Treasury

Thanks to strawberry lane crafts for her beautiful selection and

to ARTbyMCB for including my bug cushion cover in his treasury.

SA silly sale

These are some of the items Jezze has selected from the participating 'SA silly sale' shops. To find more go to SAsillysale.

Gift Bag

A gift for a friend. I had some canvas bags left over from another project which I slipped inside the crochet bag. I hope this will add a bit of stability and keep it from stretching. The handle stretched to almost double it's original length and had to be shortened (twice)!

I used a piece of the fabric I printed a while ago, for a tag and I think it looked rather inviting! She loves purple, hence the colour combo!

Birdy notebook

This beautiful notebook I found on hensteethart blog inspired me to try one of my own.

I didn't use fabric for the inside cover, which was a mistake because the paper is a bit to soft and floppy. I love the idea of using random textures for the pages and I added in recycled envelopes, lace and handmade paper.

The paper was made by a friend of mine and I am going to give it back to her in the form of a notebook. I know she will appreciate it! I also used some paper from an old atlas in the cover.

Mine is not half as nice, but thanks Viv for the inspiration!

Leaf printing

My second attempt at printing, this time using leaves. The effects are fantastic but it is rather a messy process. The most difficult thing is getting the ink on the stem and leaving enough space to hold it when you place it on the fabric.

I don't have a very big garden so I've started looking for leaves where ever I go . This leaf is some type of lemon scented herb that I found in a friends' garden. It worked well but unfortunately I don't have more leaves to practise with. I 've planted a slip which is growing well but will be a while before I can pick the leaves.

This is a geranium leaf which also worked quite well. Apparently the softer and more furry the leaf the better. If it's shiny and smooth the dye doesn't penetrate well and you don't get such nice detail.

Printing

As my digital printer isn't working I've been looking at other ways to decorate fabric. My first try was cutting out a leaf, attaching it to an old block and printing. I just placed the leaf randomly and didn't really think to much about the spacing etc

Obviously the secret is the application of the paint to the lino, to much makes blobs and spreads, and to little limits the coverage.

The great thing is that you can print light on dark which I couldn't do with the digital printer. Not much compensation I must admit but at the moment I don't have much option!

Feathers again

I have never seen one of the feathers in my life and within two days have seen two, one on Gennine's Art Blog and the other on tinctory.

Apparently it is a jay feather, how beautiful!

Beetles and Bugs

Thanks to StickManJewelry for including me in her treasury. I love to see how other people interpret the same things in their designs.

Buttons

I saved this pic a while ago and can't remember where I found it, so apologies to who ever it belongs to! I love buttons but must admit my collection is looking a bit sad at the moment. Most items you buy nowdays have those awful plastic buttons... what happened to all the beautiful wooden, tortoise shell and mother-of-pearl buttons?

The finished product

The final product..a cushion cover. It didn't come out exactly as I imagined but that's because I didn't place the design correctly in the first place. I have a tendancy to go ahead without really thinking about the finished product, ignoring things like seams, extra fabric for zips, french seams etc! I like to do a french seam on a cushion cover if I'm selling it without an inner because there is nothing worse than buying a beautiful cover and finding untidy seams on the inside. Also the embroidery is pretty untidy on the wrong side so I added in an extra facing . All this fabric makes the seams quite thick and bulky but I'm not sure what the solution is... maybe an overlocker? Even better, find someone else to make up the cushion!

More feathers

The bug has bitten... I can't stop embroidering feathers! Instead of wasting my efforts, I'm making cards. I don't know about you but I never seem to have a card when I need one. I get so irritated with myself because I usually end up making something sloppy at the last minute. No more!

Embroidery

I was looking at my messy basket of embroidery thread the other day and was suddenly inspired to sew something. Then the beads caught my eye....

.. and this was the result!

I find this 'back stitch' ( Ithink that's what it's called) embroidery very theraputic and almost addictive. Once you start you just don't seem able to stop.

All I need to do now is complete the birds and make them into cushions.

I 've used a heavy linen ,which doesn't show up well in the photos, but looks great with the black, red and white.

