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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Embroidered Jacket - Paisley

Here is the paisley piece that gave me so much grief when I started it. It has white metallic thread which I started to use with 6 strands, but it got all tangly and was very difficult to work with so I went down to one thread, which is doable. The other floss is a light aqua color. The design is from a blog called Pintangle. It turned out better than I thought it would.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Embroidered Jacket - Flower Mandalas

Here are two designs I stitched up.  They are from a design I found on the internet.


Thursday, November 11, 2010

Embroidered Jacket - Progress

Here are some more designs on my jacket.  The bunny is an Urban Threads design, the Octopus and Crow are Doodle Stitching designs. 



Monday, November 8, 2010

Embroidered Jacket - The Start

I'm going to embellish this jacket.  I've already got a few small motifs from trying out transfer techniques and I just finished the moon phases on the waist.  Moon phase design from Aimee Ray's Motif Collection book.


Stonehenge

I made a Stonehenge model for the craft part of my project for Religion in Prehistory.  I attend an online seminary school.  I have to finish a poem (the writing part of my project) and finish typing up my process notes.  Then I send the pictures, the poem and the process notes to my teacher. I'll just post all the photos of the model here.  When I tried to peel off the aluminum foil a lot of the stones fell of or down, so it became a ruin. :)  I glued some of the stones back up.  Made of most of a box of original white Sculpy clay.  I had to condition the clay a lot to get it to a workable state.  Thank goodness I have a pasta machine to help me with that.  I'm not going to paint it.  To be honest I don't know what to do with it.  Kinda fun having a sacred site on my kitchen table though!








Tuesday, November 2, 2010

One for me, one for you

A successful experiment using Sulky Soft & Sheer stabilizer for stretch fabrics. Design from Aimee Ray's "The Motif Collection". That's me wearing the hot pink tee, Rit-dyed. I used white DMC floss, all six strands.


Wedding photo printed out with peach tone from PhotoImpression program, pale yellow acrylic painted wood plaque, stickers, gold glitter, matte Mod Podge. Forgot to spray photo with hairspray, turned out OK anyway. Christmas gift for Mom.

On Quitting Projects

I quit two projects yesterday that I was never gonna finish.  One, a green tote bag for my Mom, an embroidery project.  I used too complicated of a design on both the front and back and that tote bag canvas is so hard to work with.  Also the iron-on design was too light for the detail involved.  Maybe someone will pick it up at the thrift store and finish it.  The other was a beading project on my loom.  It was too wide and too hard to do.  I just cut it off and chucked it.  It had been sitting for about six months.  Next time I'll do a narrower pattern, although I don't plan on beading on the bead loom for awhile.  Sometimes you just have to give up on stuff!  I feel better since I did that.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

INSPIRATION Art Journal Pages

Here are my INSPIRATION art journal pages I did in response to a prompt in the art journal group on CCS.

Punchneedle or not...

I bought a punchneedle kit and supplies last Christmas.  I made some progress on the kit, but not a lot.  I decided to do my own experiment on denim to see if I could get a rhythm going.  I got a little better at it, but I made really slow progress.  So slow that I decided not to do punchneedle anymore.  I will give the supplies and kit to one of my friends, if they want it.  Some of you might have better luck with it.  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment because I've been looking at counted cross stitch kits.  Uh-oh!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

LOVE art journal pages

I made my first art journal pages this week.  They are two sides of the same piece of paper.  Eventually, if I keep at it, I'll bind them together to make an art journal.  Inspired by my friends on CoachCreativeSpace!  The theme for these is LOVE.
The second pic includes one of my poems.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

More Good Stuff!

Set of fall napkins for my mom.  Free embroidery design by Carina Envoldsen-Harris found on Flikr.  Just finished yesterday.

