Thursday 28th May

Hi All.  Another week of warm sunshine, I am having to get the hosepipe out on the garden now as it is so dry and all the plants are wilting.
Cath has been busy trying out the flour paste dying and this is her results.

I like both of these.  I am definitely going to have another go at this.

This week I have been trying a technique of joining small pieces of fabric by turning a hem to the front of the material and then joining the pieces together with a knot stitch that has a raised surface on the front of the work.  I have done this small piece using some indigo dyed fabric I did years ago and these were all the pieces left over.

Not sure how I can display this piece as it hasn't any backing and is a bit limp. 
I then decided to have a look at the African Fabric shop and they have loads of hand made and dyed fabrics from Africa so I had to spend some money and got myself these pieces.

The larger brown cloth is Bark cloth, the lighter brown is Kola Nut Tree cotton strip weave, the two blue pieces are strip weaving and the brown and white striped fabric is Kola and Indigo pain weave.  Looking forward to doing something with them, but not sure what yet.

I had already chosen some fabrics of my own to start another piece that includes some of the traditional joining methods but wasn't sure how to measure up how much to cut so I have painted some strips of colour onto paper which I can now cut out and manipulate into something of a design.

This warm weather isn't really suitable for sewing, I just want to be outside, then I get too hot and want to be inside!  Setting up a jigsaw doesn't really help either.  I am pleased with the work I have done for the Africa project and have really enjoyed researching it all.  Keep busy, keep well and keep stitching.

Wednesday update

Doing this a day early as I have had some pictures sent to me a few days ago so I want to get them published.
There has been some interesting work going on.  First is Diane:

Here she has been finishing off a UFO to make this lovely sampler.

This is a sample of buttonhole stitch making an attractive flower design.

This is called bargello patchwork using the African fabrics she bought earlier.  It make a stunning design.  Like me, she is now stuck waiting to be able to purchase plain fabric.

These next three pieces are from Roma who has been working with running stitch.  They are lovely pieces of work, I wish mine were as interesting and imaginative.

I love these colours!

Lesley has been making scrubs for the hospital and this is a selection of what she has done.

Aren't these lovely! They would cheer anybody up.

I have been looking at the way different African communities join together small pieces of fabric to make a larger piece that can be used to make clothes and robes.  This small piece I have done for my workbook is a type of work done by the Ashanti people.  A double hem is folded to the outside of the fabric and then the pieces are joined with a knot stitch.  You can see I have added beads to one area and you can also wrap the hems with coloured thread to form a decorative band through the middle of the final fabric.

Last week I was having a go at flour paste printing and said I would show you how I had got on.

Not brilliant but there are some areas I can use.  However, I do know what I did wrong and could do it again.  The recipe is from Mary Sleigh's book and is 1 tablespoon of plain flour to 9 tablespoons of water cooked up to make a white paste.  Spread it on the fabric, this is where I went wrong as there was more paste than I needed for the size of material.  You can draw into the paste to make patterns.  When it is dry and this does take a while, up to two days you need to scrunch it up to break the paste.  I had left mine two days and then scraped off some of the excess paste which is why I have so much plain area.  Also, I should have scrunched it more.  I then painted it with silk paints and when it was dry I had to scrape off as much of the paste as possible.  I ironed it on the wrong side on as sheet of baking parchment to set the paint then washed it and washed out all the remaining paste.  It leaves the fabric quite soft and easy to work.  I think I shall try it again.

Keep stitching everyone, enjoy your gardens and make the best of this weather and time for ourselves.

Thursday 14th May

Today I met my daughter for the first time in seven weeks.  She came through to my house and we went for a 4 mile walk up onto the farmland above the village.  Saw 5 people on bikes and three people walking in all that time, then we came back to my house and sat on the front drive with a cup of tea and piece of cake.  Lindsay sat very near the pavement and would you believe a police car drove by, haven't seen one on the estate since the lock down began.  They didn't stop but I was prepared to bribe them with cake.
We had cake because I got FLOUR at Morrison's this week.  Who know that would be exciting.  Because I now have plenty of plain flour I decided to have a go at printing on fabric using a flour paste.  I had hoped to show you the finished piece but it took longer than I expected to dry so I haven't finished it yet.  Will show you next week and explain how to do it.
I haven't got many photo's this week, no one has sent any in and I have been putting together my stitch book so the pictures are the same as last week.  However, Lindsay has been busy and finished her large lap quilt.  She says it is big enough to cover her from waist to floor and wrap right round her legs.

You can't really see the edge but it is strips of fabric from the pieces in the middle, the back is the same as the border and she has quilted it with wavy lines from top to bottom.  The background is a very dark blue batik.
So, keep sending me pictures and keep stitching!

Thursday again!

Don't know about you but the days are flying by and yet the weeks seem endless, a distortion of time/
Suzanne has been busy and sent me this photo of her stitch project.  She likes to use vintage fabrics and this looks lovely.

What a lovely way to use a number of stitches.  If you are interested in doing something like this Anne Brooke is doing a 'Sew for the Soul' challenge which she started in January and is adding ideas to put into your pieces of work each month. You end up with a long, narrow piece of stitching which you have added to each time you decide to do a little piece.  There is a video on uTube showing what people from around the world have done.  Google Anne Brooke then click on the button form 2020 project and then the link to the video.

