Traditional smocking

we had to explore fabric manipulation so here is a very traditional method that works extremely well with spots-see black sample

very wet and dreary mormimg here, going to stay wrapped up. I had a lovely get well card from a friend at work and as soon as my camera is recharged I will post a photo.

Just a quickie, I saw a patterm for a crochet Christmas Scene here,

more living forms

For this exercise we were encouraged to select a selection of papers and bind them to make a book. This way you never encounter a stark, white page. The picture of tree bark is a combination of photo and painted black and white photocopy.

The most difficult thing about being incapacitated in this manner is learning to slow down and accept help!! I'm taking time out to watch Angel, the buffy the vampire spin off and browse my library of books for a design theme to develope next year.

Surfing and blog reading is filling the gaps even if I do look a bit daft with my arm in the air :-)

Daunting syllabus

So September 1997 saw me back in a class room for the first time in many years and faced with a huge list of work, most of which made very little sense. As well as the embroidery side of things, we had to complete 10 design boards for competence in preparing working designs.

The next few posts will rely on photos more than writing as this is easier for me at the moment.Also, if you are like me, eye candy is gentler at the end of a hard day at work.


work from desigh sheet "living forms" printing and stencil using paint and paper

the accidental embroidery student

now the strange thing is that I never intended studying embroidery!
In the eighties I made a couple of rag dolls and stitched one kit, prior to that I has taken art O and A levels, late eighties I picked up on bobbin lace which was later abandoned until recently and got caught up in the cross stitch trend as it swept across the UK. Completed a few kits, designed my own pictures, discovered black work, and stitched one embroidery kit.
I did however discover patchwork and followed the instruction in the magazine to make a cover for the chess table.
Everything changed in 1997 when we decided to go to the Artic Circle on our motorcycle, Biker Ted takes up the story here.
The quilts grabbed my imagination and when I saw the advert for C&G courses I went so sign up for Patchwork and Quilting! See, even when I got there I was intent on doing patchwork, just a one year course to learn the basics.
I never thought about the fact that I would be "interviewed" before being able to sign up! so after being reprimanded for not making an appointment I found myself meeting the tutor with two other prospective students who had bought their portfolios of work with them. Sitting there, quietly wishing the ground would swallow me up, I listened to the tutor explain both the patchwork and embroidery courses and realised that the embroidery courses actually sounded more fun although it meant several years of study.
so there you are, I never intended to study embroidery!
We were strongly encouraged to use recycled materials and cover any files and books used.

postal treats

Sometimes events coincide quite nicely. On Saturday, having enjoyed a night in my own bed rather than on a hospital ward, Ian opened the door to find that the postie had left a package in the porch.
This envelope of Christmas goodies was from my good friend Lise in Norway, made my day!!


Also made Biker Teds day as it is the first time he has ever had a Christmas present just for him!! He is so excited that we have had to get special permission from Lise for him to open it on Christmas Eve.On the doorstep yesterday was a gentleman delivering these beautiful flowers from my work colleagues. My thanks to all of you for this touch of sunshine on a winters day.
May I say a huge thank you to everyone here and on Stitchin Fingers for all your get well wishes and I will be blogging some of my past work, please let me know if it gets too boring.

still here

hi all, well I've been practising with my left hand typing and it is coming along nicely, right hand is currently elevated above shoulder as per doctor instructions.

the next problem will be what to blog about as the view from my room will not be changing much! I thought maybe about posting some of my c&g work- what do you think?

in the meantime, I am goings to sort out some photos no yet posted from this years holiday.

any advice on stitching/sewing left handed would be appreciated he he!!

tempting fate

ok, it was my own fault, remember the ice skating post (of course you do) remember this line- If my posts suddenly stop you know that my attempts were unsuccessful and I'm nursing a broken something.

Well, I've just spent 3 days in hospital having a metal frame put on my arm to a support a broken right wrist!! looks like no sewing for quite sometime as it will probably take 10 weeks or so to heal :-(

feeling a little bit fed up at the moment.

spoke too soon

This was the scene about 20 mins after the previous post....I take it all back....we do get snow, about 0.25 centimetre!!

cold, cold Tuesday

Morning everyone! they promised us snow last night and they lied ! its cold and frosty but no snow as yet. I tend to get excited about snow because we seem to live in a UK hotspot. Every year snow falls around us, even my sister seems more than I do and she only lives 15 mile away, but misses Nottingham.
On the agenda this week is Guzzisue ice skating!! main problem is that I don't know how but I'm sure we can overcome that one hahaha. If my posts suddenly stop you know that my attempts were unsuccessful and I'm nursing a broken something.
The Ice skating proves that Christmas grows closer, the open air rink is up and running, the German Market is buzzing and I get to have time off work next week to catch up with the dreaded housework etc.

In the meantime I am still embroidering the felted surface and making some slow progress on the lace.The brass coloured "beads" are actually the heads of the pins pushed down into the pillow. I hope any serious lace makers following this experiment aren't too horrified by the way I am misusing traditional techniques. I love making traditional lace as well.

work in progress

Working on the embellished background and taking time to enjoy some hand embroidery.

embellisher practise

Finally, between broken needles and visitors (very welcome friends) I managed to play with the embellisher to create some backgrounds and a small bowl. The downside was that I also broke two more needles:-( maybe I need more practise!!

Frustration

Just spent 15 mins trying to replace a needle in my embellisher only to find that it has a thinner shank than the rest of the pack and will not stay in place aaaahhhggg these things are expensive enough without this problem!!!

What If? lace experiment continues

Its cold outside and I don't fancy getting wrapped up to go out so I will be clearing the decks and getting the embellisher out again especially as I have found some bags of fibre previously buried at the back of the cupboard.

I foolishly left my credit card by the computer for the last two weeks and for some strange reason I felt compelled to use it.LOL So much for the credit crunch!! Anyway, I have a strict maximum bid limit on e-bay and really fancied buying some old bobbins to go with my small vintage sewing tools collection.

Now I have the bobbins which are well used and worn but feel good in the hand, I needed a challenge to try them out so I drew an ATC size, shape, closed my eyes and drew lines down through it, grabbed a bag of threads from the drawer (eyes closed) and allowed myself a thicker thread to match. Freeform lace here I come....what do you think, will it work?



I quite like working with the old bobbins, they are comfortable in spite of the imperfection.

I'm off to dig out the embellisher, enjoy the remainder of the weekend!!

What If? lace experiment continues

What if I try and intergrate bobbin lace with oddments of threads using the embellisher? First tentative results here:




seem to be making some sort of progress here :-)

Help, I've lost it!!

My creativity that is! I had the whole day to play, a good stock of paints, fabrics etc and not a single ounce if inspiration!!! So all I have to show is an update on the lace edging.