Happy mail

I've had some fab mail recently!  Bloggers are such generous people.

First I got a parcel from the lovely Nancy.  I'd expressed an interest in Press n' Seal which North American crafters have been using.  Nancy sent me some, but rather than just send the plastic, she put sheets of it on sheets of felt!  Look at those penguins!  Thanks Nancy, I'll enjoy using this.

Then I won a giveaway hosted by CeLynn from Celynn's Sunflower Patch.

The prize was the gorgeous Indigo Junction bag pattern, but she also sent this FQ of bunny fabric!  Yay, another one for my bunny quilt!  Thanks CeLynn!

continuing with the crewel

Good morning ladies, I hope you are all enjoying the spring weather...  yeah, I would be too if we were having any.

I wanted to show you how I'm getting on with the crewel flowers pieces I started for January's Needlequest challenge.  I bet you thought I'd abandoned it, didn't you?

Last time I showed you this piece, I was worried about the flatness of the stems.  I took all your comments on board and know that I have to do some highlighting.  I took the piece down to my brother's the other weekend along with a selection of crewel wools so he could help me choose the colour to use.  He's a graphic designer and has an excellent eye for these things. He advised me to wait until I've finished the piece.  So I will.

All the flower heads and buds are now finished, except the flower centre in the bottom right of course.  I've also finished off the stems so only have the leaves and the green bits of the buds/flowers (no idea what they're called) to do.

I thought it would take me forever, but it seems to be going pretty quickly.  I love the texture of the piece.  Now, when I asked for help, a few of you suggested using one strand of embroidery thread to do the highlights.  This isn't feasible as I'm working this piece in crewel wool, but I understand a lot of you may not have seen crewel wool, so I attempted to take some photos to show you the difference.

The green strand at the top is the crewel, the blue is one strand of floss.  Can you see the difference?  The crewel is matt and fuzzy, the floss is smooth and shiny.  That's why I thought the floss highlights would stand out like a sore thumb.

Maybe that shows it better?  This is one strand of floss over the crewel stitching.  Anyway, I'll show you the piece again when I've finished, then I'll have to start the highlighting!  Thanks for the suggestions everyone, they were very much appreciated.


Related posts

the beginning
flat flowers

Book Review - Playful Petals

The lovely people at CT Publishing let me loose on their review copies of some upcoming books.  I was so excited that this book was in the bundle.  Read on if you want to know what I thought of Playful Petals: Learn Simple, Fusible Applique (affiliate link - if you do click over and buy something, I'll get a few pence towards an Amazon voucher).

I love Corey Yoder's work so was happy to get a chance to see inside this book.  I was not disappointed.  The book revolves around her petal template (included in the book, it's not a separate buy) and I couldn't believe all the different ways she has of using it.  I can't share photos of the book with you, but you can search inside the book on Amazon.

I wanted to try one of the projects in the book, but don't have time to take on another quilt project, so I started with a cushion.

There are 9 project sets in the book - each consisting of a quilt and a cushion.  I chose this lovely design - Rainbow Petals.  I cut out the petals from some fat 1/8s of Flea Market Fancy and originally  had a piece of Kona White as the background.  I decided it was too boring and swapped it for this Crosshatch from Architextures.

The book starts with an introduction to machine applique and shows you a few different ways of tackling it.  All the projects use fusible web, which is my preferred method.  I used Bondaweb.  There are also tips and instructions for making blocks and finishing quilts.  

This particular cushion was done in two blocks, one with each set of leaves.  I decided to just use one piece of fabric.  It makes a rectangular cushion of approx 12" x 16" and despite cutting my background to that size, I didn't realise it would be rectangular until I'd finished the applique.  Duh!  I didn't want to have trouble finding a cushion form, so added a thin red border to the right and left and a larger blue border top and bottom.

Unfortunately I didn't have a cushion form big enough - I need to buy one - so stuffed this with another cushion.  It looks a bit baggy, but it's lush when you see it in person... if I do say so myself!

I didn't think about quilting it until after I'd pieced the top - then I realised I'd lose some of the size all round, so I left it unquilted.  I did add some piping though.

As I used fat 1/8s, they weren't big enough for the back, so I pieced the grey and blue fabrics together and added a band of piping which you can't quite make out on this photo.  I dropped my camera during this photo shoot and I think I may have fatally damaged it.  I was always rubbish at photos, but these are particularly bad.  

Anyway, I really enjoyed making this and it came together quite quickly, for me.  I'm chuffed with my new addition to the living room and I will make some more of the projects in this book... I'll add them to my massive list!

If you like Corey's style, I'd definitely recommend this book.


Disclaimer:

I was given a review copy of the book by C&T Publishing however this review and all opinions are 100% my own, I was not told what to say.

Related Posts

Craft book review - Mini Eco
Craft book review - Me and My Sewing Adventure
Craftydermy

Soutaching failure

Last month me and my wonderful mum went to our first class of the year at The Bead Shop Nottingham.  It was to learn how to do Soutache which uses a special cord to make jewellery.

