Banksia Cushion 2

As I indicated last time, I decided to work my last Dijanne Cevaal print into a cushion for myself. I had another fabric from Missy Rose that I had bought with this in mind. I had to source another 60cm cushion, which took a bit of searching. Those that were easily available were mostly feather, which I didn't want. I've decided I prefer firmer filling. Eventually I found what I was after at Adairs.

I had chosen a range of threads - mostly DMC Etoile, plus some variegated stranded specialty threads, a bit of linen and some gimp. The Etoile really came into its own. Photos unfortunately don't show the glints and glimmers that are there in reality. I began with the Banksia itself - a different variety to the last one but still a pleasure to work.

The first cone I worked in a pinky-red variegated cotton, using black Etoile in the centres. The pink is a bit of a cheat, since cones don't usually retain much of their red colour. Artistic licence.

The other one I worked in more realistic colour, surrounding it with dark green slightly glittery leaves. 

I really enjoy working with gimp, and used three different ones on stems.

I am particularly pleased with the black I used on the brown cone.

For variation I used olive greens on the right hand leaves - older and drier.

Finally, I quilted the background down with reddish linen thread, to  blend with the background, and found some black braid to frame the embroidery.

Colourwise it is bolder than my other cushions.     

Needless to say, I'm delighted.          
        

Banksia Cushion 1

 

This is a 60cm square cushion I have just finished for a granddaughter who is setting up a shared home with a friend.

The embroidered motif is one of Dijanne Cevaal's prints, purchased some time ago. 

When I bought it, I envisaged introducing a lot of texture, and purchased a variety of beads, some quite large, to use. When I came to create it, I decided such hard textures would be uncomfortable in a cushion, and restricted myself to threads. 

The fabric is Banksia Mini, from Missy Rose - a limited print. I had only ordered a half-metre, so needed to cut it to form a border, rather than appliquéing on to the print.

I used a range of threads from my stash, many of them special orders or runs given to me as gifts. The stem is a very narrow braid from the Painters Threads Collection.

To integrate the embroidery into the background, I quilted it down with running stitches in a similar green to the stems on the background fabric.

I am very pleased with the result - achieved in my usual way of working it out as I go along!

I have one more of Dijanne Cevaal's Banksia prints. I've now begun one more cushion for myself! I can't claim I need another cushion, but I do have room for it - justification enough!

When you're on a good thing...

The 90 stars bag worked so well I decided to try a variation, this time for a 20th birthday. While 20 figures are a lot less than 90, I decided to make these all different sea creatures - so increased the challenge, while reducing the number. I had enough of the shells fabric left to make the front of a bag. This time I tried a different construction. I cut two large rectangles, one in the shell fabric and one in a brown linen, joined them, then folded and stitched down sides and a base - a much simpler technique. Because I was experimenting I did the construction first, then the embroidery.

For the most part that worked well. It is a neater result on the corners than I get cutting separate strips for the sides and bottom.

Great care has to be taken in mounting it into a hoop to embroider. It is easy to catch an extra edge of fabric under the hoop, as I discovered to my detriment. 

To begin, I made a sketch of 20 sea-related things I might include. This acted as a rough guide, rather than a blueprint.

I began with a leafy sea dragon.

Then worked whichever took my fancy. 

I really enjoy creating these little figures. It's fun to work out what might fit the project and how to create it. For these I mostly used linen thread, but a bit of variegated stranded as well.

Construction was relatively easy because I had the exterior before stitching. I tried a couple of linings, but settled for the same cotton I had used for the 90th birthday bag, since I had enough and the colours work well.

The back is a light brown linen, one handle is in the linens, one in the cotton lining.

I think it's a useful bag with a bit of a story.

I ordered some more half-metres of Ink and Spindle linens while they were on sale. I seem to now have enough for another 16 bags! Better get designing!