Framed Halloween pumpkin:

And some pretty flowers:

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Halloween - Stitching the Wheel - Work in Progress

OK, 3 blogs in one day is outrageous, I know!  I've been under a lot of stress this weekend and so have been stitching a lot.  Plus I like to take breaks between doing homework by embroidering.  It takes longer, but I retain my sanity.  5 homework posts due yesterday. 5.  Aaaaack!  Here is the future Halloween decoration for my house.  I'm slightly farther along than this.  You can see the Transfer-eze stuck to the fabric.  Design by Urban Threads.

Fall Failures and Successes: Fall Triple Moon

Well, I tried the Goddess design, upper left on the paper (previous blog post) on an organza bag, but the bag was too small and ripped, so that didn't work out very well.  I had to toss the whole thing. :(

I used Transfer-eze to transfer the small triple moon design onto orange printed fabric.  That turned out nicely.  I think I'll frame it!  :) That was also part of the Fall/Halloween art challenge on Creative Souls, a NING website.  Here is the triple moon design.  It is only about three inches long.

Transfer-eze! I love this stuff!

First thing I printed out some Urban Threads designs and cut them out and stuck them to another piece of copy paper.  Then I scanned those images.  Then I printed them out on the rough side of the Transfer-eze with my laser printer which I figured was less likely to bleed (toner rather than ink).  I used many images because this stuff is $15 for 10 sheets, plus shipping.  Just Google Transfer-eze to find quilt shops to order from.  I ordered mine from Original Creations, in Texas, fast shipping.

Here's a picture of the cut-out's on the left and the Transfer-eze on the right.  I paid for all these designs at Urban Threads, they are $1 each for hand embroidery designs unless there's a sale.  They are PDF files.

As you can see I already cut out the kitty face design. Then you peel the printed side from the blank paper side.  The printed side sticks to the surface of the fabric as you can see here:

Then you just embroider!  There is a little sticky filminess, but that is nothing compared to being able to transfer designs onto any color fabric. Here is the kitty embroidered.  I chose gray which doesn't show up ver well.
Then you soak the fabric in cold water for 15 minutes to a half an hour.  Still experimenting with the time frame. 
Then I let it the fabric dry overnight.  This is the result, a gray kitty face on my jean jacket:
So easy!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Love Towel - Finished!

Here is the finished towel for Kari.  I used four colors of embroidery floss, 2 pinks and 2 purples.  I think it turned out nicely. The small embroidered charm is on the far corner of the towel.  Kari really liked it. :)

Monday, September 27, 2010

Decoupage Baby Picture - finished!

I used 9 coats of glossy Mod Podge on this one.  Plus glitter.  I think it turned out well.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Birthday Decoupage Project for my brother, Chris

I'm going to decoupage a wood circle with a picture of my brother as a baby for his 50th birthday.  Today I scanned the photo, printed it out on my inkjet printer, ripped it out and sprayed it with hairspray so I can decoupage it onto the wood.  I painted the wood with red acrylics with a little white mixed in.  I'm gonna wait until tomorrow to start decoupaging.  I only have gloss Mod Podge left so will use that.  I think it will be awfully plain so I'd like to use either silver stars (like the kind you got as a kid in school) or silver glitter on it.  I'll have to ask Mom if she has any of those star stickers.  What do you think?  Should I leave it plain or what?  Here is the picture of the original photo, from about 1963 and the one I printed:

Here is the painted wood circle:

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Red and Black Throw

Here is the granny square afghan/throw I'm making.  I'm going with the big stripes so I don't have so many ends to weave in (in the back).  This is just plain acrylic yarn in black and red.  It's to go with my furniture.  You can see some of the ottoman under the throw.  I'm pretty slow at crocheting, so this is only the third throw I've made.  I will probably have to get more yarn too. :(    My other projects are on the back burner for now.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Parable of the Talents - 1st Set - Progress

All I did here was put the backs on the 1st set of bookmarks for my Parable of the Talents bookmarks.  I still have to make the rest, then sign the backs and laminate them.  Tonight I restarted a crochet project.  I'm making an afghan for my house in black and dark red acrylic yarn.  I'm making a giant granny square.  Well, it's just a little granny square right now!  Pictures of afghan project posted later.

