Birthday girl

Remember back in January I did a little origami?  Well, I thought it was time one of my pieces was a little less headless and homeless and put together this little greeting card.  The hair was stamped with a little home carved stamp and the details added in freehand with a pigment drawing pen.  By now this little girl should be with a 9 year old Birthday Girl, after giving her the vouchers tucked away behind her.  Happy Birthday L!

Fascinating adventures with my glue gun

The big reveal! I was attending the wedding of 2 friends this weekend and fancied adding to my outfit in the traditional English way with a bit of head gear. I decided against the hat - my hair does not recover well from hat hair syndrome. I was considering buying one, but a combination of leaving it a little too late and a small voice in my head (G's) saying "make one, make one). So here it is.

I am pretty pleased with the result - especially as I did not spend a lot on materials.  I only splashed out on the feathers and the hair band I attached it to.  The rest was all in my stash.  The kanzashi flowers were made from silk scraps which I already had.  (To make the Kanzashi flowers check out Diane Gilleland's Kanzashi in Bloom: 20 Simple Fold-And-Sew Projects to Wear and Give there is also blog and flickr group of other readers Kanzashi creations).  The loops were simple tubes sewn from blue silk, turned with my ever faithful rouleau loop turner and then threaded with offcuts of  thin polyester boning.  After a frenzy of gluing with the aid of my glue gun and other supporting fabric and bead glues  - this was the finished result.

Sneak peak

Just showing my work in progress.  Now taking a rest from my glue gun and off to the Post Office.

A little more birthday sewing

 

As previously mentioned someone recently had a special birthday and for this a Kindle was purchased as a present for him, from my sisters and me. It was ordered, duly arrived but all sealed up so I couldn't measure it up, it was my intention to make a simple cover so it was protected straight out of the box. Luckily there are plenty of tutorials out there and I found this one as useful guide for the measurements required for the Kindle. As you can see I stopped short of patchwork and quilting, using some offcuts of denim, Liberty print cotton and quilt wadding to make lovely cover, sparing a few pounds.  It fitted perfectly!

Birthday Peacock

The burnt doodling of the other day was followed by a more planned piece of stitching for a birthday card for a very important gentleman with a very important birthday. I returned to themes of some of my more recent work (if you call 2009 recent), previous studies and combined free machine embroidery with the application of a soldering iron. As with my other work in this style I restricted my choice of stitches to stem stitch and straight stitch.  There was a slight cheat in that satin stitch made an appearance due to straight stitch also being known as single satin stitch, which when stitched together makes satin stitch (who'd of thought?).  Of course, the straight stitch became small enough in the top part of the piece to be considered seed stitching.

I only used 3 different threads for this piece as well, a Madeira 40 metallic for the machine embroidery, a Madeira 12 metallic either doubled or single and a hand dyed 2 ply silk for the hand sewing.  The fabrics used either came from some old sewing projects of mine (pre leaving home ones), a couple of shoe projects and an interesting table melting experience (how I miss those days).

Back to basics

I have finally made a return to hand stitching - I find myself needing the occupation for my hands. This is meant to be stress free - so I have gone back over old textile samples with a view to adding a little more stitch. I found this soldered sample from a few years back, a little leftover metallic thread and got to doodling: fly stitch, french knots, bullion knot, seeding, running, open chain, ladder stitch whatever took my fancy. I was originally thinking of chopping the finished piece up further and make note cards from it, it may become a book cover. But, no stress, the process is more important than the result in this case.

Hinamatsuri

Today is the Japanese Doll Festival or Girl's Day.  I made these paper dolls a few weeks ago from a kit I had, but there are instructions about for similar dolls.  These dolls are sitting down, and these are super skinny (but would also make cute bookmarks).