Another Drawing

Crow in flight

This is a more or less complete machine stitch drawing of a crow in flight, completed this evening. I like drawing with the sewing machine, there is a certain quality of line that you just can't get any other way.

A Drawing is Finished

Pen drawing with stitching

Detail

I did the actual crow drawing a couple of months ago on tracing paper. I liked the drawing but I wasn't sure how to finish it. Today, as I was looking for something else, I decided the way to finish it was to feather stitch it to a dyed and printed paper. So I did.

Complete (I think)

Not Lost But Still Searching

A few months ago I wrote about a piece I was working on for The Festival of Quilts this August. The idea was that I would post about it as I went along so people could see how it progressed. This didn't really happen as although I remembered to take pictures I didn't get round to writing posts about them.

Anyway, I finished it last night so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures. The quilt has four layers and has been dyed, painted, machine stitched and hand stitched. The crows were painted then machine embroidered then applied to the quilt by hand. All the actual quilting was done by hand. Today I have very sore fingers.

The top layer is silk organza; the middle crow is sewn on top of this layer and the other two are underneath it. The organza layer is attached to the other layers with insertion stitches.

Detail of the bottom crow and insertion stich seam

Detail of the top crow

Detail of main crow before attachment to quilt

Things and Stuff



Button Duck Card



Shrink Plastic Jewellery

 As well as doing my glass yesterday I also made a birthday card for my mini side-kick and I made some shrink plastic jewellery. The card combines two of my favourite things; ducks and buttons and it is finished off with some blue lace 'water.'

Shrink plastic is just fun, it's a bit like magic and essentially means you can make cool jewellery just by colouring in plastic (special stuff, don't try this with any old plastic) and baking it!

Owl Brooch

Swallow Pendant

Stained Glass Swallow

I tried to post this yesterday but I couldn't upload any pictures. Now that I can, here is the post!

Bird suncatcher hanging up

I can't believe it's over two weeks since my last post, how time flies! Anyway, I've been off this weekend which has been lovely and today I've been getting back to my stained glass. It was my Nana's 80th this week so I wanted to make her something and I decided on a bird suncatcher. I did this design a while ago and decided it would be perfect for the occassion. I did swallow type colours as I had lots of bits of blue and a few bits of red and I love swallows. I think the red really finishes this bird off. I've also done the soldering on a leaded piece I started months ago. I will eventually finish it! Again, it has a bird theme (but I'm not obsessed, I just like the shapes and colours!)

Design and cut glass

The finished suncatcher

Catching the sun(!)