More early bird Christmas goodies.

I have finished a pair of cushion covers for this month's challenge.  I have used some lace that belonged to my mother, combined with pintucks, some machine embroidery stitching and piping to create them.  Because I didnt have enough fabric, I have used a cream with outlined pink flowers for the back of the cushions.  They are ready for putting in the box until closer to Christmas, when I will put in the cushion insert.

Today I am making a pincushion, among other things (as the mood takes me).  Tonight I will have to do some more of my landscape.  I am trying to do at least an hour each day on it this week, until our next lesson on Saturday.

Hopefully, baby possums will be cozy

 I have finished the pile of possum pouches for the Wildlife Rescue.

I had to try one out. No baby possums here, but this soft little giraffe baby was a good fit anyway.

Early Bird, and next stage of landscape

This table runner for the Early Bird CC is made using a  Sue Box design for the lace.  It is the free design on her home page, which can be stitched out a number of times and assembled to make a lace bowl.  For the runner I stitched the design out 6 times, joining 2 of them for the centre cutout section.  Her designs are so beautifully digitised and it is amazing to watch them stitch out. 

We had our next lesson in the embroidered landscape workshop on Friday.  We spent from 8.30 till 4 working on the embroidery, learning lots of tricks and stitching methods to bring the landscape to life.  At the end of the day there was only a small section stitched, and we wondered where the time had gone.  I worked on the tree branches in centre left, also started some of the leaves there, hence all the threads coming from that area.  I then started on the wattle just under that area, using french knots - 2 strands, 1 wrap.

At home I have now done the wattle at the bottom right, using 1 strand and most of it 1 wrap, though towards the top of that section I used 2 wraps to make the wattle appear more "fluffy".  The wattle that will be in the left foreground will combine knots, turkey stitch, and other little clumps of thread. 
For homework before next Saturday I need to work on some of the other branches, more leaves on the tree at the left, and more wattle. 
There are 5 in the workshop, each doing a very different landscape.  We have scenes from South Africa, Scotland, New Zealand, South Australia and mine from Queensland.  Next lesson I will have to try to get photos of the other ones.
Next Saturday will mark the end of the workshop, but we will need to keep working on them ourselves.
Today I am also going to make some possum pouches for the Wildlife Rescue, for use with orphaned or ill baby possums.  They are very quick to make so I will get them done and on to some other sewing.

Lesson 1 of Embroidered Landscape

Well the first lesson was a lot of fun, a little frustration, and loads achieved. Already starting to look the real deal before any of the embroidery is done.

.First step was building up the background using the dyed fabrics.

I really like how the sky has the soft clouds.  And the rocks at the bottom look really good with the texture from the salt.  (though it doesnt show in the photo here.)

Then it was time to add some detail. Firstly painting light and shade, ridges, valleys into the pyramids, followed by adding the texture.  For this we used painted vliesofix, pulled it off the backing paper in small pieces and arranged it over the area, covered it with a piece of baking paper, and pressed into place.  The baking paper is carefully pulled off after it has cooled down.  At times we were impatient and tried to remove it too quickly, which made the vliesofix come away also.
We were a bit skeptical about this process, but it does work.

I have now marked in where the trunks, and main branches of the trees are, and have plotted the position of the wattle.  Next is to start embroidering french knots - I figure there will be thousands of them to come, along with couching and some other embroidery stitches. 

Second lesson is on Friday - looking forward to it.

Embroidered landscape

Tomorrow we start our embroidered landscape workshop will Anna Lang.  It is being held as part of the Bribie Island Arts Festival.  This past week I was wanting to dye my background fabrics but as I use Dala solar resist paints, I needed some sunshine.  Fortunately Friday proved to be the only sunny day of the week and I had just enough time to get the fabrics dry before the cloud cover came over again. 






I am using this photo taken at the Pyramids in Girraween National Park. I grew up in this area and we used to climb the easier pyramid, and also go on walks around the area, quite frequently.












