Stitched house and a butterfly

"Once upon a time there was a Little House way out in the country.
She was a pretty Little House and she was strong and well built."
So begins Virginia Lee Burton's classic The Little House, winner of the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1943.

 This ATC was stitched with wool on water soluble stabiliser and then needlefelted, this was from an article by Jan beaney and Jean Littlejohn, the stitching queens in " fabric from cloth" Quilting arts 48 and also here.
I used my prompt cards for this one and they were
Use heavy stitching
Add a charm
I had recently read the article in QA and decided this was a great way to use heavy stitching.  I selected a little charm of a house, which inspired the design ( but forgot to add it in the photo.

Here it is with the charm added with a brad.

Remember this digital projection of a piece I started using prompts?
Well I have done a little bit of work on it after a lot of thinking.  My work often takes a lot of that before I find what I want to do with it.

Here is where I am at the moment.  I was inspired by Melanie Testa  "Inspired to quilt" and using sheers, to add a sheer layer and as I was about to stitch it, I thought of using some black sheer and reverse applique to outline the butterfly.   I like the effect, however I couldn't solder the edges of the black because I already had a sheer beneath it, so I have a few problems with the black sheer fraying as a result.  I have stabilised it, but it looks terrible close up, so I am bow going to do double sided blanket stitch around it to make it look better, I will do some free motion embroidery over the sheer, then I will create sheer flower silhouettes with the soldering iron and sew them down.

Let life inspire you.

Sunny days and sketching

Today, another screenprint

This piece of screen print was just asking for a sun.  I used some red organza backed with fusible and applique'd/cut it with the soldering iron (I showed this technique here)  I added some dimensional gold paint for the rays and put some brads in the corners.  OOps, no stitching at all in this one.

OK - now a quick glimpse into my sketchbook for this last week.

A stylised japanese tree, based on a dover illustration

a design from a lolly (candy) wrapper.

Some leaf shapes ( the white bits you can see on the page are a result of using a black marker in my book - it creates spots on the back of the page - which I have to paint over)

A design for a quilt, which might use applique or printing.

A leafy doodle which might be interesting as a free machine embroidered wholecloth - however it will have to wait as I already have one in progress)

A sprig of rosemary from the garden, sketched in outline ( Now write - "I must not use markers" one hundred times, lol)

And finally, another quilt design that I am sure I will get to... one day.

Remember to create something today!
oops! and don't forget to check out Lisa's ATCs

fly stitch and some running water

today's ATC is about two challenges in the one task.  I decided to combine TAST (Take a stitch tuesday) on Pintangle with my ATCs and here is my first result.

Just a little fly stitch swirl.  TAST is a weekly chellenge run by Sharon B at Pintangle.  I'm pretty sure she has near a thousand participants, as there were over a hundered a month ago when she stopped adding to the list
I sketched out my design for this as I was getting confused

And I also drew a little spiral on my fabric as a guide with an iron off pen.

And now, a little peek at a fused collage a' la  Laura Wasilowski (Quilting arts TV episode 401)

Here is the basic fused picture.  This one I am going to embroider by hand in the evenings.

I have begun with some swirly water (close up on right).  Mostly, I will use straight, running stitch, lazy daisy, seeding. blanket stitch, but of course, now I will have TAST to inspire me as well!

happy stitching!

Something simple and another journal

Ah, a bit late after the big storm this morning, but oh, so cool - a great day for working!

Today is just a bit of screen print with some free motion meandering.  I loved the fabric so much, I didn't want to put much on to of it.  I was trying out Melanie Testa's knife edge finish from her book "inspired to quilt"
And here is a little book I created recently from Pam Carriker's Art at the speed of life.

I folded mt book, then I changed my mind and pulled it apart and painted the papers

Bit of a messy job.  I used mt homemade glaze medium, which is white glue 1:1 with water.

Here is my cover after collaging and addin molding paste

And after glazing - I love this texture.  In the book there are lots more layers, but I stopped here as I liked it.

and the book.  Almost to good to draw in, but I will be adding to it as I go through Pam's book.

happy creating.

Serendipity and a peek

OK, ATC number 2.

Serendipity, because mine is shiny and molding paste, too.  See Lisa's here.
Playing card, molding paste through a stencil. Starburst moonglow spray (I got it here) and silver marker

Also, today, a peek into one of the projects I am working on.
You may remember these sketches

Which ! posted recently.
Well, they have multiplied and are fast becomming thread paintings

these are simply what i call underpaintings, or sketches.  At this stage I am just sketching in colours and getting even stitches to cover the stabiliser.

And a new one.  This one I did not even sketch in my book!  I just sketched it straight on the stabiliser from a photo taken by a friend.  Not quite sketched out yet.  some water, sky and trees to go

Now this one, I did consider asking you guys if you could work it out, but I decided that right now it is a bit too hard.  It looks like an aerial photo, I suppose, but it will actually be a cross section of an opal.  the centre strip will be full of all the little coloured bits and black and dark blue lines.  The orangy bits are the rock the opal is living in.

ATC No. 1.

Let's hope this is the first of very very many!
Here is my first ATC-a-day.

Fabric paper, green crushed velvet, free machine embroidery, shot organza, beading, blanket stitch edge.
I must have been half asleep when I squared this one up as there is more border at the bottom than the top.  I suppose I could have left it and you all would have thought it was by design, lol.  I just put the bugle beads at the bottom to make it seem that way!

Don't forget to check out Lisa's gorgeous birdie ATC here.

By the way, I will still be posting other stuff, tutorials etc as separate posts

Don't forget to create every day!

Newspaper collage

Today is just a short post, and happy new year to those of you on my side of the international date line.
I will begin posting my ATCs (every day OMG!) starting tomorrow, ie on the first US time, since it is my friend's idea and she is in the US.

Down to business.
I love Kim Thittichai's work and follow her adventures all the time.  One of the things she has begun using is newspaper and scrap paper.  If you have been reading my blog, you know I have been using newspaper as a great base for my artbook pages.
In December's issue of Workshop on the Web, Kim had a great article on making a collage using newspaper and so I had to have a go.

 Here are some pieces of newspaper which I have gessoed, randomly painted and them stamped with my motif of leaves. (The stamp was made from a piece of wood with elastic bands glued with contact adhesive.  I often do this with stamps that are composed of only lines)

Here is my collage assembled.  The leaf at the bottom left has been free machines and applied.  I decided I liked the rough edges, so I free machined the collage to a backing.  I have also added a bit of foiling.
The background fabric is only pinned around the stretcher bars, because I intend to do some hand stitching to isolate the leaf and to integrate the collage into the background.  I will also tone down some of my over enthusiastic foiling with some gesso and stitching.

OK, time to get some work done!