A new quilt

At the time of writing, Cuzco is a couple of hours of hand stitching from being finished.  I know, you have no idea what Cuzco is as I haven't mentioned it in aaaaaaaaaaaaages.  It is the quilt I've been working on since summer 2014 using the Cuzco line of fabric by Kate Spain.  You will see it again soon as it's nearly finished.

Enter a new quilt.  

Take a massive pile of FQs in the colours of the colour wheel...

One massive and insanely intricate paper piecing pattern...

and cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

Speed Craft #5

This is my final post on the fab day that we had at speed crafting last month.  To see my previous 4 posts, scroll down and then follow the links.

Our final table of the day was perfect.  We were tired from all the frantic crafting and we got to sit down and just stitch.

We were provided with a hoop, a piece of aida for backing and then a wide selection of threads, yarns, lace, crochet lace, lace motifs and scraps of fabric.  We were unleased to stitch whatever we wanted.

I wanted to stitch bunnies.  We only had 45 minutes so it's a simple portrait of two of my buns, sitting on grass made of a piece of aqua lace, with lace flowers and a lace heart.  I love it!  It's a dinky 4" and fits in with my gallery very well.

This is the first time I've added anything to my gallery for ages.  I still have tons of embroidery hoops, if only I had the time.  

I love being a multi-crafter, but it is hard to get all those ideas out of my head, all the kits made, all the patterns followed, all the crafts tried.  It's a hard job but someone's got to do it!

Speed Craft #4

If you've missed my previous post about Speed craft, scroll down to the previous post and follow the links at the top.

Our fourth hour of crafting, after a lovely lunch, more cake and more coffee, was mono printing.  This was the messiest table of them all, messier even than the ceramics table.  It involved big bottles of paint/ink, sheets of paper and hand cut templates.

Basically, you put a big squirt of paint on a board, use a roller to roll it all over your paper, add templates and roll again in a different colour. You can then write or draw in the paint to add detail.

This was fun, but I couldn't get into it.  I couldn't seem to let myself go and just make a mess, I was too worried about the final outcome, which is stupid really.  The pictures the tutor made were brilliant, but then she was a fine artist!

Next up: Simple Stitching

Speed Craft #3

I'm back to telling you about my Sunday at Speed Craft, hosted by Debbie Bryan.  You can read my previous posts here and here.

The third table we went to was called "handcrafted robin".  We had no idea what that might involve and having done it, I'm not sure what I'd call it!  I didn't think to take any process photos, which would have been useful.

We were given a wood blank the shape of the whole robin.  It had holes drilled in it.  The and back are also a wood blank.  The red breast is acrylic.  We simply had to hand stitch the various elements together.

We then glued a piece of leather to the back to hide the messy stitching.  I had some time left at the end so I played with some other small blanks the tutor had for jewellery making, but I can't find them now, I might have left them behind.

This was interesting to do, but it was just like doing a kit as everything was pre-cut.  It would be interesting to make my own, if I were into cutting wood and acrylic that is!  Mind you, I do have a dremel or two...

Next up: Mono printing

Viennese Waltz - update 8

Another three weeks has passed since I showed you an update of Viennese waltz.  Here is where I was before:



I finished the background on the right!  When I'd done that I had to move the frame so here is a picture to prove that the right hand background is done:

I then finished the left hand background!  Yay!  Now I'm on to her dress, I managed a few stitches there too.

That's a pretty shocking photo but I did take it this morning, in the artificial light of the living room, sitting on a navy sofa.  I'm hoping that the dress will go quite quickly, then I just have the ground underneath their feet to add.

The problem is, I got distracted from working on this. First by a baby blanket I decided to crochet, then by a quilt that needed the binding hand sewn on...  let's hope I get back to it, I want to finish it this year.


I'm sewing along as part of a SAL, you can go and see what the other participants have been up to here:

Claire, Avis, Gun, Carole, Alison, Jule, Elizabeth, LucyAnn, Kate, Cathy, Jess and Jacqui

Speed Craft #2

If you missed my previous post about Speed Craft, please scroll down.

Our second table was ceramics.  The tutor was Katie Almond who we've taken two classes with before - the first at Debbie Bryan where we made plant pokes and brooches and another in Leicestershire where we made a cake stand.  I collected my cake stand when we went to collect these little bowls, so I must show it to you soon.

I can't believe I managed to make this in just 45 minutes.  Rollling out clay, stamping it to make the impression, stamping and cutting out the letters and painting it all with glaze is a time consuming process!

I'm going to use it on my dressing table to keep my rings in.  The motif is a bit off-centre but that doesn't bother me.  I wish I'd been able to paint the outer ring of motifs, but I just didn't have time.  I stuck to the red/blue/navy combination again!

As you can see, it's just a shallow little bowl, around 4" diameter, so cute!  Once again, I really enjoyed working with the porcelain clay.

Next up: Hand-built robin

Speed Craft #1

A few Sundays ago me and lovely mum went to a fantastic event at Debbie Bryan called SpeedCraft.  It was basically the crafting version of Speed Dating, just with slightly more than 3 minutes per craft.  The room was laid out with 5 tables.  We took our positions at our first table and crafted madly for 45 minutes.  The bell rang and we had to stop, we then had a 15 minute break to get ourselves to the next table, via the coffee pot and toilet.  We went round all 5 tables and tried each craft.

It was brilliant.

We've already signed up for the next one which, unfortunately, isn't until April.

I'm going to take you through our day but I'm going to do it over 5 posts otherwise this post will end up too long and then I'll have nothing to post about for another 2 weeks.

Our first table was origami where we learnt to make these paper stars.

Mine is made from just two colours of paper and book pages.  This was pretty frustrating at first.  It took us the first 25 minutes to get the hang of it, then we had the rest of the points to fold before the time was up!

Here's how it looks from the back.

After the initial confusion, I did enjoy doing this and I love the look of the book paper.  There were inks and stamps available for us to stamp designs on our finished stars, but I decided to leave mine au naturel.

Next up: ceramics.

another Kheops necklace

I see my last post was on the 28th October, so it looks like I totally forgot to blog this week!  My memory is getting worse by the day.  I wonder if I can remember any details about this necklace to tell you?

I remember I've made one before, and blogger backs me up - you can see it here.  This is the same pattern in different coloured beads.

The dark blue beads inside the silver squares are alternate denim blue Swarovski crystals and petrol blue Swarovski pearls.  I like the different textures.  I took about 30 photos trying to get a close up, but, alas, they all came out blurred.  So here is a blurry one for you!

Oh no!  I've trainer bombed the photo!  And not just any trainers, my filthy backyard trainers which are covered in bunny poo!