Super Secret Embroidery Projects

I started embroidering floursack towels for some CoachCreativeSpace friends.  I can't post pictures of them until they are finished and in the hands of their owners.  I can post the progress I've made on the Love towel I'm making for Kari.  She is in love, so I picked out these designs and the floss for her.  I've made pretty good progress on it thanks to a couple movies and insomnia.  Floursack towels are blank white towels that are really big, lots of room to embroider on!  Kari has already seen what I've done so far.  I did find out doing this that there's an art to doing iron-ons.  It seriously helps to have the iron on the highest setting for half an hour before using the iron-ons.  Makes a much darker image. I use all 6 strands of floss so it's easy to cover up the lines.

A Princess Among Dragons - Framed

I got this framed and it is hanging above my kitchen table.  Love it!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Creative Mistakes

I started a new embroidery project tonight, twice! I ironed-on the designs on patterned fabric and they didn't show up enough for me to be able to see all the design. So I got out some white fabric and it finally worked. This is a present for a CoachCreativeSpace friend, so I can't go into any more details. :)

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Parable of the Talents - 1st Set of Four Bookmarks

Here are the first four bookmarks for the Parable of Talents project, plus supplies used:

I joined a weekly challenge group on Flickr.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/52weeksofcreative/  I posted this picture for Week 1.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Starting Over

I just joined the 30 Days of Creating challenge on coachcreativespace, so hopefully that will jumpstart my creativity.  I've been sick with a bad cold lately and haven't felt much like creating.  I didn't win the Sublime Stitching combo contest.  But I entered!  All for now...

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Sampler - New Stitches

I am trying to expand my repertoire of stitches.  I tried out some new stitches on blue fabric with three colors of blue floss.  I have a bad cold today, so a short blog post. 

Monday, August 16, 2010

Parable of the Talents - the start

Our church is doing the Parable of the Talents project.  The church gives us each $5 to use to do crafts or food to sell or provide a service.  Whatever money we make goes back to the church.  So I spent my $5 on embroidery floss, already had the paper.  I will have to pay for the laminating, but not much outlay on my part.  I'm making cross bookmarks.  They are not my design exactly, but they are my execution.  I drew out the designs very large and then reduced them and printed them out.  There are two cross designs, four colors of paper and matching thread.  I think we have until Christmas, not sure.  Here is the picture of my baby project:

Monday, August 9, 2010

Coffee-themed Apron - Finished! and a Metallic Purple Concrete Leaf

I finished the coffee-themed apron!  I just had a few small motifs to do and the "sweet" lettering.  This is a present for my friend, Beth, for the Grand Opening of her coffee shop.  The apron is dyed with Rit Dye.  It was so much fun to do.  I picked out 6 colors, 3 in the brown family, 3 in the hot pink family and bought two skeins of DMC floss each.  So I had to be creative.  Once I was out of the dark brown I was out!  Designs ironed-on from Colonial Patterns (Aunt Martha's) and Sublime Stitching. Making this apron was so much fun.  I hope Beth enjoys wearing it as much as I enjoyed making it. I just entered it in a Sublime Stitching combo contest. Here is me modeling the apron.



And here is the concrete stepping stone my mom made.  I painted it because she had to work on the last day of Vacation Bible School for adults.  They take a month to "cure", so in early September the stepping stones will go out in my yard.  It's painted with acrylic craft paint.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Starfish Tote Bag - Finished!

I finished Kari's Starfish Tote Bag!  I fought with the heavy canvas and eventually won. :)  I will be seeing her on Wednesday, I hope, and can give it to her then.  I used six strands of DMC floss (I always use that much) in purple split stitch and french knots.  Here are the pics: