Moving home

After all the fuss, its moving day tomorrow. The house is just about stripped bare, horrible. We hope only to be in our temporary accommodation for 4 weeks or so, so all this will be to do again. I have a workshop on Monday too, I think I can buy all the requirements from the tutor so will just take my sewing machine with me, I should be able to find that amongst all the boxes in the house!

Still moving

Whilst clearing up and packing the other day I found this fabric crammed into a small container. It was done at the workshop, I put some pink and purple paints onto damp fabric. The paint we used is thicker than Setacolor and does not spread as well, also it changes the hand of the fabric and leaves it stiff quite often. I had to add some Setacolor paints to the pot as the paint was not spreading well, but have to admit I am quite pleased with these fabrics, nothing amazing, but not bad. They will probably languish for quite some time as this is not quite the sort of colour I usually use. There are two fabrics here, the crystal organza and one behind it which is a thinner organza, but has come out the same colourways.

Postcard, Frayed around the Edges

I have finally finished this UFO. One or two edges were a little too frayed and insecure, so a little ribbon, a seam embellished with sequins, aa few more beads, and hey, look what you see now! And I am definitely frayed around the edges with one week left before moving date......

Postcard, crazy patchwork

I do need to trim this to size and add backing, neaten edges, etc., but have packed my sewing machine up so will have to wait till I can find cutting mat and blade, plus threads to completely finish this card. The beading catches the light nicely, but doesn't show too well in this picture.

More Crazy Patch

I've done some more work on this postcard. A bit of beading, some more seams embellished, although I think I may undo the pale pink embroidery towards the bottom of the card, it went a bit crooked and is bugging me. Also I think the pale pink is the wrong colour to have used. Once I have re-done that seam and squared the card off it will almost finished, but no! I have just noticed another seam to embroider. A crazy patchers work is never done !

Crazy Patch postcard

In order to keep my sanity whilst in the moving process I decided to do some hand work on my crazy patch postcard. This is still a WIP, I believe you will be able to see a needle still attached! I think I must have been very stressed out yesterday, there is an overabundance of french knots! Am just busy attaching some ribbon a dear friend bought back from USA with her, will be a nice feel to this postcard for sure.

Painted chiffon

This fabric is more green than the photo suggests. I first damped the fabric and then dripped yellow and blue paints onto it. I squished the fabric together to make sure most of it was covered with paint and to meld the two colours together. Then I set it in the sun to dry. If you set out the fabric crumpled up the paint rises to the top of the 'hills' so if you keep turning the fabric you get a nice finish to it. This was painted as part of the community workshop. I have masses of painted fabric at home so donated it to the project as they will be using small pieces to join together some of the blocks when they create the larger panels.

On Saturday we had a workshop at my textiles group. We had been invited to join in the Community Arts project run by the local city council. They are making huge banners depicting the personal history of community members. Firstly we painted some fabrics, which is not new to me, but then we played with heat transfer paints, something else I have done before, but not for some time. Since I live on the Sunset Coast, I decided my personal experience would be sunset. To use these paints you firstly paint on paper and then transfer your design to fabric by means of heat, iron presses in this case. You can use a normal iron, but it means standing there holding the iron in place. I firstly transferred the fabric onto crepe and then onto a gauzey fine polyester fabric. When you put the three laters together you get

Additions to round robin

I did say I would find it hard to stop working on this needlecase. I did a few quick additions before I sealed to envelope to send it on its way around Australia. The Butterfly now resides in a flowering bush, and the rosebuds have some leaves added in my own hand dyed silk thread. It doesn't really show in this picture, but the additional stitching of leaves on the orange satin has made it pucker delightfully so that the fabric catches the light in interesting ways. I had not considered this aspect of using satin before, I tend to avoid it because it is so darn slippery! Shown here is just half of the needlecase, the rest will be worked on by some other lucky lady.

I'm back

Went away for a few days R & R with my husband, now it is back home to the realisation that moving day is just over 2 weeks away. And the building inspector from the mortgage company has just phoned to say he will be here Tuesday morning! Golly, its a bit late when everyone is working towards 27 April. I moved a carload of stuff up to our other house this morning and am planning to shift more in the next day or so.

Textile work is going to be on the backburner for the next week or so, I'm afraid, but I have worked on a needlecase round robin that arrived for me to embellish. I stitched the ric rac braid down with cretan stitch and added beads, plus the cloisonne butterfly. Then I decided to use the bright orange corner piece to add a yellow silk ribbon rosebud spray. I could have carried on forever on this piece, but have to leave room for five other people to work on it, so although I may add a few beads or leaves to the rosebuds, I am essentially finished with my share of the work.

Happy Easter

Here's a bowl of Easter Eggs for you. My husband was given these eggs by two Romanian clients. They are painted and then leaves from the garden are pressed into them to create the leaf impression. They are so pretty I will hate cracking them to get to the hard boiled egg inside!

'Lost'

This quilt is for auction in aid of Alzheimers Research.
Torn and burned fabrics to represent burned and unwired brain cells
Wrapped fabric beads
Hand embroidered couching with hand dyed silk threads
The overlay to the quilt reveal and hide the work underneath. This represents the flashes of intelligence and understanding that come to dementia sufferers.
Quilt in deliberately 'unfinished' state like the lives of the patient.

Tumbleweed - framed

At last I have found a frame which is right for the 'Tumbleweed' postcard. I really like the look of postcards which are framed, it gives them an integrity, a right to say I am a piece of artwork. I hadn't intended to get a honey coloured frame, but it seems to enhance the colours of the postcard. Life is good.

I have also got my idea for finishing off the Alzheimers quiltlet, just have to collect myself up and actually do it. Would feel better if I didn't have a touch of vertigo, which seems to have been attacking me on and off all week. We have sold our house, and now only have to pack and finish clearing out.

'Lost'

I have been busy today distressing fabrics for the Alzheimers quilt. Should start to attach them to the quilt, but I am still working out how to do it. Am not sure if they will be too fragile for a quilt that has to be posted and then auctioned at a fundraiser. Then I am undecided whether to hand stitch the fragments to the quilt or machine embroider. Decisions, decisions!

The lace curtain and doyley quilt is not on the backburner, just has turned into something I can take out when I need some hand sewing.

How cool is this?

I've been reading about string quilts on a few blogs, someone sent me the following links to string pieced projects and using up scraps in this fun way. There are more string quilts here.

Since I've been looking at my stash somewhat ruefully these days, I am thinking maybe another string pieced quilt is on the way. I have already made 3 reversible quilts, which are basically string pieced, but my stash still remains mile high!