Christmas Bling.

Last year I made this little fellow on the left for a friend of mine who is into penguins. I have made a few penguins for her over the years, and this one, part of a kit, fitted the bill.

This year I added a companion (green scarf, rather than red!)













My friend has this year excelled herself in the Christmas penguin theme on her tree! I especially like the little row of penguins riding on the cow's back.





One of these hearts was last year's offering to another friend who likes to decorate her own tree with hand-made ornaments.

My offering to her this year is a little stocking. These were designed to be merely an ornament, but I prefer a working stocking, so added a felt back. It's nice to add a chocolate or two.






For myself, I have this year finally completed Casper, the third beaded Wise Man. His companions, Melchior and Balthasar, have been waiting since 2012 and 2013 respectively for him to join them.

There is much rejoicing amongst the reunited Wise Men.

I'm pleased to honour their story by completing the task - but am not planning to expand into a full beaded nativity! I'm not sure I have yet found all the beads that escaped from their container down, around and under my sofa!

We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts, we traverse afar
Field and fountain
Moor and mountain
Following yonder star

Happy Christmas!

Oh, star of wonder, star of might

Star with royal beauty bright

Westward leading

Still proceeding

Guide us to the perfect light

Here's to perfect light!

Dijanne Cevaal Owl Cushion

At the October Craft and Quilt Fare in Adelaide I had resisted the temptation to buy one of the owl panels that Dijanne Cevaal had available. A friend urged me to buy, but as I had four untouched panels at home I resisted.

That was before I conceived of my 'guardians' theme.

Niamh likes owls. Owls too, have, in literature, performed the role of guardians of humans.

I contacted Dijanne and bought a panel.







I figured this is a mystical owl so chose red/gold colours to reflect that. I still had some of the lovely red/gold over-dyed stranded, as well as some lovely red silks.

I tried a range of stitches on the wings and breast, trying to get a notion of feathers. I did a couple of rows in colcha stitch. On the breast I used long single chain stitches, double in some places to get coverage.





I went looking for beads for the head- flat, round ones to go in those circles. The ones I found were a little yellower than I was looking for, but I went with them anyway.












I found some owl-coloured ones that I decided to use for the wing tips.

After trying a few seed beads and larger ovals in the central head section, I settled for an outline of large ovals and chips of gold bugle beads to infill. It took a while but I was pleased with the result. I also had to go back to the bead shop several times - and captured the market on round flat beads!

Amongst my cache of broken jewellery I had a pair of earrings that were perfect for the eyes. I stitched the surround in red metallic and attached the silver disc with (I confess!) super-glue.




The beak is a shell from an odd earring.

         I used midnight purple for the background and a straw-coloured silk for the feet - to pick up the gold in the head.



I chose the batik (again from Chrissy at Batik Fabrics Online - superfast pre-Christmas service) to suggest trees. I wanted the owl to seem to be emerging from the greenery, so did not put a border on this one.

I'm very pleased I relented and sent for this one. It turned out better than I  had dared hope.

Dijanne Cevaal Dragon Cushion

After working the Sentinelle,  having so much fun, and earmarking it for Veronica, I decided to work a series of 'Guardian' figures for each of my grandchildren. Esther Vigil, whose excellent books on Colcha Embroidery had been so useful for my New Mexico Colcha Embroidery Workshop, had told me she was embroidering an angel for each of her grandchildren.  This got me thinking.  I already had the Sentinelle, to stand guard over Veronica.

I also had a dragon, another guardian figure - especially in Chinese mythology, where the dragon is a hero with power over the water - so I set to work to create a Dragon Guardian for Fionn.

I wanted this dragon to be a hybrid - a green dragon blending to red-gold.

I used silks, some red beads, metallics and a splendid red glass bead for the eye.

I couldn't go past the overdyed stranded cotton that I bought from the Guild earlier this year - it has a dragon's name on it!

I'm not sure why I was so sure of the green on the dragon - surely not a hang-over from the Hobbit drinking song in Lord of the Rings? Maybe it was the lure of some bright green silk.

I found a lovely dark green silk for the plants and practiced my colcha stitch.























The background is midnight blue Madeira metallic  and I filled the spaces between with running stitch in stranded cotton.


























I had purchased batik on which to mount this dragon but didn't feel I had enough. I thought he deserved a bigger cushion than my half-metre would make. I considered ordering more but also thought he got a bit lost in the gold of the batik.















I remembered a large quantity of dark denim I had bought a few years ago, got it out and rather liked the contrast. I washed it and set to work


It is quite a different look to the Sentinelle but I like its strength and boldness. Hope Fionn does too!