Etsy Treasury

Thanks so much to LilMissS for including my bag in her Charlie Chaplin inspired

treasury.

Textures

Wonderful textures from the beaches of Mozambique!

The charming bedroom in our palm leaf beach house.

The rural communities are very poor and live off the coconut palms and the sea. The coconuts are used for food and the palm leaves for building houses. The hard wood of the stems for basic structures of houses and fences. Fresh fish and prawns are sold daily as well as fresh bread or 'pao'.

The palm leaves are woven together in the most intricate patterns. This was the wall of our seaside beach hut!

Holiday!

Our planned holiday to Porta Du Ouro fell through at the last minute and so we decided to go to Jeffs Palm Resort instead. We have been there before, it is quite a long way up the Mozambique coast, so the water should be warm and we are hoping for plenty of sunshine. This was the view from our bungalow on the previous stay. Looking forward to it!

2010 World Cup

Ready for the 2010 World Cup! We have our scarves....

We have our tickets! Seriously though, I'm not that interested in soccer, but do want to experience the 'once in a lifetime' World Cup and definately want to see the Green Point Stadium.

Marilyn

Pleased to see my 'Marilyn' cushion cover in Legend lorelei lunacy treasury today! The face is a bit dark in the photo but looks much better in the original. Maybe I should re-shoot it in a better light.

Bookbinding part 3

The completed book! I love all the different colour pages and the rough edges. I'm still not absolutely satisfied with coptic binding.
The cover came out quite nicely and was fun to make.
The paper is delicate and quite difficult to work with. I'm not sure how tight to pull the thread. If it's too tight (which looks the neatest) you can't open the book but if it's too loose the pages sort of fall separately where the signatures join. I really need to go for a lesson somewhere to learn the finer points.

The coptic binding stitch is quite an art but I'm sure it is a case of 'practice makes perfect'

I will just have to keep trying!

Beaded Book

A friend of mine makes the most beautiful paper and was kind enough to make these sheets for me. Now, because they are so special , I am afraid to try and make them into a book in case I mess them up. I 've started with an embroidered and beaded cover.

The paper is quite delicate and can't be fiddled with too much.

Today I am going to attempt to attach the cover to the sheets with coptic stitching, which is quite pretty and not covered with a spine. A deep breath and here goes!

New

winter knitting

I used a vintge?(20 years old) pattern to make this waistcoat, sleeveless jersey thing but it didn't come out exactly as I expected. Not surprizing as I changed the collar, sleeves size...pretty much everything except the actual stitch pattern! I think I may just add some sleeves as the original pattern. If all else fails Kitkat obviously things it would make a great blanket!

knitt

Pay Pal

My first order using PayPal, what a pleasure! No more 'buy now 'buttons, cancelled orders and trying to convince customers that it's worth all their trouble. I received confirmation of payment at the same time as the order, but I'm sure you all know that already! I just took a while to get hooked up with FNB.

Recycled envelopes

I 've seen this idea of using old envelopes to make a book on a couple of sites, one of them being myhandboundbooks, and find it fascinating. I think we are so conditioned in our ideas of what a book should look like. I showed the finished product to one of my friends and she said "It would have been lovely if you hadn't used the window envelopes!" Well that's the whole point! Anyway, to take you through the process I started with a pile of old window envelopes and cut them into a workable size. Then comes the stitching. I used an ordinary 'in-and-out ' stitch and read the instructions afterwards only to find out that you must have an uneven number of holes!

Then I attached the cover to pieces of board. I still haven't quite got the corners right. I have an old atlas I bought at a secondhand book shop that I used for the cover. (I know you shouldn't cut up books but as I'm recycling it into another book I figured it's sort of acceptable.)


The pages, or signatures, are then attached to the cover. This is the tricky part and I'm sure there is an easier way than sticking, pulling apart and re sticking three times before the book will open and close properly, I just haven't worked it out yet!

Finally, my hand bound, hand cut, hand stuck, recycled notebook. If I had to sell it at this moment the price would be about $100.00!