Showing posts with label Mini quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mini quilt. Show all posts

Monday, 12 May 2014

Rejoicing in the little things

I love tiny things!

Sometimes the best things aren't big and showy, they are little and have to be searched for. I love looking for the littlest prettiest shell on the beach, spotting a tiny wild violet in the grass or finding the cutest button in a tray of bric a brac.

So when I found an old torn piece of doily that I had space dyed I thought it would be the perfect thing for making a page for my stitched Nature Blanket Book.


I found some gorgeous vintage velvet ribbon and placed it across the middle of both pages. I attached it with cross stitches on one side and feather stitches on the other side and then stitched on velvet flowers and little pink beads.

It is backed with a piece of old blue blanket. Such a lovely surface to stitch on!

On the left page I couched on a piece of wool roving with silk thread and added dyed felt leaves and weensy glass flowers. The bird was cut from felt with a Sizzix die and sewn on with detached buttonhole stitches. Her beak is needle felted on.

The right page is stitched with buttonhole stitches and straight stitches in variegated silk threads and the words done in back stitch.

I think the whole book will be a celebration of tiny beautiful things. Things to make us rejoice about the tiny pieces of nature all around us!


Saturday, 23 June 2012

Vintage Crafts at Nine Lives

I have been teaching 'Vintage Crafts'  at a venue called Nine Lives in Rickmansworth. Isn't that a great name for a charitable organisation that takes old furniture and household objects and then trains people to transform them with re upholstering and painting to make great  saleable items? Giving them a new life!

The place is a treasure trove of ever changing, fab vintage items and I can't resist having a poke around when ever I am there!

Anyway... the course , for Community Learning Partnership, has been all about taking recycled and new materials and vintage techniques and learning to update them to  use textiles to make lovely gifts.


This week we having been learning applique techniques to make a mini quilt or fabric picture. I decided to make a bowl of cupcakes!  We then decorate them with stitch and buttons and beads. Good enough to eat! 




Almost! Ha ha.

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

More ATCs

I have been looking through my zillions of ATCs.I wanted  to find some to show a very small selection of the different kinds of materials that can be used to make these addictive  little things. Below, starting from the top, opening and closing ones, fabric arches with lace that have opening doors, metal that has been embossed and coloured, knitting and crochet, fabric and card with mini tools, embossed hand made paper, recycled jeans, a mini fabric quilt, and sewing with tiny buttons. 
So....anything goes. Let your imagination lead you and play with tiny pieces of art that measure just 2.5"x3.5".