x 50 inches almost a square. I machine stitched a folded edge of cream sheeting fabric under the patches. This way the shape of the hexagons are not compromised.

This is how it looks now.

.......... and a closer view

The piece is still slightly bigger than the blanket but I'm going to make the edge like an Oxford style pillow case if you know what I mean. I'm not sure how it will look I might not like it and then, if so I'll think again.

OK here is a question for all you quilters out there.

Should I baste this top piece to the blanket now or wait until I have the back piece done?

I'm thinking I might get a panel piece for the back.

Any advice here at this stage?

Stitching with tissue silks

Working some more on the machine embroidery sample at the weekend, I stitched around the flower on the pale blue background with a filler stitch in a pale green cotton space dyed thread.

I came across a little charm pack of tissue silks which I had purchased some time ago in the drawer and decided I would have a go with them.

There was quite a selection of colours so I opted to use a few different ones.

I free stitched over these petal shapes but I think I over did it a bit and sat looking at the piece for quite a while before deciding that I didn't like it. I think it looks too busy!

So I cut into it and removed some sections with my little embroidery scissors.

I also outlined the leaves with a space dyed rayon cord.

I'm not sure how to progress with this, perhaps I should work on the background a bit now.