Wedding wheelchair bag

An unusual request just recently resulted in a new product. Its something that I have never heard of or seen before. At a recent craft fair where I was selling my shopping totes I was asked for a nice bag for a wedding which could be hung on the back of a wheelchair. I didn't have to make many adustments other than move the handles to the side and turn them from front to back. I think it's rather nice for an impromptu change of design.

Printing Kits

Throughout my textiles course we tried many different types of fabric decoration, some I have shared on here. From my playing I have developed a couple of kits for anyone out there who would like to have a play. As with my patterns I have written colour step by step instructions for those who have never tried anything like this before. The kits contain everything to be able to play immediately on opening the box, which many kits out there don't allow you to do. Take a look and see what you think, some feedback would be nice! As usual, available on Etsy at a very competitive price!!

Lino Printing Contents

Foam Block Printing Kits

A trip to the theatre

I haven't been around for a while because I have had to finish my City & Guilds course which took up a lot of time. But I have finally finished it and I am glad to see the back of it. We started the course such a long time ago it seems and I was determined not to do my usual thing of leaving it all until the last minute. I did a little bit here and there but I still managed to get way behind.

This is my final piece for the City & Guilds Patchwork and Quilting course, it is approximately 1 metre square and I didn't think I was going to get it in my car when it came to dropping it off. Its in a 6 inch deep MDF shadow box so it stands independantly. The peacock is hand sequined, the scenery is layers of hand painted and quilted trees on organza to give the illusion of depth. The fabrics are hand dyed and printed with my own lino cut. If you look closely at the side panels they are printed with the traditional sad/happy theatre masks.

 It was a lot of work, I can never take the easy route if there is a difficult one to go down!

 I have no idea what I am going to do with it when my tutor has finished with it!!

New stuff

Here is some new stuff I haven't shown you before. I have put the cushions on Etsy and I will list the pattern for the Sunny Dayz cushion tomorrow. They are all 16 inch square feather filled cushions with appliqued designs and an envelope back.
The pattern has step by step diagrams aimed at those people who are just venturing into the world of sewing and applique, its dead easy too!

Sunny Dayz

Sunny Dayz

Red Lolly Pops

Orange Lolly Pops

Fresh from the printing table

The weather has gone from a glorious sunny week to a miserable cold few days. I seems like no sooner you put away your jumpers you are getting them out again! Almost like someone is trying to catch us out so they can point and laugh when we go out togged up for winter and the clouds part and we are left sweating in 30C sunshine! At least with the greyness outside it is a lot less tempting to be playing in the garden!

I have been playing indoors with a bit of fabric printing. They are all fat quarters, the fabric was dyed the other day in various ways. The second two are magenta but for some reason it hasn't shown up as nice as it really is. This fabric is printed with a very simple foam printing block which produces some nice vintage type results.

The fabric is destined for glasses case, which I am sure you would have worked out already!

Some you win some you don't

We did our second craft fair last weekend. We are certainly not getting ready to retire on our takings anytime soon thats for sure! It was a bit of a fiasco unfortunately and we managed to make a loss! We weren't the only ones, nobody else took anything either. There was just no one around, it was in a small community centre with no posters other than the one immediately outside the door, the weather was nice so that wasn't a problem, it was in the local paper and a leaflet drop had been done in a small area around the centre, it just wasn't enough to attract customers unfortunately. :(

We have another one this weekend so fingers crossed this one is a bit more profitable!

Hand parfait dyed scarves

As you know I love the dyeing side of making fabric unique and my other favourite part is making stamps or lino blocks. I have decided to combine them both in a range of personalised printed scarves. I have a range of light weight scarves I have been bought over the years. I like them because they don't itch, you can wear them in summer when there's a little chill or in winter when its freezing. They tend to be rather long and wide and beg to be parfait dyed and printed. 

 Below is the first scarf I printed just for me. The colours are subtle on the grey which I think is a nice effect. 

The blue one has been created for my hairdresser featuring of course the tools of the trade, scissors and comb.

Below is a few of the colours to choose from and I will enjoy making the printing blocks on request. They will make ideal presents, every one needs a scarf or three don't they?!