Bee Scarf

 

Another mad idea last week - to embroider a scarf with bees as a birthday gift for a family member who is a beekeeper. I had bought a rather lovely hand-woven scarf from the Handspinners and Weavers Guild with the intention of embroidering it with threatened Australian flora and fauna during the bushfire crisis, but when that crisis was overtaken by floods, my design seemed inappropriate. It occurred to me last week that I could turn this into a useful and appropriate gift by embroidering bees - another threatened species.

After playing around with a few designs I settled on a larger than life bee on each end of the scarf, using wool.

Some stems of green added context and I found a variegated grey/mauve/pink that worked well for wings. The wings don't show up strongly on the light woven background - but neither do bees' wings show up strongly against the sky!                              

I really enjoyed working these. It took a couple of days - the first one at the Tuesday Stitchers Group at the Guild. The two ends are similar, but not identical. I was interested in impact ahead of geometry.

It's a bit of a mad project for an Australian February birthday gift. Hopefully the recipient will get to travel to colder climes later this year.

The wrapping for the gift was a bag made from some fabric purchased from a limited run of cotton from Missy Rose. 

There's a lot of satisfaction in a project like this one - with a strong sense of purpose, a deadline and a recipient in mind. Note to self.

90th Birthday Bag

Today I finished a project I conceived a couple of weeks ago - a gift for a friend who is turning 90 tomorrow, and having a celebration lunch this coming Friday. She is comfortably off, with most things she needs, but has no family at all. She puts a lot of effort into making and keeping friends. I wanted to give her something special.

Serendipitously, Ink and Spindle sent out a notice of a sale of their discontinued or remnant stock and Shells i

n Brown Ochre caught my eye. I did some measurements and calculations and ordered enough for a tote bag. 

When it arrived, I cut out the pieces for the bag - two to make the front and back of the bag, each with 40 shells, and 40 nice blank spaces, two for the sides and a base. I then began embroidering stars (or, if you prefer, as I do, starfish).

I used the lovely Knox linen thread I bought a while ago from Studio Flax.                         

I tried out a couple of star stitches, but settled in the end for the one simply woven around six spokes. 

I laid the spokes out from the centre, then took my needle around from the centre, under each spoke, then over and on to the next one. It probably took me about 15 hours to work 90 stars.

On the bottom panel I worked my initials, my friend's initials and the year.

On Friday I raided my fabric stash for suitable lining and settled on a brown cotton with sprays of small flowers.  Today I spent several hours at the machine (and, yes, the iron!). I had to repair two stars that threatened to disappear into a seam, but anyone can count 90 stars on the bag. 

I am very satisfied with the result. I think L will like and use it. She doesn't read my blog - so I can post it in advance of the Birthday Celebration without spoiling the surprise! 

All ready to go.

Reversible Apron for Exhibition

Back in early December, I got out some seersucker I had bought when Niamh and Veronica were much younger, with a view to making smocked nightdresses. I wanted seersucker because it doesn't require ironing, and stripes because I could use them to guide my smocking, instead of pleating. Unfortunately, the girls were less than enthusiastic at the time, so I abandoned the idea, leaving me with rather a lot of fabric.  

I revisited the fabric after our December WES session on smocking, and came up with the idea of an apron, using the stripes for embroidery rather than smocking.

I dug out an apron that I bought as a pattern - Japanese style wrap-around with wide cross-over straps at the back ( It had been easier and cheaper to buy an apron online than a pattern in Adelaide!) and cut it out. I cut out two, with a view to lining it and making it reversible. I figured the seersucker was a bit thin for an apron. If it is protecting clothes it's better that spills don't simply go through to the clothes below.

My idea was to work the front section like a sampler, using white thread only, to get a counter-change effect. I began in the centre and got most of the way across before I needed to look up some more stitches, for which I used Enthoven.

I created a very deep V, all the way to where I planned to put a pocket.

Then, of course, I had to mirror that on the other side - and be able to work out the stitches I had used!

