Lots of Leaves!

Fiiiiiiinallly finished embroidering all my leaves! It took me days and got a few funny looks from the other people at bingo when I was sat there with all my leaves but they're almost ready to be sewn together tomorrow, just got my water soluble ones drying...
























#leaves #handembroidery #machineembroidery #bingo

Leaves

Been playing with leaves the past few days. I've hand embroidered these ones and the one on the right has wire in it to shape it a bit.

And I saw this great artist who embroidered onto actual leaves and I really wanted to try it, I made a petal and a jay feather

 

#leaves #hand embroidery #blue jay #petal

Dandelion Clocks

I made this a while ago - well a few weeks - for a birthday and have been so busy getting back to college I haven't put it up! I've been trying to keep busy this weekend too as one of my friends has the new Mumford and Sons CD and mine hasn't arrived yet and I need to take my mind off it so I'm not too jealous.
Anyway, this was a birthday present for another fan of the amazing Mr Jez Lowe and the words are from one of his songs called Dandelion Clocks...



'Watching the seasons go, and breezes blow, blow away the dandelion clocks'

It's a boy!

I know you've all been as excited as I was that my dance teacher was having another baby and I found out the other day it's a boy! I had a mad weekend sewing and here's her baby present...

 

And while I wasn't sewing I had a nice little trip up to Scarborough to the Sealife Centre and saw a Weedy Seadragon, possibly an even cooler animal than the Bignose Unicorn Fish...

Red Door Rapper

Red Door Rapper are a fab new Rapper group (the dancing kind of Rapper, confusing I know, but they have a Facebook page and a few videos on Youtube that you can have a look at if you're unfamiliar with the dance kind of Rapper) started by my good friend Emma who will sadly be leaving to go to Uni at Cambridge! So I've made her a little leaving present to take with her and so she doesn't forget us :)

There's even a little red door as well!



New Stuff :)

As well as doing the holiday work college have set me (hello Bignose Unicornfish, the coolest fish name ever!) I found out my Dance teacher is going to have a baby! It was kind of obvious as she was about 8 months pregnant when I saw her but still. So I decided to make a little baby gift for her, and here it is...

 Actually, this isn't for her new baby, this is for the one she had a few years ago and I still hadn't got round to making something for but when she has the new one and I know the name I'll make it's cushion straight away!
Honest :)

OK, so I officially love this course

To be honest, it's been pretty touch and go at times - especially when they make me draw and I spend forever at college and dont seem to get anything done - but theres times like these when I'm too happy and can forget all that because.......I've finished my floral bag!
(I even had a cookie as a reward lol)

 I was so excited I had to have a little dance around our sewing room! I think I love my carnations most and not just cos they're silk! I do like my butterfly and daisies too, especially the ones on the strap.

Well, thats been my excitement for the day, if I get this excited about my cushion and tea towel I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it :)

Flowers

I've finally started some samples and I'm very excited about them!

I'd had this idea for a Carnation for ages and couldn't wait to try it, it's silk (of course) and the first one was just folded with the raw edge hand sewn to the fabric so it wont fray. I thought this looked too much like a Rose and tried to make it more Carnation-y by using bondaweb on the back to stop it fraying and so I could get twice the amount of fabric as I didn't have to fold it. I think this one works better as it looks like it has petals where I cut the fabric (I daren't on the first one cos I thought it'd fray everywhere and look rubbish)

This one was just a simple daisy but I love how the reverse applique turned out! I quite liked the idea of the hand embroidered one and it can turn out really well - I've done it before but smaller and with 2 colours and I think it works better that way. I still kinda like it, it looks like a dandelion clock..



Dun dun duuuuuunnnn.....

Final collections are all complete! WOOH! I've spent most of the day in the print room, freezing, gluing stuff to foil so I can finish them...

Anyways, here are my Embroidery ones:

These were done on cotton sateen (apart from the first one, that was some kind of wool that wasn't very nice to use) and have been done using various hand and machine stitches as well as some applique and dyeing.

And my printed ones:

These were done on habotai silk and cotton sateen using various procion and acid pastes, discharge pastes, pigments and some foiling. (The first 4 are silk and just look so nice, I think I have a slight obsession with silk - I did loads of work in AS Level with it too)

 

 I know they're a bit small but I think if you click them they get bigger and you can have a proper look. If they dont and you really want to see some more detail then just say and I can put them up big!

The end is in sight...

My third and nearly final embroidery sample! The little cup at the bottom took me forever to do cos it's all hand sewn and I wanted to cry after I bondawebbed the leaf on cos the iron made an awful mark on it but it's not that noticable any more so yey. Don't have much to do on my other one either so that can be on here soon...

Final Piece Numero Deux

Finally finished my second final piece for my embroidery collection! Tra laa!

And, since I actually quite like this one, I've got some close ups of my fave bits for you...

Hope you like it too :)

First of the Final Embroidery Pieces!

Woooooh!!

People who can read what I've sewn can have a cookie, but people who can read it and knows what they mean can have 2 cookies! (The random numbers and letters mean nothing, just so as you know, they were just there to make it more sciency :P)

Hand Embroidery

Friday was Hand Embroidery Day for us! We learnt loads of stitches (the bullion knots still confuse me) and had to create a masterpiece using them, here's mine...

There was more of it but it was just branch and I didn't think you'd want to see that cos it's pretty boring, so you have a close up of a section instead so you can admire my beautiful work :)

It was a weekends worth of work but I went back home and had a catch up with some friends (Hi Kiera, Rob and Bec!) so I did as much as I could on the train, so Hi to anyone who saw me on the Thornaby-Leeds train too!