New Shelves and Fabric Dyes.

At last! Gary finally put my shelves up today. It's not his fault as he is working such long hours and hasn't had the time to put them up so far. However, this morning we awoke at 9.30am as Gary has the day off. I couldn't believe it when I saw the time, I never sleep past 8am. I bet I won't sleep tonight now. :0( Anyway, the shelving has been sitting here for over a week now, so I was glad to be able to organise at last. It didn't take Gary long and at last my desk is clear of clutter as it's all on the shelves now. Look at all my pretty colourful boxes and crates.

The little colourful plastic boxes near the top are empty and are waiting to be filled with gorgeousness. The shelf below that holds my dyeing powders and made-up dyes. The crates on the bottom shelf are filled with all my smashing variegated and metallic threads. The box to the left on the bottom shelf holds my silk threads which I think should be kept away from light. And all those those gorgeous little glass jars I got from Freecycle. They're baby food jars, perfect for all my beads and buttons and 'stuff'. I am collecting some more in the week that I'll need for storing some more made-up dyes.

I received some new dyes from Beary Cheap in Australia (wages for pattern sales) and I bought these from eBay:

One of these pots ranges from £5.21- £9.40 (depending on colour) on the website and I got them all from eBay for about £10 including P&P! I have purchased a yellow dye from the website to complete the set, but it's still such a bargain as each pot is 100g (a lot)! I have also purchased some pipettes and small spray bottles to aid with the dyeing process. So expect great things on the hand-dyed fabric front in the coming weeks.

I hand painted a couple pf pieces of fabric yesterday. I don't think I shall ever use them, but it was good to practice and experiment. :0)

I prefer a more subtle, subdued look to fabric. I might try some tie dyeing in the week, that's always fun!

Cat Quilt Sketch.

Nearly forgot! Here's one of the sketches for the trio of quilts I'm planning of the cats. This one is of Minnie. You have to imagine that the straight lines are different colour chunks of quilting. I think they'll make quite a cute set. :0)

Mum's Birthday Picture

I sat down today to make mum a birthday card and I just had no botheration for it. So, I decided to do her an embroidered picture instead. I was inspired by a gorg book that Bry gave me. :0)



First I used my trusty airbrush to do a pretty blended background.

Then I machine embroidered some grass and greenery and added a bit more airbrushing.

This is the picture with finished airbrushing and embroidery. Next I sewed the little hand-dyed disks of fabric on to represent flowers and anchored them with French knots.

Here's the finished picture all trimmed up and sewn onto a border of hand-dyed fabric. It needs to go in a frame really, but I don't have one so mum will have to find one.

Here's a close-up. I added this because I think it's a cool photo!!!

I have banned mum from looking at my blog today as it's not her birthday til tomorrow and of course I don't want her seeing this til then. :0)

More on Cat Quilts.

Firstly, let me show the pussy cats in question (requested by GoldAnne):

This is Minnie and she's a very delicate little lady. She's quite aloof and only gives affection on her terms. She likes a very gentle touch and lashings of cream and tuna. She's a bit naughty sometimes and breaks into food packets to eat the contents. A.K.A Minnie Winnie Moochie Pig.

Here we have Chicken, he's the baby of the bunch. he's very vocal and talks to me all the time. He's a real character and he's SO affectionate. If I look him in the eye he starts purring loudly! You can throw him about, drape him over your shoulders and carry him like a baby and he loves it. My mate Bry caught him when he was a wee ferrel kitten and in real danger of dying. He was born late in the year and the farmer's wife said she'd lost wild kittens before in the cold weather. You'd think the silly woman would round them all up and get them neutered at the Cats protection league or something wouldn't you? Anyway, we've caught five kittens from that farm so far. Chicken for me, then I went and caught a kitten for Auntie's Babs and Mo and then I think Bry had three? A.K.A Chicky Chick Chick Chick.

And lastly this is my big hunka furry love Arthur. He's so beautiful, look at that pretty nose! He's absolutely huge and makes me feel like I own a dog! He's always there. When I was going through chemo he kept me company for months as I languished in my pit. He wakes me at night by biting my nose if he wants love. He's so fat that his belly swings to and from when he walks. He just can't get enough love. A.K.A Aaaaaaaaaarfeeeeeeer.

As Babs says, it's so difficult to capture the essence of a cat so I shan't even try! I have decided to go with an abstract theme which will probably turn out quite grown up. Maybe I will capture the essence (rather than the likeness) by the time I have finished? I will go away now and do some preliminary sketches and maybe blog the results a bit later?

Nearly Forgot...New Painting!

I spent all of last week creating a painting for mum and dad's wall. I say 'creating' because the actual painting was only the half of it! First I made a huge mask over the triptych canvases (see, there are three of them!) then I slopped some Artex on it to represent bark. Then I took the mask off revealing a raised and rough tree shape.


Here is the painting half way through. At this point I always think I have ruined it, but I press on knowing it will probably be alright in the end. There are about five layers of paint here and I'm nowhere near finished.


This is the finished painting on mum and dad's wall, not sure if I like it though. Mum and dad seem to and Gary certainly does. I don't think Gary 'gets' my abstract paintings, but this one is something recognisable so he thinks it's great!

On cat Quilts.

Just a quickie to vent my frustrations. I have been trying for two days to think of a stupendous way in which to portray my three beautiful pussy cats on quilts. My first idea was to do caricatures of them in silly poses and put them on bright backgrounds. So I have been chasing the cats around with the camera hoping for something funny to happen. Of course it did not.

Then I thought I'd get serious and terribly clever. I though that I would print a photo of the cats onto cotton which I had 'water coloured' in my art programme and simply embroider onto that giving a cool half painted/half embroidered look. However that failed too. So now I think I'll go back to my first plan of the caricature.

You see I have these smashing ideas but I can't follow them through as I'm not artistic enough. That's why I nicked cousin Lynne's sketch of Livvie for my last quilt as I'd never have been able to do the initial sketch in the first place! So frustrating. So, I shall persevere with the caricature idea as I usually find that the simplest ideas are the best. :0)

I shall let you know of any design breakthroughs as they happen.

Oh and by the way, I know there are many lurkers out there as my profile has had 175 views. So how come none of you leave me a comment? I'd really love it if you did as I'd love to know who's reading me. :0)

Finished At Last!

I finally finished my quilt. We went away in the camper for the weekend and I spent my time hand beading and adding the little flowers and butterflies round the edges. Yesterday I machine embroidered a spider:

A ladybird (in honour of my friends in Texas):

A little bumble bee. If you look closely you can just about see his 3D gossamer wings:


Here you can just about see the beading:

And finally, the finished quilt. PHEW!:

A few days ago I was determined to figure out how to print from the computer onto cotton fabric. It was quite simple really. I sprayed a sheet of paper with temporary glue (like Spray Mount) and stuck the cotton to it before cutting the cotton to the exact size. It went through the printer like a dream (see below). I will see if I can find a spray that will make it UV stable so it doesn't fade. The quilting possibilities are limitless now! I might do a life size portrait of mummy!!!

Look at my little travel iron. It has to be 20 years old and never used. I dug it out to go with my the little ironing pad I made and it's perfect for my teeny tiny sewing room. :0)

Yesterday I started a triptych painting for mummy and daddy. It's all Artex and masking and stenciling and mess. I might blog about that later. Right, I'm off to add another layer...