Another Creative Catch-Up Post!

Am I the only Mum who inherits mobile phones from their children? Although I like technology, I resisted mobile phones for a long time as ...... well ...... people seem to become welded to them, and I fiercely resisted this! However, even I could eventually see their worth, but my first phone was a free one after applying for a credit card and I had if for ages!! It was bright pink and I got a lot of stick about it from my son!

It was very basic but eventually, when James was making one of his frequent phone changes, I inherited his old one and this pattern has continued ever since! My latest inherited phone is an iPhone but I decided it needed some some of case to protect it.

One blog I follow is Wendy Gratz's Shiny Happy World and I was inspired by a pattern on her blog. Also, recently I found a lovely embroidery book for sale in a local charity shop for only £1.50.

 The embroidered butterflies in this book are gorgeous! I was especially taken with the Orange tipped butterflies you can see on the cover. We've seen quite a few of these on our walks recently (when it hasn't rained!) and they just shout out 'Summer' to me.

The felt I had already bought some time ago. It is very thick woollen felt, approximately 4mm thick, that I got from Blooming Felt. The beauty of this felt is that, since it is so thick, you can do embroidery on the surface just by holding it in your hand; no hoop or frame is necessary.

You can see from the jumble of my supplies that I traced the male and female butterflies onto thick tracing paper. I then used the prick and pounce transfer method, using cornflour as the 'pounce'. It just about worked! I traced over the cornflour spots with a permanent marker, happy that all the pen marks would be covered by the embroidery.

I did the female butterfly at the top first. It has been a long time since I last did any freehand embroidery, so she was my trial run, if you like. She's not bad, although I can see one or two places where my stitching is not quite as accurate as I would have liked. The male looks better ..... although overall I'm pleased with how they've come out.

I then just used black cotton a broder to stitch the sides of the pouch ..... and now I have a very practical, girly, phone cover :)

Finished the Christmas Tree Decorations ..... Just!

Phew! Just about made it! I finished the Christmas tree decorations of Minstel and Flossie to give to James and John.

I finished Minstrel first. For both of them, I used a design I found here. I searched everywhere for a simple, cartoon like design, aware that when cutting felt the design needs to be simple shapes. As a reminder, here's what Minstrel looks like .....

A simplified approach to his colouring but I'm pleased with it :)  I was especially keen to portray his spider-like eyebrows and get the black circle under his chin.

The back says from Mum and Dad as Minstrel is for James :)

Now, Flossie was more of a challenge, given that she is a tortie and a real mix of colours. As a reminder..... here she is :)

I had to severely simplify her colouring but I think I've just about captured 'essence of Flossie' :)

Zooming in a bit closer, I've included a black line around her eyes as one distinguishing feature she has is what almost looks like black eyeliner round her eyes. Her eyebrows are much shorter than Minstrel's and go straight up. If I could have, I would have made her whiskers more luxuriant as that is a key feature of hers. I've also included the little black bit on her nose and the black spot on her chin.

All in all, I'm very pleased with how they have turned out and they were well worth the effort of making them.

By the way, they are both about 9cm high.

Finally, when I last posted about the tree decorations I was making, I showed am image of a pink one that was in the process of being made. Here's that pink one as a finished decoration.

Now .... I'm off to finish wrapping my Christmas presents!!

More Christmas Decorations

I've been steadily carrying on with making Christmas tree decorations for close family members.

With this one, the central ribbon band is using some lovely ribbon that was very reasonably priced in Lidl.

Along the top and bottom edge, I have sewn small golden beads. The curvy loops are chain stitch with small pearl beads sewn in each loop.

The back has the same type of greeting as with all the other ones I've made.

This one is destined to go to my brother and his wife. 

The one I have just completed today has been a bit of an experiment.

My sister-in-law and her husband are both keen fishermen (or should that be fisherpeople?) and I wanted to make an ornament shaped like a fish. I realise a fish is not the first thing you'd expect as a Christmas tree ornament, but they really do love fishing ..... and, anyhow, a fish is a Christian symbol so I think I can get away with it at Christmas!

So far, my work with felt makes me tend towards simple shapes that are easy to cut! So I searched round the Internet and eventually found a cartoon fish drawing that I based my design on.

OK .... no fish I know has lips like this! I have also used silver beads to outline a few scales and red beads to add detail on one of the fins. Still, I really rather like her ...... with those lips, it must be a 'her' don't you think!

Of course, there's the usual greeting on the back :)

I think she looks quite cute and I hope they like her :)

Christmas Is Coming ......

.... and thoughts turn towards Christmas cards and presents.

Last year, for the first time, I cross-stitched Christmas cards for close family members and I was really pleased with the results. However, at the time, I thought it would be rather a shame if people threw the cards away (heaven forbid!) and could see how they could be turned into Christmas tree decorations quite easily.

I wondered whether this year I could directly create Christmas tree decorations so they could serve as a 'Christmas card' but then be kept.

Earlier in the year, I joined the site called Creating the Hive after a recommendation from another blogger. This is a brilliant source of creative inspiration! Through this, I found a post on a blog which gives free PDF patterns for felt Christmas tree decorations. In their examples, however, on the back of the ornaments they use fabric sheets that can be printed on to produce 'labels'. I haven't got any of this fabric paper, so I decided to stitch a Christmas greeting on some cotton material I had using simple back-stitch with one single strand of embroidery cotton.

