More Free Motion Stiching

This time on water soluble film.

My lovely friend Julia came round to give me a tutorial and this is my finished first piece.

A grid was drawn onto the water soluble film which was about 4 inches x 4 inches.  The grid was then free motioned stitched with a straight stich.  Stitch setting was then changed to a zig zag and circles worked over the whole grid.

The most important thing about this is that all the circles must at some point connect to each other and the grid otherwise when the water soluble film is dissolved it will not hold together.

This is a picture before being immersed in water.

This is a picture after.
















Now I know it's not brilliant but I am chuffed with my first effort.

Japanese Bookbinding Wedding Album

I saw a tutorial on Youtube about Japanese bookbinding and fancied having a go.  And seeing as though there is a wedding due I thought I'd make it for the happy couple to use as a guest book or an album for some fun photos.

The pages inside are alternate vellum and lovely quality paper.

The basic cover is mountboard covered in a cotton material.   The front is decorated with painted tyvek, ironed and then stitched.  The heart is two pieces painted tyvek with wadding inbetween and sewn.  There is also some embossing on it but couldn't go mad with it without the tyvek shrinking.  An air dry clay heart in the centre.

The back is the free motion stitched piece in the last post.

The invitation had a flower on it made out of ribbon so I thought it would be a nice touch to reuse it on their album so unravalled it, ironed it and then threaded through the holes.  Voila!

More stitching

Really enjoying this.  The pink & blue piece was another practise piece but the turquoisey one isn't finished yet but is being made for a specific project.  Well that's the plan anyway.  Lol.

Free Motion Stitching

Have always wanted to do this but my attempts were very poor. Anyway, it turns out that in our circle of friends is a lovely, generous and multi-talented lady by the name of Julia Martin who is City and Guilds qualified. She very kindly offered to teach me and this is my second piece which I am so chuffed with I decided to mount on a canvas.

Squares of shiny fabric have been secured to felt with the slightest touch of a fine point on a soldering iron. Black organza has been laid over the top and then free machine stitched with a gorgeous variegated metallic thread. Now my first piece didn't quite go to plan as I went a bit off piste from the instructions but it was a valuable lesson learnt.

A bit of tarting up

Had an extremely sad looking downstairs loo (even though it's in a bungalow.  Lol) and it's been like that forever.

Decided that it may benefit from the odd square or 200 of decopatch paper so got going with the old

pva and water mix.  The flush button was coloured with alcohol inks and sealed with an a spray sealant.

Have to confess though that I did break the mirror when trying to reassemble it.  It's not a good idea to use a stapler on the cardboard backing.  Ooops!

A lick of paint on the walls and it's spruced it up enough until Ernie sends me a big fat cheque.  Lol!

Nick's Birthday Adam & Eve

Canvases (14"x10") covred with suedette & black chiffon which had then been machine embroidered with metallic threads.  The remaining chiffon that hadn't been stitched was burnt back with a heat gun to that the suedy material shows through.

Figures cut from 1/2 inch thick foam.  Eve covered in lace, two seed pods (not sure from what though) and then tissue paper pva over the top  Coloured with Cosmic Shimmer mica pigments.

Adam basically made the same way.  Each with an ivy leaf to preserve modesty though I may have got one the wrong way round?   Lol!

A Canvas for Sparkles

No, this isn't the third in my trilogy.  That is still pending...................................................Lol.


This is a canvas painted and stamped round the outside with words.  Then a layer made up of chiffon stitched to silver metal and melted.  With the odd blob of pearly glue.  The next layer was metal, angelina fibres and chiffon but that all went a bit Pete Tong (and very black!) for some reason so the old silver embossing powder came to the rescue.


Then some stampboard tiles stamped and etched a little bit.  Smaller stampboard tiles embellished with bits from my Mum's hoard of costume jewellery and Bob's your Uncle.  (Where on earth does that saying originate from?)

Part Two

Yes, it's taken a while and seeing as though Sparkles and Nicks have finished their frames that I made for them, I thought I'd best pull my finger out!

The central image has been printed onto Decal Waterslide paper and attached to copper shim.  Then highlighted with some machine stitiching.

The main frame is made by stitching string through plastic canvas.  This was then glued to an artists canvas board and the whole lot covered in tissue paper.  Originally painted black and then used copper acrylic paint, cranberry alcolhol inks and various metallic rub-ons.

Don't hold your breath for number 3, it may be some time.  Lol!