stitching fun with celtic dream dies

I was thrilled to discover that the Celtic Dream dies from Lavinia Stamps cut felt so for this month's article on the Lavinia Stamps website I did some sewing :)

I turned my cloth piece into a needlecase but I could easily have used it on a journal cover.

Step by step photos and instructions are available HERE.

Thanks for visiting :)

Wishing you a very happy Christmas

Every year my Christmas cards have a snowflake theme.  Can't help it I'm afraid!  I just love snowflakes :)

Thanks so much for reading my blog and leaving lovely comments.  It means a lot!

Have a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all the very best for 2015, Sarah xx

a little stitching

I love to sew like this, using my sewing machine to draw with.  I've been wanting to sew for ages now - I go through phases in my art work, sometimes wanting to smoosh paint around in my journal, other times I fancy sitting and crocheting and others, to sit and stitch.  

My recent problem has been that I couldn't think what to sew.  After admiring some brooches over on the Hens Teeth blog I had a really good think about the images I like and remembered some blind contour drawings* I'd done of some penguins a few years ago...

... and decided to make an ATC sized fabric piece. 

I layered up some plain fabric then cut out a piece scrap painted paper to add some colour to the penguin's tummy.  I found a map scrap near my sewing machine, which I thought would make a nice base for the penguin to stand on, held it all down and stitched my penguin.

After adding the blue stitched doodling and the buttons I felt the piece still needed a bit of texture and liked the look of the chain I found in my bead box.  The bell?  I just love little silver bells :)

Thanks to Viv at Hens Teeth for the inspiration to finally get back to sewing!

*to do a blind contour drawing, you don't look at your paper as you work but look straight at what you're drawing and follow its shape all the way round.  I was introduced to this fab technique in Carla Sonheim's book 'Drawing Lab', which I would highly recommend.

Happy New Year!

I got my creative juices flowing over the Christmas hols by doing a bit of knitting, which is now waiting to go in the washing machine to be felted before becoming a couple of owls...hopefully!  I then started on a project  I've wanted to do for a while ...

... creating a collage style lampshade!  I really want to make one for the lounge but decided to 'practice' on my bedside lamp first!

I started by taking the shade apart and using the inner plastic bit as a template I cut out some newspaper then  added layers of paper using a white pva glue.  I added stitching, a zip and lace and generally had a ball!  The tricky bit was fixing it all together but despite the odd wobble I'm very pleased with it.

May this year be full of many good things!

Christmas Card Challenge

There's nothing like a good challenge to get me motivated....I think this is the earliest I've got my 'special' Christmas cards made! (I have been known to make them on Christmas Day itself!!)  MoneySupermarket.com are running a Christmas card competition so I got my cards finished in time for their  deadline

My Mother-in-law, bless her, would never forgive me if I didn't give her a handmade card, she gets them out each year!  My Mum treasures hers too. 

I started with my embellisher, adding some texture to a piece of white felt with bits of lace and organza, before 'drawing' a snowflake on the back with my sewing machine.

After cutting the snowflake out I spent a very happy, crafty evening with friends adding tiny silver beads to the stitching.  My friends were busy knitting, making Christmas presents.

I mounted the snowflake onto some card layered with lace and organza and edged this with glass glitter, adding some mini 'snowflakes' using some lace daisies.

I kept the beads out for my second card, edging the square of white card with a blanket style stitch with a variety of blue and cream beads.

Snowflakes are my favourite theme for Christmas cards and these stamps were new this year from Hobbycraft; the punches and pearls are from my stash!

I still have one special card to make - my husband also gets upset if I don't make him one ;)

You can view the competition entries on MoneySupermarket.com's pinterest board, and you still have time to enter if you'd like to win an ipad mini or hobbycraft vouchers!  But only if you're quick, entries must be submitted by 12noon on Christmas Eve.

Edited 13/10/13 to remove links at request of MoneySupermarket in order to meet Google's quality guidelines

The Play Date Cafe challenge...3 years on!

I know it's such a cliche, but really, where does the time go?  Three years ago I was never going back to teaching (!) and now here I am, happily teaching in a local special school and enjoying every minute of it!  Today I've been invited to be an Alumni guest over at The Play Date Cafe.

There are big celebrations going on over there, from Oct 18-22, with other design team members returning to join in the fun as special guests.  With daily prizes from a variety of sponsors, and additional giveaways for becoming a follower and displaying the brand new badges it really is a party!