The red and green flower pattern ornament was the first one I did.

When I recently looked after my little eight year old god-daughter, Hannah, I asked her what colour felt she'd like her ornament to be made from, and she chose pale blue. This was the second one I made.

She then had the brilliant idea of making one in a star shape. So that was the next one I made.

The last one I completed I used felt to made a Christmas tree decoration on the 'bauble'.

I'm currently working on a pink one using ribbons as well as beads. I think it will be going to my nephew who lives in a very 'girlie' environment of his partner and two daughters!

I have several other ideas for different members of my family. For my sister-in-law and her husband who are both keen anglers, I think I will do a fish shape. For John and James, I have an idea to try and do two ornaments in the shape of a cat's head and try to make one have Flossie's colouring and the other be like Minstrel. This might be easier said than done ...... so watch this space!

Stitched Picture of James Is Finished

I actually finished this on the 6th November but I have been so busy with other things that I just haven't got round to blogging about it!

How did I go about it? Well .... here are the things I used:

A friend who works in a wood yard got me an off-cut of wood to use as a base for the picture and kindly rounded the edges for me. I recently bought some wadding to wrap round the wood, so as to stop the silk from wearing on the edges of the wood. The map pins were to pin first the wadding and then the silk to the wood to help keep things taut when doing the lacing on the back.

Perhaps the wood is more visible on this picture above.

I carefully pulled the wadding round the wood and did use the pins to keep things in place before starting to sew the lacing with ordinary white cotton thread. I've never done this before but it went surprisingly smoothly. I trimmed the wadding in the corners so there wasn't an extra thick layer in the corner; if you look closely, you can see where I sewed the wadding to produce a sort of mitred corner.

Here you can see the front. I was very pleased with how well the wadding covered the wood.

Here I've laid the wadded-wood onto the embroidery to try and work out how much of the silk I can cut off. When I attached the silk to the embroidery frame, I had to use a piece of silk that was much bigger than the actual design. Still, the little off-cut will come in handy for something! Minstrel is keeping a close eye on me to make sure I don't make any mistakes!

Here is the silk embroidery with the lacing all finished. Getting the corners to lie flat was a bit fiddly but it went reasonably smoothly.

And of course ..........

.... I covered the lacing with a piece of white felt, just slip stitching it in place ...... so you'd never know what was underneath.

And voila! All done :)

The finish isn't quite how I was expecting, in that it bears some similarity to a padded chair seat. However, when on the wall, it looks more modern than the usual type of embroidered picture ..... and that, after all, was what I was really after.

Just hope James likes it :)

Embroidery of James Completed

Here is the embroidery of James completed this evening. I haven't really had much time over the last week or so to do much, but it has stitched up remarkably quickly and I have finished much more quickly than I thought I would.

I was originally going to do extra stitching in the hair area but I'm a little undecided about that now. John thinks it looks OK as it is. I don't want to do extra stitching and then find I don't like it as taking the stitches out will probably mark the silk material.

I think I will leave it be for a while and see if I still feel the same after a few days or so.

I'm going to mount it on a thick piece of block board or something like that to give it a modern feel, without using a frame. A friend is going to hunt out a sturdy piece of wood for me, so I have time for contemplation before doing that final step!

I Have A Cunning Plan ......

.... that involves this photo of our son, James ..... and will mean the Tiger will slip back into being a UFO for a while :)

I have seen on various blogs around the Internet where people have used photos and turned them into sketches that they have then embroidered. It will be James' 21st Birthday at the end of November and so I thought trying to do this would make an interesting surprise present for him. He doesn't do anything quite so boring as reading his Mum's blog, so I think I'll be safe by blogging about it!

So, since John is my expert as far as Photoshop is concerned, I asked him if he would convert this into a sketch.

I then asked John to print it in reverse so I could then trace the resulting image onto tracing paper using an iron-on transfer pencil. In this way, I would create my own iron-on embroidery transfer. I might add that I did test this out first to make sure it would work!

As for the materials to use, I initially thought I would use a piece of linen I already had and use black embroidery cotton thread. However, when Mum and I went to the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching Show a couple of weeks ago, I found someone selling Silk Dupion fabric and Pearsall silk thread and just immediately knew I had to use these luxurious materials. I've never embroidered on silk or used silk thread ...... but I guess you have to start somewhere!

Here's my initial progress after mounting the silk onto a frame and a little bit of sewing last Thursday.

And here's my progress after a sewing session last Saturday evening.

What stitches am I using? Well, the name is whipped back stitch using two strands of silk. I think the lettering is just a little bit too small for this as the letters look a little cramped. I didn't want to un-pick it as I didn't want to damage the silk dupion but it is just about clear. For the rest of the letters, I think I will just use back stitch. For the hair done so far and the face outline, I have used stem stitch with two strands of thread. I've done the same for the eye brows. For the other facial features, I have used just one strand of silk and back stitch. The hand is also back stitch with two strands of silk.

The effect I am after is to produce a 'sketch' but done in silk. By the way, what the photograph doesn't show is the lovely sheen of the silk dupion fabric. I'm so glad I decided to try it. So far, I'm pleased with how it looks.