My dyed fabrics for the background of the embroidery needed to reflect these colours.  We will be using paints, inktense pencils, etc, and of course our embroidery to add to the colours.  Hopefully the fabrics I have will work out well.

It took some trial and error to achieve the eucalypt colours, but I was happy with the colour I got for the granite rock in the foreground. I used salt to give a textured effect like the granite, and that worked out well.











 I am looking forward to embroidering the wattle to give life to the work.  Tomorrow we will prepare the fabric background, and I guess we will start on the embroidery if we have time. 

Anna does beautiful work and is a very good teacher.  I went to a Gold Work workshop that she taught last year.

Club project and early Christmas Papercraft

This month's Club project at our local patchwork shop was this rather cute tote bag.  The rose was taken from a painting by Tracey Sims, a local artist.  She has had some of her paintings printed onto fabric, and made these squares available to us for using in this project.  We made it as a soft little bag ideal to fold up into luggage or when out shopping to use as an extra for when we bought more than anticipated.  So it has no wadding in it, just 2 layers of whisperweft for a bit more body.  It was a good project to make.

And the back view of the bag:

Yesterday a group of us went to the Scrapbooking Warehouse for a papercraft workshop.  We made some Christmas items - a bonbon, decorated paper bag, hanging decoration and the little "purse" at the front which would be great to put in a small gift, like soaps, chocolates etc.   I think my daughter may make some of them for Christmas gifts for her boys' childcare teachers - the boys can put in a gift and take it along to them.  The purse, and maybe some of the other projects are using Kaisercraft templates/designs.

 

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These items have been added to my Early Bird Box.

We had a wonderful day, with a very helpful teacher for the projects. Afterwards we of course had to go and visit a patchwork store in the vicinity, and made a few purchases there.

I am hoping for some sunshine tomorrow because I had planned to do some solar resist fabric dyeing for a landscape workshop I am starting next week.  Hopefully one day this week will have a clear blue sky.

thread catcher

Continuing with the Early Bird Christmas Crafting is this cute little thread catcher, from the tutorial here.  Using the leftover strips I made the matching pin cushion.  These have used up two pieces from my scrap pile, and will make a gift for one of my quilting friends. They were very quick to make and the tutorial was well written.

Tonight we are going to have dinner with our older daughter and her husband.  It was her birthday yesterday but they had to watch the rugby game last night so we postponed the dinner till tonight.  We are going to a restaurant near where they live along Mt Mee Road.  Should be nice.

Harry's feet have improved and he now wears little boots instead of the stints.  He still has the connecting bar, but they are able to remove the boots for bathing/dressing.  He needs to wear them 23 hours per day.  He is coming out to dinner tonight also.

USB (Flash Drive) holder

Today at our Embroidery club we made our USB holder.  The outside was embellished with braids, lace, etc. then we put a piece of fused angelina fibre over to give it the sparkle.  (makes for difficult photographs).  The rest of the USB holder was then made - all in the hoop.  It is a Moose B stitchin pattern. 

I dont have 10 USB sticks to put in it, but I do have 2 for my sewing machine and 1 general one.  Still plenty of spaces to fill  !!!!  Think maybe this one should go into the Early Bird Christmas Crafting gifts, and I will make myself the smaller size - holds 6.

Embroidery club

Tomorrow at embroidery club we are making a USB holder.  Sounds interesting, and hopefully I will have one to show off in the next few days.  There are 2 sizes - the smaller holds 6 USB sticks, and the larger holds 10 I think.  I am still sorting out my materials list for it - we need laces, braids etc for embellishing, and I have to work out my background fabric. 

Another gift completed.

I have completed another gift for the Early Bird Christmas Crafting.  I have one of these hearts hanging on the door knob of our bedroom, so I figure someone else may like one too.  I have also made one as a Christmas  ornament. (the one on the left .)  The one on the right can be used for a Christmas ornament or door hanger.