Extending Embellishment

Well, the course has finished today, instruction-wise that is and it's been very full on - so many techniques and fabulous inspiration from the very talented Karen.  She never ceases to amaze me with her ideas and beautiful work.  I am still way behind as usual and have many techniques to try yet but here is an idea of what can be achieved by free motion stitching onto scrim:-

4 different sample pieces.

2 of those pieces with added fabric snippets (top piece) and vintage embroidery pieces (bottom piece).

                               This is what they can become -

 - beautiful lacy fragments to embellish,

 which can either be joined up with other pieces or used as samples to go into my Embroiderer's Ledger to inform other pieces of future work.  

Thank you Karen for another fabulous course - I really loved it.

Look Where I've Been Today ....

I went along to this event at Toddington, near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire despite the showers and had a ball looking around the beautiful vintage and hand made items, some from my favourite bloggers: The Sea Garden, Hen's Teeth, Nostalgia at the Stone House to name a few.  There was much gorgeousness to be found at every turn and it would have been easy to spend LOTS of dosh but I controlled myself and settled on these lovelies:-

old embroidered runners and traycloths, vintage French fabric and antique lace, as well as a  lovely inspiration pack from The Sea Garden.

There was also a pop up vintage style tea shop - Lavinia's - and the event was very well attended. I have already used one of the items this evening!

LONDON 2012 - OUR OLYMPIC EVENT!

Mr V-B and I set off yesterday for our first ever Olympic event - the Canoe Slalom at Lee Valley Water Park near Hatfield in Hertfordshire.   The atmosphere was great and at times, there was lots of noise from trumpets and vuvuzelas!  The course was very rapid and the paddlers very skillful to stay afloat and in their canoes.  Unfortunately, David Florence, the British hope only made it as far as the semi-final and France's Tony Estanguet won the gold medal.  Fortunately, the rain held off until the final race had just finished and then the heavens opened and there was a mass exodus as the stands had no shelter, so unfortunately we didn't see the medal ceremony.

Here are a few photos from the day:-

Free Motion Stitching Experiment

As part of the online course I'm doing at the moment, we had to do some free motion stitching.  These are a few of my experimental pieces from yesterday:-

The small piece at the bottom is 5 pieces of white tissue paper machine stitched; the piece on the right hand side has bark paper on the bottom, followed by a piece of fancy, sparkly paper and a piece of crinkled voile on the top, all free motion stitched.  The longer panel is 5 pieces of white tissue paper stitched into a grid pattern, which formed a lovely surface upon which to stitch so I decided to embroider some flowers in the colours of the page it is to be mounted on.

The panel with a little more embroidery - not quite finished yet.

I have a few more ideas of layers that might be good stitched together, which I will try next.

More Work On The Ledger Pages

I have been very fraught this week, trying to make several different ledger pages using different techniques.  Some of them haven't worked out right and I have been quite frustrated but think I have settled on what I am fairly happy with now.  Here are some piccies:-

Lots more angst in the pipeline  .....................!

A New Class

I started a new online learning class a couple of weeks ago, run by the very talented Karen Ruane.  As you know I love embroidery and have in the past dabbled a bit with watercolours, so the idea of having a ledger to record stitching samples and other beautiful design methods really appealled to me.    I can't give too much away as the course is still running but here are my first two pages:-

This first exercise was in colour matching from a chosen image and then with progression through to stitched samples using specific stitches.  I  also added some collaged images and silk sari ribbon.

I had a piece of textured wallpaper which I liked the shape of and thought it would look good with some tissue paper, gesso and white paint.  I also added a bit of lace to make a nice textured piece for my ledger.

I'm just about to start the second exercise so will post when I have done my pages.

What's Out In The Garden Today

I popped out to have a walk around the garden this morning and saw so many lovely flowers out that I had to go back in and get the camera so that I could capture them before the wind blows them to smithereens - it's blowing another gale outside today.  So here's a little collage of my pretties:-

A Big Catch Up

No, I haven't left the country - well, only briefly.  This might be a longish post so you might want to get yourself a cuppa and see what I have been up to.  First of all, we had a long weekend in Brussels in March (it's now the end of May!) and though we left unusually hot, sunny weather in the UK, Brussels was cold and grey.  Here are a few photos from our trip:-

We then had another break down in the lovely rural Essex countryside to see family and attend a funeral and although it rained most of the time, it was nevertheless a peaceful few days.  Here are a few more photos of different jaunts out and about including:-  Waterperry Gardens, Rousham House and St Osyth.

And lastly, photos from last week's visit to William Morris' beautiful Oxfordshire home, Kelmscott Manor:-

Creativity-wise, Nada, I'm afraid.  I have been having a very muse-less time just lately and although I have tried to pick up various projects to work on, I have had to give up on them due to lack of enthusiasm and inspiration.    However, I did stick at one project for a short while and did a little more work on my Spirit Cloth.  To see how it started click HERE.  It still isn't completely finished but is getting there very slowly.

 

I feel bad as  I know several ladies have made a few different cloths in the time it has taken me to do mine!
I even got as far as piecing together another one, which is going to be more unstructured and not so pretty- here's a sneak peak:-

Watch this space ........

Holiday Memories

There's just enough time to post a few holiday piccies of our recent break in Devon, which was absolutely lovely, before we dash off to Brussels on the Eurostar on Thursday for a last minute long weekend.

This collage features images taken at Teignmouth, Dartington Hall and Agatha Christie's home, Greenway all near Teignmouth/Kingswear, Devon.

Back next week!

