We are now up to week two lesson two

I have done so much since my last post I don't know where to start. I guess I should start where I left off I guess.

 In this photo I have taken the breif given to us & used a transfer design supplied by Karen the teacher. I have modified it a bit to be my own design though. We had to section off a part of the design & colour it using only one colour. I have used a cherry cobbler (Stampin Up felt tip pen)

 On the next section of the lesson we took the original transfer & used it to back some cut outs on the next page. I have modified it again to be my own design. I have also extended the design out side of the cut out shapes. I have also taken the design & using sections of it, drawn it on to hexagons shapes to represent a quilt.

 I have further embellished this page by added some FME flowers & leaves, to show how they could work with this design.

 This page is completely different. I was at first going to do a dragonfly design, but did the flower one instead. I will how ever work this dragonfly design further. The inspiration for this design was from a magnet on my fridge. I drew it then played around with the sizings 0n the printer.

 Here I have decided to add another page over the top of this design. I wanted to create it as a window into the next page, making the reader want to know more. Around the edge of the circle cut out shape I have done needle lacing. The page was attached my tying it to the other page

 This is a piece of FME done onto some quilters muslin, A close woven sort of scrim. It has got a bit more work to be done to it yet before it is finished. I am going to added some quilted Hexagons & some hand embroidery.

 This piece of FME (Free machine embroidery) was done onto some silk organza, that was kindly given to me in a pack of other silk fabric, by a dear friend Isabell. I love how this looks like a series of spider webs.

 This is where week two lesson two starts. We had to collage layers of tissue paper together to give strength to one edge of the piece of tissue that we would use as a page in out books. After the whole thing was dry we then did some FME along the edge of it. It has created a lovely lacy type edge on the tissue. I still have soem hand embroidery that I want to do on this page before it goes into my book.

 I took my experiment further by using some very old dress pattern paper that I had, & added small amounts of a printed tissue paper to the collage. Once dry I then FMEed it & then did some needle lecing on the edge.

Note to self: never do needle lace when you are tired. as you make mistakes. Mine being that I started the needle lace on the wrong side. I was half way throuh before I realised. The corrected myself & left it as it was. As the saying goes: " It is not a mistake, but an extension on my creation" :-)

 In these next two photos I have used two other types of papers for the FME. The first above being some brown paper. The kind you get to cover books with. I have scrunched it & flattened it several times. In doing this it breaks up the fibres in the paper & turns it into a sort of fabric. Lovely for stitching into, both machine & hand. And it does not tear as easily as other papers once scrunched & made into the fabris. The sample below is done on silk straw paper, again another lovely paper to stitch on.

I have really enjoyed this process of making lacy papers & fabrics. I will use this technique again & again I think. Well lots mor to be getting on with ready for my next post. Till then, Cheers.
Warm Hugs
Your Friend
Elizabeth xxx

Further Developement of colour & stitch

In this photo I have turned the extension page from the previous lesson over so that I could see what I had done on it. So that I could get inspiration.

It was suggested that I do a design using horizontal lines. I took that on board but used diagonal instead. I am not to keen on geometric shapes. I much prefer natural flowing lines. Hence the second drawing on this page.

This is a close up of what I drew. I have used water colour markers that I have for stamping & card making. They are sort of like the copic pens.

After finishing the drawings. I decided to add a little bit of stitch to see how it would look & also to see what stitching I was going to use. Unfortunately I could not do the bullion stitches I was going to use on the paper as it kept on tearing. The paper used for this page is cartridge paper.

When I had finished the work on this page, I thought to myself. How am I going to use this in fabric & stitch? I didn't know if I wanted to use the whole design for a sample in my book. So decided to just use a section of it. You will see further down what I have done. (I Hope)

Here I have sectioned off a piece of the more natural design. In doing this I was able to see more of what I had done & more ideas evolved from this, as you will see in the next photo.

From the first design of the natural one, I came up with the idea to do my initial. I still have a lot more to do to the initial. I am embroidering some stumpwork leaves & petals. I want to incorporate raised elements into all of my work. I will add more photos when it is finished.

 I am also liking the geometric one more too now that it is in stitch. It has potential. So looking forward to the next lesson to see what we will be doing next.
Warm Hugs
Your Friend
Elizabeth xxx

Day Two of Embroiderer's Ledger

Today was an extention of what we did on Thursday. I have added some Pantone colours to my colour swatches, as I will use these in the future to colour the wire for the stumpwork elements that I want to do for this piece.

