playing with doilies mostly.

I have been playing about all morning trying to leap off the diving board with the Flora Fibre Fabric (not Fauna as previously mentioned)project. 

The design wall with brown paper to the size of the finished piece. (36 by 26-28). Brown paper is better than white paper in that it's cheap, less precious looking and thus less intimidating. In my opinion anyway. Its also more tonally neutral.

So playing.......

..playing with doilies and discharge paste and markal on some old linens.( Upcycling is what this is. Not ruining)

The fabric above is pale yellow and the image directly above has had discharge paint applied through the doilie. It's still upstairs drying so I don't know what the result will be yet.

This shows discharge paste applied to the actual embroidery (bottom half). How could I do this!!!! But look at the effect. I think it's much more beautiful.

Just think how many hand embroidered bits and bobs have gone to landfill. I am giving them a new lease of life and bringing them out for some fresh air. (actually discharge paste smells bad)

Below is a piece of an ancient curtain that I bought in a charity shop. The left side has been discharged, but instead of getting lighter it has actually got darker

My design is going to be a LOOSE image of a vase of flowers, in paler tones than I normally go for. The background and table will be in shades of cream, yellow and grey, with some white. Then the vase and flowers will be in shades of pink, orange yellow, grey, teal, lime green. Only a few shouts of strong colour.

I am looking forward to trying something a bit different and also working on a small scale.

flora fauna fabric

Lying in bed last night I had a mini panic attack.

It hit me suddenly that I need to produce a small quilt for the Hands Across The Border exhibition.The deadline is end of April sometime.

This is a joint exhibition with The Irish Patchwork Society.

The title of the exhibition is Flora Fauna Fabric.

So my thoughts in bed were that I should do a mini quilt....the dimensions for the exhibition are limited to 36 inches by 36 inches.

So this mini quilt would be a practice run so to speak for my girl quilt and would kind of lead on to the girl quilt.

This morning I noticed the Mahonia in the garden.

The colours are amazing.

I did a loose watercolour in my sketchbook.

Then copied and cut out the same image on freezer paper. Stencilled with Markal and fabric paint.

I removed the freezer paper and coloured the background with diluted fabric paints and silk paints. The whole thing was done on Evalon fabric.

This would benefit from some machine embroidery/ quilting.

However this is not the direction I am going to go in for the quilt. I am thinking more on the lines of piecing, applique and stitching (hand and machine) Flowers, Petals, leaves, tendrils, spirals, seed heads.

But I do love the Mahonia.

...the beer in Andorra

Happy New Year ... I haven't blogged in ages. Christmas was great but it stops life as you know it and on top of wrapping pressies you get wrapped up in all things Christmassy and the sewing gets set aside.

Then before the New Year we went off to Andorra on a skiing holiday which was so brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Am still buzzing.

And I didn't think about sewing once.

Yeahhhhh, this is me in Andorra. Not very flattering but who cares. We seemed to need a coffee break every hour or so, or a hot chocolate break.. hmmm lovely.

But we did do quite a lot of skiing as well.

I really am still buzzing about it. It was such a great family holiday.

I got some lovely quilty gifts this year. My mum bought me 4 half meters of SongBird designed by Carina Gardner which I am thinking will look good with some navy fabric, haven't a clue what design, although I think it would also make a lovely bag. Mum also bought me the pear pincushion. My sister Jennifer bought me the heart buttons.

I will have to get my head screwed on and my a** in gear and start some sewing. 

Before Christmas I bought 12 quarter meters of Amy Butler Soul Blossoms fabric to add to a jelly roll from the same Amy Butler range.

I want to make my daughter a large double quilt. 

She wants a modern look with some cream or off white mixed in. I also like the mushroom grey colour with it and may try and add a bit of that in somewhere. I have a feeling that in December I had some sort of idea in my head about a design. Unfortunately it's gone. Lost in the wrapping paper of Christmas and the beer in Andorra. 

My design wall with my girl quilt is looking pretty bad too. a muddle. Need to take everything down and start afresh. 

No time like the present.