Let the tidying begin. Or not...

First though, here is the craziness of last week in pictures (but not including the train'n'tram trip to the Big Blue scandinavian emporium of white picture frames and the "interesting" journey home again with three Big Blue Bags in a heat wave...)

Stitching a new sort of doodle on a piece of embellished felt

Foiling a huge piece of painted Bondaweb and felt, ready for sari silk strips. Note that the kitchen worktop is not man enough for the job, so I've now moved onto the dining room table ...

Stitching said huge piece of foiled sari silk strips.  

The complete Slater, put to good use sticking down my book covers.

Sari silk bead production line

Picture/gift bag production line

The beginnings of a big foiled bit of velvet (the random one I mentioned last time)

Now with foil

and now with stitch

to be turned into book covers, a bit like this one (sorry for bad pic).  Glad I did these, turned out to be popular!  I also did a demo of this technique on the stand, and lots of people came to watch, even the "serious" oil/acrylic painting types over the way!

My lovely huge corner stand at Art Trail.  Boy, was there Much Faffing, I've never taken so long to put up a display before.  Pleased with my sticks!

But just LOOK what I woke up to on Sunday.  It's Tuesday evening and I still can't face it!  Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow...

Pods and stuff

I said in the last post that "they" were breeding...

I've been meaning to create more of these ever since I made Mr G his "creativity pod" back in November.  Only taken me seven months...

Stitching the cords in place.  That cut edge looks a bit woolly...

desperate attempt to rescue the thin patches...the trouble with felt balls is you can't tell how many layers of wool you've put on until it's too late and you discover you didn't do enough...

approx tennis ball size 

and a slightly bigger one...

and an even bigger one.   This is what they look like if you open them out.

more!

I then moved on to mini amulets - again, something I've been meaning to do more of ever since the "anti-ageing amulet", also back in November.  Here are some beaded ends:

I love them all hanging up together like this.

And finally, here is a bit of a foiling project using my favourite new toy:

Destined to become book panels and cards.  I've just started another "slab" but this time I haven't marked the individual panels, I've done it as one big random pattern, which I will chop up when I've foiled and stitched it all.  I've marked the back with the panels to make this easier.  I've no idea if it will work, but it's too late now...

This weekend we're finding out who the town's most talented performers are. Ridiculously, I've had my arm twisted into taking part with the choir - I was hoping to duck out, but there are only two other second sopranos able to go so I have nobly volunteered.  I think you can listen to it live online but I wouldn't necessarily recommend you do - and I probably shouldn't say that!  I'm just cross about having to go because I'm then pushed for time to prep for my stand at Fairwarp summer fete on Saturday to promote the machine embroidery classes, and then it's less than a week until Art Trail.  Yikes!!! 

Next post, if there is one next week, will be very short and may not have any words.  I predict a few late-nighters in my very near future...

Stash

We had our regional day at the weekend and I seem to have acquired an awful lot of sari silk...

I keep saying I'm going to invent a labeling system, where I attach some sort of label to each new purchase with a very specific description of the project I had in mind when I bought it....because once it's been hidden put away it becomes "stash" and "precious"....I must also get over my scarcity mentality, the feeling of not being able to "use up" my favourite materials because I may never be able to find the colour/visit that shop/remember where I got it again...let's face it, I'm good for sari silk beads for some time now.

Talking of beads, I did a workshop at the show and came home with a sticky needle:

Impossible to focus to photograph, but they are fibre beads stuck together with Paverpol.  Who knew?  Time to dig out that large pot of the stuff...another resource I've been hoarding, but honestly, I've got enough for a lifetime of these little beads...

Unfortunately our branch didn't win the Challenge, but I think our entry did look rather splendid:

My page, if you remember:

and my favourite page:

love that stubble field...

This made me laugh:

Meticulous stitching, moi?!  Should have seen me struggling the other day....I even resorted to a trawl of the internet for a video on how to test if the timing was out on the machine - I have hit a few beads lately.  The method involved sticky tape and a ruler but I don't think it is out, I think my problems were more to do with an ill-advised combination of thin embroidery rayon in the bobbin and thick quilting cotton on the top...just as well the teaching year has ended!

I'd love to say I was busy stitching with the new sari silk, but come on, Art Trail is still more than two weeks away, I've still got time to do more random things before I bring it all together and focus!  I'll show you what I've been working on in my next post...they've been breeding...