Google Friend Connect Followers Gadget

Can anyone let me know if there is a simple way that I can get my Followers gadget back again?  I understand that Google have changed this from 1st March but although on my Dashboard I still have all my Followers listed, on my blog page there is only text saying that the gadget is configured incorrectly.  I am hopeless with anything technical like this and I know that other bloggers still have their followers showing under Google Friend Connect.

I would really appreciate any help you can give!  Thanks so much.

Taking A Little Break

No posts for weeks and then 3 in one day - what's going on?!  Well, we are going away for a few days on a little break and I thought I better post a few things before I go.

See you soon!

Thank you Laurie!

My sweet cyber friend Laurie from Indulge Your Shelf sent me this lovely collection of goodies:-

Sweet tiny tart tins, tickets, vintage label and other little art trinkets. Thank you so much Laurie, you are very kind and I will look forward to using them.

Tag Tuesday - Birds

A lovely subject this week, I think, and so nice with spring around the corner hopefully.  Here's my little birdie on a nest with eggs.  The heart shaped tag is covered with scraps of text and sheet music, then painted with light blue acrylic paint.  The edges were distress inked and then the images affixed, together with a couple of lovely spotted feathers, a little paper flower, scrap of old lace and raffia tie.

Pop along and see all the other beautiful tags on the Tag Tuesday blog.

Tag Tuesday - Hearts

I love hearts as any regular readers of my blog will know and with the month in mind, my theme this week is romantic.  I made my tag in the shape of a heart, backed with card for strength and with a patchwork paper background.  Onto this I added scraps of trim and a lovely vintage glass button.  I cut out a scrapbook paper flower which appealed to me and added some scrap lace and fabric "streamers" to the side of the tag.  It is finished with a velvet and lace ribbon.

Close up of lower part of the tag.

The tag without any background "noise".

Pop over to the Tag Tuesday blog to see other gorgeous heart tags.

A New Project ........

Gathering ...........  Interesting pieces of white fabric, preferably with cutwork or other pretty or distinctive features.

Pieced ..........   My selected pieces pinned together to form one cloth.

Tacked ........ Next step is embellishing the seams and embroidering prior to damp stretching - not done this before so have to take care to do it properly. 

I have signed up for the online class run by the very talented Karen Ruane.  I have only just found out about it through a link from another blog so I am a month behind but it doesn't matter as there is no time limit on the class or the blog resources.  There are lots of great videos to show each step of the course, which you can keep going back to as many times as you like.  Karen works mainly white on white and although it's not a requirement of the class, she does encourage students to give it a try as it's not as scary as it seems.  I will let you know whether this is true!  I have never worked white on white before and am a little trepidatious to say the least!

I will post more as I progress.

Tag Tuesday - Lace

This week's theme is Lace and as you know I love lace and use it most of the time in my projects.  I wanted to do something a little bit different this time and so went for a more sombre Victorian tone.

I used a piece of black lace over a manilla luggage tag.

To keep to the Victorian theme that was emerging, I used a piece of lovely black sequinned trim and a bead dongle that had come apart from a piece of bead fringing.  Just the job for my purpose!  

Top with a pretty image of a Victorian lady and a black satin rose and voila, one lace themed tag.

Pop over and enjoy all the other lovely tags on the  Tag Tuesday blog.

New Supplies For All You Lace Lovers!

I have just listed some new supplies in my shop, some of which are vintage and ideal for so many projects.

If you love lace or crochet trim, pop over and have a look.

Tag Tuesday - Vintage

This week's theme is Vintage - my favourite! I used a recycled Next clothing tag which looked old and battered to start with and had some black printing showing through.  I  already had printed off a lovely image to use in another project but thought it would look good on this tag with a scrap of vintage lace hanging about on my desk.  I used some green lint/scrim which tones in with the image and added a pink velvet flower at the top, an old brooch (which has a stone missing but still looks ok I think),  two bits of broken coat tag chain and a rusty photo corner.

Pop over and have a look at all the other tags for this theme on the Tag Tuesday blog.

Tag Tuesday - White

I wanted to show white in texture and made a tag from scraps lying around on my desk: bits of paper, vellum, card, trim etc., which I then painted with a couple of coats of white acrylic paint.  Lace snippets were then added, which were also painted white to match the background and the tag was finished with a small snippet of a dictionary definition of white, a mother of pearl button, ribbon rose, pearl embellishments and other bits of old lace.

 Pop over to the Tag Tuesday blog to see all the other beautiful white tags, which are very yummy indeed!

Tag Tuesday - Snow Sports & Games

I struggled a bit with this week's theme but am quite happy with the finished result.  The tag is made from a piece of distressed looking scrapbook paper and has a vintage image of skaters with brown ribbon photo corners, glittery fibre trim bottom and top and a lovely piece of sparkly beaded tulle at the top of the tag.  This is a very sparkly tag which doesn't come across in the photo.

Below is a close up of the pretty beaded tulle detail:-

Tag Tuesday - New Challenge

I have been a great fan of the uber talented Carolyn aka Love Stitching Red for a long time and was so pleased to read about her Tag Tuesday Challenge.  I have only just heard about it so rushed like mad to make the first week's theme of Snow.

I used a large shipping tag and used scraps of white brodeie anglaise for the top and bottom of the tag, then used a piece of one of my favourite Christmas fabris with a village snow scene on it.  I added a few hand stitches, some sparkle, white rose trim, scrap of silver mesh and vintage button at the top.  The tag is finished with a piece of old doily and a scrap of white tulle to tie.  It looks better in real life, so sorry the photo doesn't do it justice.

Pop over and have a look at some of the talent on the Tag Tuesday blog (link above)  Next week's theme is Snow Sports and Games, so I'm off to get some inspiration!