My attempt was... interesting.  You might even say hideous.  

I used a selection of pearls and three colours of Soutache cord to make this monstrosity.  You know what though?  I'm not bothered that it's hideous, it was nice to learn how to do it and have a go.  Not everything has to be a work of art (not anything in my case!).

This is a picture of the back.  Not the nicest finish ever, which is why most Soutache jewellery is covered at the back with a layer of felt or Ultrasuede.

This is the cord we used.  As you can see it's quite flat and is braided so the channel in the middle is easy to stitch through.  I bought some as I do intend to do this again, but perhaps a less hideous design this time!

If you want to see some examples of nice Soutache, have a look at my Pinterest board. 

Coming up in March...

Needlequest

This month is goldwork and it just so happens I bought 2 goldwork kits at Harrogate last year, I'm very excited to start work on them.

This month on the Sew Kitschy paper piecing bom is a mixing bowl, I aim to piece this, and do February's cookie jar which I missed.  I need another trivet, then I'll have to think of something else to make it up into.

It's the final month to work on my 2014 FAL goals.  A quick reminder of what they were:

         1. Restart and finish Crewel Flowers - this should be doable (she says!)
         2. Finish hooking my rug - I can't see this happening          3.  Finish Jacob's quilt - so close!  This is the one I'm counting on          4. Sew chair cushions for my dining room - again, I can't see this happening           5. Handquilt/machine quilt my And Sew On quilt - I'm taking this out of the running          6. Finish the wrist warmers I'm crocheting - no excuse for not doing this          7. Cross stitch the last Silhouettes picture for my dad - unlikely, but I hope to make some                      progress!

Something Old, Something New

For my "old" project, I'm pushing on with Jacob's quilt with the aim of getting it finished this month. For the "new", I'm going to try my hand at goldwork. 

Something New for 2014

I learnt to do Soutache in February, but haven't got round to showing you, so this will count.  I hope to try something else too, and of course the goldwork will be in the mix.

A Lovely Year of Finishes

My goal for this one is to quilt and bind Jacob's quilt

Craft Book Sew along

I'm not going to nominate the books I'll use in advance, I'll wait and see what happens.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

March's colour is teal and aqua.  I am making scrap buckets for each colour, but I lumped all my blues in together, so I'll sit this month out.  Looking at the work and projects of the other people joining in, I'm brimming over with ideas, I hope this continues into 2015!

Smalls SAL

Another cover kit, though I'm also hoping to do some more on Quilty Stitches.

Sampler Along

This month we have crewel.  I'll be interested to see what the host is doing for this.  I could join in as I have a crewel sampler that I bought the pattern and wools for a while ago.  It does depend on how I get on with my crewel flowers, my quilty stitches, the new goldwork piece I'll be starting, oh and the major blackwork project I've just started... ooops!

Giveaway heads up...

I don't usually share about giveaways on my blog, but this one is a bit special.  Go over and see Cathy at Patchy Details.  She makes the most amazing pottery with quilt blocks and quilt patterns textured and glazed in and she's giving one away.

the building of the stash

I've noticed a lot of bloggers are on a fabric diet.  This worries me as the economy is still fragile and only just entering recovery.  I had to do something about it.  But what could I do?  Well buy fabric of course, all the fabric!

I LOVE Bluebird Park and had to have the bunny fabric.  I had a good look around and found that the shop with the most prints that I wanted was Hulu.  I have no firm idea what I'll do with these, but the background prints and the bunny prints are 1/2 metres so I was thinking about a quilt.  I bought a charm pack in the end after putting a layer cake in my basket 3 times and taking it out 3 times.  (After this arrived, I realised I'd already bought an FQ of the first two prints!)

With the money I'd saved on the layer cake, I bought a couple of mini charm packs by my favourite designers and a piece of this Happy Go Lucky fabric.  I'm planning another splash mat for the kitchen.

I'm all for helping the global economy, not just the UK economy, so during the Great Fabric Destash on Instagram I nabbled these prints and promptly forgot what they were.  I missed the UK Destash due to being forgetful...  Probably for the best.

The green bundle for The Village Haberdashery Stash Society also turned up.  Yummy greens!

These FQs came from a new-to-me shop, Plush Addicts.  It's all Di's fault.  I saw the bunny tea party fabric on her blog and had to go and find some and buy it.  It's called Enchant.  In the same shop I bought another two bunny prints from the Just For Fun line from Makower (it seems to be called something else in other shops) and one print which includes a bunny from Forest Playground.  The Henry Glass teapot fabric fell into my basket.  

I decided to see what other bunny prints I have.  The answer is not many.  These are the FQs I dug out, and of course there are the two BlueBird Park ones.  I think I might have a few scraps from a Lilly and Will layer cake too...  I need more bunny prints, I need a bunny quilt.  Will you tell me if there are any more that are out or if more do come out?  I need them.  NEED, not want. 

The UK economy will thank you.