Sewing Class

Hello. How are you?

During the week I took a day off work to attend a class run by the amazingly talented Lara Sparks at the Eclectic Maker, a fabric shop (and online shop) in my home town. I've attended one of Lara's classes previously, a couple of years ago now, where I made a 'Things we Love' cushion. This time I'm making a bird textile picture. The class is run over two separate days, the second one is next week.

This week we were given a ready prepared panel to practice our free motion machine embroidery on before we started on our main project, I didn't want to miss the opportunity of having a Lara Sparks design to keep so I wanted mine to be as good as I could possibly make it! There wasn't enough time to finish it in class so I had a go at it when I got home too.

Above is the panel after I'd done the machine embroidery, I was pleased with it but felt the bird needed some colour, I remembered I had some fabric paints and pens so had a go at it with them.

Then I sewed a border on and, because I think everything looks better with a button or two (and I didn't like the sewing on the year), I added three vintage mother of pearl buttons.

Here is the finished panel, bit rustic but I'm feeling very inspired and have lots of ideas running through my head !

Thanks for visiting

xXx

Allow me to introduce...

For some time now I've had an idea buzzing through my head, and despite last Saturday feeling like I didn't want to see my sewing machine for a long time, by yesterday I was itching to make something!

And that something is a pincushion (my idea is for a range of pincushion people!).

This is my first attempt at a prototype

it does have a certain charm about it but the head is too small I think. The face and hair is drawn on this one but will  be embroidered.

So, I made another template, this time with the same size body but a larger head.

As you can see I didn't even finish this one as I just wanted to see if the proportions were right.

A bit rough around the edges, but this is the design I'm going with...

PENELOPE

definitely need to work on that face (same size eyes would be a good start!).

The idea is to have different faces, hair colour, clothing etc and they will all have a name, possibly embroidered on them somewhere.

What do you think to sticking pins in 'people'?

I have more trouble sticking them in 'animals' myself - wonder what that says about me?!!

Have you had a crafty weekend?

Thanks for visiting

xXx

This picture sums up how I felt at 2.30pm on Saturday....

"it's over and it was a success"

Thank you for all your comments.

I am so looking forward to having a month or so off from craft fair organising (next one 19th July).

Watch out for my return to blogland!

xXx

Nearly There...

The Spring fair I am organising is tomorrow and I've had to accept that some things won't be making their way to the fair - kitchen candles (again - and I SO want to do these), lavender pooches and owls, embroidery art etc etc.!

This is a small selection of what I will be taking

This is the first fair I've organised alone (although I have had a lot of support and help from friends and family) and it's rather taken over my life, especially as I'm trying to embrace Facebook - a challenge that seems to be working though!

Wish me luck!

I'm looking forward to re joining you and your blogs after the fair.

xXx