I started this little piece in our members session about web and wheel stitches yesterday, and I'm pleased with how it's going so far. I plan to shade it through brown into green, filling the hoop with big chunky wheels, scattering delicate ones in between them, and then snaking chain and wheatear stitches through the gaps.
Last night at guild I purchased this beautiful bundle of embroidery threads. A former member had sadly passed away, and her daughters brought all her textile books and supplies down for us. I picked up the threads, and an Islamic pattern book, which looks to be very inspirational.
I'm using the threads to do a webs and wheels hoopla, which I started in the members session yesterday.
Last night and the night before, I got the wool fibres out, and made more felt. I'm visiting my family this weekend, and my nieces love Sewing, so we're going to turn this felt into pictures for their walls.
I knitted a pair of my Treat Mittens in a lovely autumnal colourway for my friend Sue for Christmas. I really like knitting this pattern, and I was pleased with how they turned out.
Another Christmas knit - I made this little slug using cheezombie's pattern for Simon's brother. It was good fun to knit, with an interesting technique for the eye stalks.
For my older nephew, I made a Gruber monster, based on a pattern from Molly Makes. I changed the colours a bit, and added a belly button, which I made deep by stitching securely through felt and wadding, to sculpt the body more.
It was really very enjoyable to sew, all handstitched in mostly blanket stitch, and came together surprisingly quickly. It went down well on Christmas day too.
I only have an in progress photo, I'll post more photos when I've uploaded them.
This Christmas I knitted a Teddy using the Baby Bear pattern from Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.
I knitted it with some lovely, squishy yarn that mum and I had dyed in bright colours a couple of years ago. The pattern was an easy, quick knit, with the only real tricky bits being getting good placement of the limbs and facial features.
I think it worked out well, and my nephew liked it!
I'm having a bit of a catch up on things I've made but not blogged about.
I spent a lovely day at New Year while cat sitting for friends working on some embroideries using techniques I picked up in a workshop with Margaret Beal.
I used the same technique to do both the presents (for a Birmingham Embroiderers' Guild Christmas pennant) and the window piece, except that the window has stitched outlines.
The pieces are worked on a base of acrylic felt, with layers of polyester organza on top. The soldering iron is used to make marks into the layers, both freehand and along a metal ruler. With care, the top layer can also be removed, revealing the colours below, and allowing for further mark making.
The window had an outline square and free-machined lines inside, forming spaces to work within, rather like zentangling.
It was a lovely process, very easy to get 'flow'. The only thing to be aware of is the risk of burning from the soldering iron.
I've been using zip lock freezer bags to store my current and upcoming embroidery projects, and they look so appealing, all packaged up ready to stitch.
I'm off to give blood tonight, and even with an appointment there's usually a long wait, so I thought I'd package up these projects to give me something to do while I wait.
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