Todays lesson had us taking a part of our image we liked & paint it. We also did more colour swatches & added some embroidery. I have done the French knots onto some Mulberry paper. It was lovely to work on. And turned out a lot smaller than I had thought it would.

I had to extend my page from the other day as it was only A4 in size. I have added a canvas page as my extention. It has been lovely to paint on this medium & very easy to stitch into. I think that I will use the canvas a little more throughout this Ledger.

All I have to do now to these pages is add some notes. I am thinking that I will extend the pages down below all of the work, & have it so they fold up. Then again I may do something completely different. Decisions, decisions, decisions ☺☺☺
Warm Hugs
Your Friend
Elizabeth xxx

New Class with Karen Embroiderer's ledger

I have started a new class on line with Karen Ruane. It is called " Embroiderer's Ledger.

I have made a new book for this class. The cover was made after a recent workshop with Annette Hinde.

The cover is made of fabric, paper, lace & embroidery. Then the whole thing is painted in Gesso & then the colours added. Once the whole thing was dry & the gel medium over the whole thing. I then added some mother of pearl flower beads & some diamonties.

This is the inside of the cover. I have added a pocket to the inside cover so that I could keep all the bits & bobs for the class safe & together.

I have used a pamphlet stitch to bind all the signatures into this book. The papers used are a combination of water colour paper & cartridge paper.

This is day one of the class with Karen. Colour matching. I have used a piece of William Morris wrapping paper for my image of inspiration. Then I have used water colours & water colour pencils for the swatches. The threads are Au Ver A Soie silk threads. I have found this lesson very good, & will look in the future to using this piece in an embroidery of my own.
Warm Hugs
Your Friend
Elizabeth xxx

Vintage sewing book

This is the book that I have been making. And the book that the sewing tag was made for.  Above is the cover of the book.

Pages 1 & 2. The doily is one that my mum gave me & the studs are some that my friend Isabell gave me. Page 2 has an embroidery that I did for module one of my city & guilds home work.

Pages 3&4. The little book in the centre of page 4 is  a book that is filled with pictures of every size needle there is. So now if I have needles in a pin cushion & I am not sure of the size. I can just pull out this book & place the needle on the pages & see which one it is.

There are still many pages to be filled in. And I will have fun collecting all the bits & bobs for them.
Warm Hugs
Your Friend
Elizabeth xx

Im Back ☺☺

Sorry I have been away for so long. I have been unwell & extremely busy. But here I am and getting back into the swing of things. Parden the pun :-) I will start this post with a tag for the tag tuesday challenge.

When I saw the challenge for doing a tag themed on sewing, my mind went crazy (not that it has ever not been crazy:-) ) I have been making a fabric book, that I have been filling with antique sewing ephemra for some time now, & when asked to do the tag, I had just what I needed. This tag will go inside my Vintage sewing journal.

I have been trying to get through all of my UFO's these past few weeks. This needle case that I started way back in 2005/06 sometime, is now finally finished. YAAAAAAAA!

Now I am embroidering lots of flowers onto some water soluble fabric, ready for another Tag & also for another UFO that I started quite some time ago as well. This one was an online course that I did through the HEN web site. Called " The Stitches Embroidered Garden Journal" with Victoria Crowden Payne from Freedom of stitches.

The piece has sat in my room, waiting for inspiration & me to finish it. Now I am. I have been inspired to finish this piece, by another project that I have been working on.

I am working with a few friends through a book called Experimental textiles by Kim Thittichai. Last week we did the journey painting. Mine is 6 meters long by 29cm high. Anyway, as I started painting things where not looking so good. Then as I progressed it all started to look better. I have called the piece "My Journey To Mt Warning". From this piece the ispiration came to finish my Stitches embroidered Garden Piece.

I will post more on these two pieces later. Till then
Warm Hugs
Your Friend
Elizabeth xxx

Added items to my Etsy store

I have just added some paper flower stickers that I make to my Etsy store. Do pop over & take a look. They are great for scrapbooking, card making & all other kinds of Mixed media. They can also be used on embroideries if you so choose.

Warm Hugs

Your Friend

Elizabeth xx