Sharpies, alcohol and the next generation

Today I've been messing about with Sharpie permanent marker pens. I had a boring white t-shirt that needed a bit of livening up ready for my holiday next week so, after stretching it over a frame to stop any ink seeping through the front onto the back, I just doodled.

Then the serendipity bit - applying isopropyl alcohol, drop by drop, with a pipette. This is what I ended up with:-

On a completely different subject, my 7 year old nephew, Finley (on the right):-

was obviously inspired by his stitched portrait as my sister sent me this photo today:-

I understand it's going to be an England flag and he's going to do a little bit every day. Although he loves to draw and paint, I think this is the first time he's ever tried his hand at embroidery. I'm so chuffed he wants to emulate his Aunty.

A lovely day

Today is my youngest sister's birthday but we had an early celebration yesterday with lunch for most of the family at her house. Grace came too and had a lovely time playing in the garden.

Cutting the grass

On the swing

Stroking Bert the chicken

Bouncing on the big trampoline

And learning to do 'head over heels'

I know, as a doting Nana, I'm biased, but isn't she gorgeous.

And in case you're wondering where the sewing is in this post, here's my sister with the portrait of her two boys that I stitched for her birthday gift.

We had a lovely day!

Deja vu ...

Last Christmas I made a bag for each of the eleven females on my present list. They were based on a pattern I found here which I adapted to make a bigger version. They were a huge hit with the recipients and were easy to make but by after churning out eleven on the trot, I never wanted to make another one again.

For some reason, I didn't get round to taking any decent photos of any of them so didn't write about them here then - but I'm about to put that right!

My niece, Kelly, has a friend who's been admiring her bag. It's the friend's birthday very soon which prompted a plea to Aunty, "Would you make another one please?"

So, here's one side:-

And here's the other:-

One day I might even get round to making one for myself.....

In Print!

I was so excited when the postman brought me this yesterday!

It's my advance copy of Marion Barnett's latest book, "Exquisite Evolon" and on this page:-

and this page

is some of my work!

I was thrilled to be asked by Marion to be one of the artists featured in the Gallery section. She gave us all some Evolon to play with and it's really interesting to see the diversity of the results.

If you've not come across Evolon before, you can find out what it is at the Spunart website (there's more of Marion's work there too). This little gem of a book gives you all the 'how to' (and the how not to!) information you'll need for dyeing, colouring, printing, heat distorting and stitching this lovely soft synthetic fabric.

"Exquisite Evolon" will be launched at The Festival of Quilts show at the NEC, Birmingham later this month - you can get a copy for yourself at the Colourcraft stand (No G3 ) if you're planning to visit - or from Marion after the show.

Not the Tank Engine Thomas

We're off to Dundee for a couple of days soon as John is to be godfather to our nephew Thomas. He's a lovely baby as you can see:-

I wanted to make something a little different as a gift, so, using the photograph as reference, I hand-stitched this portrait.

Once it's framed, I think his parents will be quite pleased. And yes, I know it's green. Black looked too harsh so, after auditioning umpteen different coloured threads, I decided that I liked green the best. Or maybe I'm just odd .......

Water, water, everywhere ...

Back in this post, I mentioned I was going on a two day course with Jean Littlejohn at Broadland Arts Centre. I finally got round to taking some photos of the work I did there, and some other bits around the same "Waterscapes" theme that I've done subsequently.

First, a couple of (bad) watercolour pencil sketches of reflections/patterns in a river:-

And a painting of swimming pool reflections that I did with Koh-i-Noor dye-based watercolours, left to dry and then drawn on with a cocktail stick dipped in bleach.

Here are some of the small pieces I've stitched:-

So definitely water everywhere but none that can be drunk!

Vision East

It's been a bit quiet on this blog of late but I have been busy stitching as you will see.

Last Saturday was the Embroiderers' Guild Eastern Regional Day at Letchworth and you could have knocked me down with a feather when I was given this!

It took a big nudge from Dilys, our Branch Chair, before I realised they'd called out my name and to get me out of my seat to receive my certificate from Anthea Godfrey, judge and national EG Chair, and have my photo taken.

The full title of the competition was "Vision East - from Aldeburgh to the Orient - any dream will do" so I put my thinking cap on and came up with my entry entitled "East London Vision" which you can see below.

It's a double layered wall hanging 80cms by 40 cms - the upper, free floating,'dreamy' layer is made of hand dyed, appliqued and embroidered silk chiffon and is based on a map of the Olympic park in East London - the vision of the British team who were successful in getting the Olympic bid awarded to London for 2012. The under layer is the part of the Lee Valley where the Olympic park is situated and is hand embroidered on 'fabric' constructed from free machine embroidered layers of torn, hand dyed scrim, fibres and threads on sticky water soluble film. The 'medals' represent the hopes held by all the athletes of winning a medal there.

Here are a couple of close ups:-

Not only did I get a certificate, but all these as well:-

I still haven't got over the shock .......