Sentinelle Cushion

For the last couple of months I have been working on some of my Dijanne Cevaal panels. I began with the Sentinelle - for the sheer enjoyment of doing it. When one of my granddaughters expressed enthusiasm for it as it emerged, I conceived the idea, first of making it for her, and then of making a 'Guardian' cushion for each of my grandchildren. This was helped along in conception by Esther Vigil, who has made an angel embroidery for each of her grand-children.


The term 'sentinelle' relates to the English term 'sentry'. It is someone standing guard, watching over, guarding.

I began this one with the halo. Given the shapes in the screenprint, I looked to see if I had any round beads and found a couple of packs of heart shaped ones almost the exact size I was looking for.

Having done that I needed bugle beads for the outer edge.






While I was buying these I found the large lozenge shaped mauve beads that fitted well with the other shapes on the cloak

From the beginning I had the notion of using shisha mirrors on the cloak. The circular motifs seemed to cry out for it.

I experimented with metallic thread to hold them in. Somewhat to my surprise, it worked quite well. It took a bit of time, and required working with a relatively short thread , but proved fun to do.

I worked the mirrors in first, then added the surrounding spokes and the lozenge beads.
















Because I was, at the same time, obsessed with Colcha embroidery and Colcha/Bokhara stitch, I used the stitch for some of the embroidery on the cloak. It worked well for the long folds - stitched on the diagonal rather than the full length of the fold.

For much of it I used chain stitch. I also ran some gimp down the edges of the folds. This was quite hard to keep tight, no matter how hard I tried. I tightened it several times.

I also worked out colours as I went - working from a general notion of the effect I wanted.



The metallic mirror surrounds worked the same way - I used two metallics in dark blue and bluey-red.



I filled the background in using a black synthetic with silver - very easy to use and providing some texture along the lines of the print








I also used a very fine copper metallic to outline the facial features and more bugle beads on the head band.








Here"s the finished panel, being blocked, ready to be mounted in batik. The blue of the panel is truer here than in previous photos.

Once again, I'm delighted with the batik - from Crissy at Batik Fabric Online.

Again, I worked a border in one of the Kantha edges from The Art of Kantha Embroidery, by Niaz Zarman.

Here she is, very crumpled, in all her splendour and, on the right, with continental pillow insert on Christmas Day.

In the next couple of weeks I will post the other three guardian cushions.

Dijanne Cevaal figure1

I have four large woven Ottoman pouffes in my lounge room. They are lovely, and good for storage and as footstools but I don't use them much and they take up room. When full of fabric (as one is) or packed tight with polystyrene balls they are also useful as tables, or at a pinch, to sit on. They are not much use for relaxing. I thought I might replace at least two of them with large cushions that can go on the floor. 

After the success of my Kantha cushion, I remembered some Dijanne Cevaal panels I had bought at last year's Adelaide Craft Fair. I loved the panels, but hadn't thought of a practical thing to do with them. One of the panels looked quite good on the second batik fabric I had bought as backup when purchasing for the Kantha piece. I thought it would be good to have a couple more large cushions, so I backed the panel with wadding and old sheeting and got to work.                      

Because the panel was so vibrant in colour I thought it needed to be matched with rich and vibrant threads, as well, perhaps, as a few beads. I found some vibrant blue beads left over from some Christmas angels and added them to the crown. I outlined the crown in a dull gold silk.

I dug out all the rich blue, purple and gold silk threads I had, bought a few more and began to improvise.



I worked the halo in running stitch in Kantha style with a slightly stronger gold. I wanted it to be subtle rather than shiny. I used a yellower gold silk for the necklace.

The hair I worked in a strong brown (partly because the print was quite strong and dark here) in Bokhara stitch.

The face presented a challenge. I don't much like the lips, and will probably change them.

The cape (coat?) I wanted in blue and purple. I settled for a strong darkish blue and a range of purple/mauves for the decorative effect - using the striped design a bit like a sampler.






I had envisaged a needle-lace jerkin in gold to pick up on the halo. I agonised  over this but couldn't decide without actually doing it so went ahead

While I like the needle-lace effect, it did not look like chain mail. I probably can't get that effect without using a metallic, which I didn't want to do. The effect ended up rather more modern than I intended.

I worked the background quilting in a variegated machine thread slightly darker than the fabric, working around and around the outline.

Once I had added the batik  border around the panel, I thought it needed a transition, so I worked a Kantha border in the blue and purple silks of the clothing.






Here is the finished cushion, resting on the pouffes!

In the meantime, I had backed all my other Dijanne Cevaal medieval pieces, prepared them for stitching, and ordered more batik from Chrissy at Batik Fabrics Online. 

It was exciting when the fabric arrived, laying the out to see how well I had done, choosing from a website. I think I did quite well - and have given myself some really interesting work to do over the coming months!