I have been doing some work on my Anne Bronte piece.  Think I would like to highlight the lighthouse on the pier but don't want to spoil it.

I might have gone a bit overboard with the grasses but I can pull a few out if I decide to do that.  So glad that Roma thinks it looks like Whitby pier too.

I bought these Ikat fabrics at last years Embroiderers' Guild Regional Day and have been planning a new table runner with them for quite a while.  Yesterday I decided to cut them out and piece up the small squares.  Now I need some fabric for sashing, borders and backing so am stuck until the fabric shop opens again.  I tried the brown fabric to see if that sort of colour would be suitable but I think it needs something lighter.
I have also started to mount my stitch samples into a book.  I have been painting and decorating the book pages every time I have got the paints out and now feel I have enough to make a start putting in the stitched pieces.  I have started with the running stitch because I want to do a couple more for the cross stitch and couching.  These are good pieces to do when watching TV.

I think that is all for this week.  Keep safe and keep stitching!

Thursday update

Hi everbody.  Hope you have all been stitching away this week, especially now the weather is going cooler again.  I have been tidying up my work book, painting pages in my stitch book ready to put the work into it and doing some of my running stitch samples.  I also decided I would like to do a Trading Card for Coronavirus  so here is my effort.

I cut the pieces from the newspaper but appreciate the figures are only to the present day so I have put the date on the back and maybe when we now the final death toll I will write that on as well for the future.  Don't know if you can read the other article but it is about the Belgian potato farmers asking the public to cook twice as many 'frites' at home as there is a glut of potatoes with all the street sellers closed.  I stitched the gold beads on with red thread which I thought made them look a bit like the pictures you see of the virus.  A bit morbid but maybe it will represent a change in how we look at the world in future.
While clearing out and tidying up I found this little book I made while doing the sketchbook course.  I really like the cover but I had used thin brown paper for the pages and then covered them with gesso. I had obviously got something in mind when I did this but I don't think I anticipated that the pages would all stick together.  I have seperated them but some have torn, I thought of dismantling it and replacing the paper with something else but the more I look at it the more I like the effect, so I am not sure what to do now.  Suggestions welcome./

Having really enjoyed the hand stitching I have been doing, I am now embarking on a piece for the art group exhibition in November.  We have a copy of a poem by Anne Bronte which we are all doing a piece of work for, all the same size and in matching frames.  Because the piece is only 6" x 4" it is a bit small for some of the pictures that the words conjure up.  The poem is Lines composed in a Wood on a Windy Day.  The line I have chosen is 'The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing' and I am now ready to start stitching.

The pattern in the blue fabric I used for the sea, looks just like Whitby pier.  I plan to cover the whole of the front area with wind blown grass, so that is going to take me a while.
The clouds outside have now blown over so I am going out now for my walk.  See you next week.

Thursday update

Don't know what happened to one of the photographs I posted last week but it seems to have disappeared.  I am having trouble uploading pictures from my camera so I will have to sort that out.  I have re-taken the picture on my phone so here is the finished piece.  You can't really see the gold stitching round the stencil but it looks OK.

Cath sent me this picture of a lovely Moroccan door that she has done using tea bag paper and machine stitching.  I love doors, I take photo's of them everywhere.

I spent some time the last couple of evenings stitching into the silk paper I made and now have six card pieces ready to mount as soon as I can get some cards to put them on.

I have also been doing something with my challenge of using something I had bought and never used.  I chose Funtex and had a go with it yesterday.  I must say, it is nothing more than fine kunin felt and I think I will file the rest away under that name. 

I painted the felt, layered up some chiffons on it in similar colours then stitched this pattern on it with machine stitching and black metalic threads.  I then zapped it with the heat gun which has made it crinkle up as it is quite a thin fabric.  Not sure how I could use this yet, I might stitch into it and maybe bed it into a thicker, softer background.

I have also finished stitching my second Africa piece based on the Hausa boubou that I did earlier.

This time I have used stronger colours and made it a bit more modern, I think!  I really enjoyed doing these two pieces but I'm not sure how to mount them yet.  

Keep stitching, I was wondering whether to change the stitch we have been doing.  Maybe next week I will send an email out.

Thursday 16th April

Can't believe we are half way through April already.  The time has flown by for me.  This is one of the jobs I was doing this week:

Sorting the bit box.!

Thanks to Roma for her comment, she gets her fabric from the africanfabricshop,  click on the comment below for the details.
I haven't done quite so much this week.  I have made some silk paper using gummy silk from Art Van Go which isn't as good as what I used to buy from Oliver Twists.  It has lumpy bits in and has dried to a crisp paper rather than a soft one.  I'll see what it's like when I stitch into it.

Iam going to make these into cards, unfortunately when I went to get my pack of blank cards I only have two left, so will have to wait until Boyes opens again to finish these off.  I can do the embroidery on them though.
I have also finished the piece I started last week using a used (and washed) face wipe.

I have stitched round the stencil shapes in gold thread on the machine but you can't really see here.

Lesley has been busy as well.  Here are some of her pieces for her stitch journal.

Lots of lovely work being done.  Looks like we will have another three weeks at least of catching up on our stitching!