Christmas

I decided to make a Christmas tree skirt after seeing a friend's one. I searched for inspiration and finally found some in a blog here which is broadly based on a book I have called Scandinavian Stitches .

Here it is all finished

And some pictures of the detail

Bags

I have finally finshed making a couple of bags I've been working on for quite a while. I am happy with the way they both turned out. The beach hut bag was a very simple design with a lining. The spotty bag was a little more complicated but I like the interesting shape.

Notebook

I joined in with a swap where I made some paper following some instructions. I used the paper to make a notebook cover by backing it with felt and sewing around the edges with zigzag stitch. I then used some watercolour pages as the signatures and used a sewn binding with beads. A ribbon attached to the book keeps it closed.

Sweepstake for free online courses

Julie Prichard is running a sweepstake to win free access to all her online courses. I have done quite a few of her courses and have enjoyed them all. The latest set have been taught with Chris Cozen. I find the videos easy to watch and detailed and they are both really responsive to comments and quick with useful feedback.

Here's the little video that Julie has created for this sweepstake

Mixed Media Art Quilt

I have just finished a small (8x8) art quilt for a swap. I used the techniques from Angie Hughes' Inspired Velvet DVD.

The background is velvet that is sprayed and bleached to get the pattern. I used a stencil instead of printing with blocks. I didn't have colourfast silk paint as she uses but I wondered if it would work with other colour sprays. Because the inks weren't colour fast they turned an orange colour from green so I think I'll use the recommended silk paints next time. It looked fine though so I used it to create the art quilt.

I added some metallic foil to create the plant trunks and some chocolate foil for the squares. I added small squares of red fabric. I then covered the whole thing with black organza and free motion stitched on the top. I finished the back off with pelmet vilene and added a gold cord border. I had stitched a hanging pocket onto the backing before attaching so I could just thread a black cord through to hang it on the wall.

Beaded Purse

This is a beaded purse I made for a swap. I needed to make an item using some beads. I have had this quilted purse pattern for a little while and wanted to give it a go. The quilting and free motion stitching went fine but because it is quilted before stitching the purse together the seams were untidy. I used some more of the lining material to bind each of the inside seams which took quite a long time. It was a time consuming project but I'm pleased with the end result. I hope my swap partner likes it. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them and can see more of the details.

Fabric paper

I made some fabric paper using serviettes. I used this sheet of fabric paper to make a book cover and a card.



For the book, I used watercolour cards as signatures and sewed then to the spine of the book cover. The book cover was made from fabric paper back with felt that I oversewed using free motion machine stitching. I added some buttons to the front cover.



I used some of the left over fabric paper to make a card. Again I backed it with felt and oversewed using free motion machine stitching.