The PDCC has always been a unique challenge for two reasons:

1) they encourage you as a player to 'interpret the colours' as YOU see them

2) they welcome pretty much ANY type of project, from cards to layouts, knitting, crochet and sewing, mixed media and even cupcakes!

I just love that you can join in whatever you're in the mood for making or have the appropriate colour resources for.

After an initial panic (!) I decided to see what I had materials wise in these three colours and eventually settled on some felt.  I considered making some toadstools but then realised that my favourite flowers of all time, hydrangeas, come in all these shades so I set too with a bit of stitchery...

Inspired by Julia Jowett's intricate needlework I used some ribbon for part of the petals then added tiny cross stitch, creating hints of decaying petals.  French knots and tiny beads decorate the centre and there's more on the blue tag.

I knew when I made the felted tag that I was partly chickening out from combining these colours in a painted project and it was kind of bugging me that I'd not really risen to the challenge!  So yesterday I set too and made a card, using lots of white space between the strong colours.

I'm particularly happy with this as I used my 'Faded Jeans' distress marker to colour directly onto a text stamp, meaning I could create texture to the centre of the flower and made a stem.  I've had my markers for a while but hadn't really used them.

I'd love for you to join me in congratulating The Play Date Cafe by playing along and sharing your support by saying hello when you pop over for a visit.  This challenge has a  very special place in my heart (sorry, corny but true) and it would mean a lot if you joined in.

another PDCC colour challenge, this time it's needle felting!

I did start a journal page with this week's PDCC colours but some extra colours crept in when a blue butterfly wanted to take part!

Then, following a bit of blog hopping this morning, I decided to get out my needle felting after seeing Jackie's wonderful pieces over at Dog Daisy Chains.  Jackie's base fabric is wet felted but I don't often have the patience for that and got out a few scraps of wool and fabric and my trusty embellisher.

The images were inspired by some patterns in my V&A fifties patterns book...

Jackie's work had really made me think of Angie Lewin's prints, jam packed full of imagery and texture.

Virago have recently republished some modern classics and as one was in an Angie Lewin print I had to read it!  I enjoyed it actually.  It was written in the 1920s and it turns out I own a book by this author - it's in my nice second hand books to recycle pile, or it was, I'm now intending to read it lol!

So, a happy hour 'dumpfing', as Twiglet would say :)  I'm not sure yet what this piece will become part of yet, but that's ok, it's purpose will appear at some point!

summer weddings...

I'm very late with one of these cards (for my lovely friend Ruby over at Ruby2Shoes), and exactly on time with the second one!

Both started off with a bit of stencilling for the background.  I then layered up some papers and dried, painted baby wipes.

I added a few pinks and reds (via some wool and another baby wipe!) to a felted piece I had on my sewing table.  My poor embellisher now has paint splodges on it, just like my sewing machine!  I stitched the heart shape before cutting it out then stitching it onto the card.  Then added a few more lines of stitching :)

Right, I'm off to a wedding :)

Sewing is a good distraction!

After spending most of yesterday and this morning sleeping, suffering with nausea and headache from my bloomin' sinuses, I managed a bit of sewing this afternoon.

I had a bit of wool blanket lying around that I'd needle felted a while back as part of another project I've been in the middle of for a long while.

At first I sketched out a doodle from my sketchbook using my sewing machine (the orange stitching) but I didn't like it so cut the fabric up into a tag shape then added a flower!

The ribbon at the top is from Ray-Stitch, a fabulous shop in Angel, Islington, London.  If you look closely there are some tiny beads around the centre of the flower.

from this....to this....

I've been playing in my journal again over the last few days, starting with this

and, a few layers later, ending up with this

The number five has no particular relevance, except that a pile of numbers was lying on my desk and the shape of the five caught my eye!  I laid it down on a piece of scrap paper and cut it out, then stitched it to my journal on the sewing machine.

There's more stitching on the circles, and I dug out my soft pastels recently, for use on another project, and decided to try them as an accent in my journal.  I just love inky, splodgy, stitchy pages like this so last night I did another.

I stitched the flower design on a piece of previously painted paper, then glued it onto the page in my journal that started life like this

After a bit of stamping, cutting and sticking I decided it needed another element and set about carving a stamp from an eraser (15p in the WHSmith sale last year!)

A bit of a design change meant it didn't quite fit (the raindrop's missing it's point at the top), but I can live with that!