Sketchbook Work

I have done a little more work in my sketchbook this weekend. I would have liked to get more done but there hasn't been a lot of time. Saturday I was at work and Sunday I helped Pam and Anne. Pam is area rep for region 9 of the Quilters Guild and the guild had a stand at a local craft show so I went along for the day to help out. Pam had worked very hard and organised a tombola to raise money for the guild. She made a lot of the prizes herself, we bought a few things and some very kind people donated items that they had made. The tombola was a huge sucess and raised £155 and the nicest thing of all was the handmade gifts which were recieved with great enthusiasm.

Anyway back to the sketchbook. This is a page from an old copy of Country Living, note the owl.

Continuing on from the work we were doing with Gina I have come up with my own interpretation of the owl.
I think he is a little scary though.

My necklace and bracelet are finished and I'm very happy with them. I covered an old box to keep them in as they really do need to be stored flat.

I particularly like the beaded fastening I made for the bracelet. The beads dangle very nicely when you are wearing it. You can just see them going of the edge of the picture.

Now I must go and do some work on my Log Cabin hanging.

At Last

It has been a while since I last blogged, I did try last week but had so many problems just trying to load the pictures that I gave up. Anyway with Pam's help I've had better luck today. A lot has happened in the last few weeks mainly Easter and a Royal Wedding, didn't she look lovely?

I have been busy making and doing - I've got so much to do. This is some hand stitching that took a while, I'm going to free machine into it next. The plan is for it to be another piece of poppy related work.

This is my red square, as Gina pointed out I don't need to paint the fabric just use red fabric! I think I was having an off day when I painted the fabric, I was so tired and obviously not thinking straight. This wasn't the first square I made; that went in the bin because it was rubbish. I like this one though so I took it with me yesterday to the meeting of Spectrum. All the other ladies took theirs and they looked lovely all together and all different. This month Gina wants us to make an orange square...... she's so demanding :-)

Yesterday we worked on our sketchbooks. Gina showed us a technique of getting colour and shape into our books without the need to dtraw, so it was great for me. It was a nice day and I enjoyed the technique I'm hoping to do some more this evening.

As you can see I put more poppies in my book. I think I need to choose something else to work on and I could be developing a hankering for dasies.

I've got to go and work now it's getting busy.

More Sketchbook Work

I have done a little bit more in my sketchbook. This time I've been looking at Star Anise. I certainly wouldn't use it for it's real intention.

It has a very pretty shape. Here I used felt tip pens in brown and black.


This is a much prettier drawing. Iused Koh-I-Noor paints, bleach and a drawing pen. I'm really pleased with this.

I have also been working on a project for my City and Guilds. For one of the finished pieces we have to use one or more of the utility stitches on the machine.

I'm making a twisted bag, which uses three fabrics.

I don't have a pattern for this bag so I'm making it up as I go along. As I've made the samples I've been sticking them in my sketchbook and doing the write up at the same time. I don't like doing the write up so this way it saves me from having to do the whole write up at the end of the project and it stops from forgetting anything.

Here you can see how the three fabrics go together and how the twist is created.

This is me just trying out some of the decorative stitches. I decided to use just two fabrics, a black and gold patterned one and a plain black decorated with one of the embroidery stitches.

This is the result, a lovely piece of fabric. All I have to do now is twist it and put it together. Guess what I'm doing this weekend!

Sketchbook Work

Like all good students I have been working on my sketch book.

I wondered if maybe my problem with drawing had anything to do with being faced with a blank page. So I crumpled up some tissue paper and glued it onto these two pages then painted over it with gesso and I must admit that once I'd made that mess I didn't feel quite so intimidated.

So I went for it. I used oil pastels (as suggested by Gina ) to draw the cow parsley and I have since gone over it with green ink.


This time I had a go at drawing on a normal page. I have also gone over this one with ink and I think this one looks much better so I won't bother with the tissue paper again.

Here it is, I used the ink at full strength and I think it's too strong.

So I had another go. This time I used a metallic wax crayon and watered down the ink, it gives a much better result.

Here I was just messing about.

Then I decided to use the pages I had painted with the Koh-I-Noor paints.

I thought it looked like a corn field. So I drew some, please say you agree!

Just to show you that I have done some sewing this week. I'm making a bag with flying geese and yes I know they haven't got points. They aren't meant to have points it says so in the pattern. It has come up bigger than I imagined.

Enjoy your weekend.