I changed threads a bit, beginning with cotton-a-broder, but moving quickly to perle 5 cotton, then to a cordonnet when the cotton ran out. It was quite a thread-hungry exercise!

Originally I intended to only embroider one side, but decided to embroider the second side in pink to get the counterchange contrast. I didn't have an exact match for the pink. Before I set out to buy a matching thread, I tried a variegated perle I had, and thought it would make an interesting contrast. To avoid contrast overload, I settled on a single stitch - long-armed cross-stitch. I also made the columns of stitches less steep for a broader, more solid effect.

I am fascinated by the way the look of the fabric changes when one colour is covered with thread.

I worked matching pockets, reversing the shape direction.

Today I put it together. Adding the pockets was straightforward - stripes help with alignment. It took a bit of manipulating to put the two sides together to enable reversing.  I finally left one end of each strap loose  and inserted them at the end.

They are not very glamorous photos. I had to keep trying it on to ensure I had the construction right.  I haven't yet ironed it (since the point of seersucker was to avoid ironing it seems contradictory - but I will iron it before entering it in the Exhibition).

I acknowledge it won't be the easiest thing to hang in an exhibition.

I also admit it isn't setting me on fire as a design, but it will be a useful apron. I have plenty of aprons myself, so all I need now is someone who needs/wants it!

10 Bag Days

After the success of my Christmas fabric bags, I remembered that I had also purchased 2 other tubs of fabric offcuts from the Guild trading table - one of green coloured fabric, and one of checks and tartans.

As the year drew to an end,  I   rolled my eyes and wondered if, on a bag roll, I could use the fabric up before 2023.  The attraction of one tub had been the pieces of gingham it contained. I enjoy embroidering gingham, so set those pieces aside - to maybe make gingham lace (chicken scratch) aprons, table cloths or, yes, bags. 

The remaining tartans, and the greens were of various sizes and shapes. I got to work with my scissors and cut all of them into bags - 125 of them. 

Madwoman.

Amongst the green collection was a  piece of patchwork (top left) just waiting to be turned into a bag. It also reminded me that I could turn any left-over strips of fabric into patchwork. The lower two photos are the result. The one on the right is quite large - around 40cmx60cm.

As the pieces were probably the remnants of quilting projects, a few were odd shapes.  Bags don't need to be standard.

Unlike the Christmas fabric, which was in significant lengths, these greens and tartans were smaller and more varied. Only a couple of the resulting bags are large. The majority are medium sized and there are probably around 25 that are quite small - jewellery size.

I worked them as a production line for one worker. I cut them all out into the most efficient sized bag . The next day I ironed them all - ironing in the seams and hems. It took several days to machine them into bags. I stitched about  15 bags in an hour to an hour and a  half. I worked them in batches of around that number.

Once I had about 50 bags, I spent an hour or so choosing drawstrings from my ribbon and cord stash. I was in danger of running out, but Katherine came to my rescue with her substantial ribbon stash, which is now severely depleted.

Before long I had a pile of bags waiting for stops to be put on the end of the cords, a pile waiting for the cords to be threaded and a pile waiting to be machined, giving me a choice of activity each day. 

This kept me busy for 10 days - with breaks for reading, shopping, washing, catching up with friends and family, or taking photos. 

I didn't quite make my 2022 finishing goal. I wasn't tempted to push the envelope. It's been a good holiday activity. I enjoy it - and the end was in sight. 

I put the final touches on today - and did a bit of reorganising to clear a big red storage tub, which now holds the 125 bags - quite a good supply. Except for the gingham. all the trading table fabric is used up. 

Now I need to resist the temptation to buy any further bargain fabric from the Guild's trading table. After all, I still have drawers of my own left-over fabrics, without buying someone else's! 

I enjoy making bags, I like recycling and family are very welcome to any bags I have in store.  

Now it's back to my knitting. Oh, and there's the gingham......