Enough of the flowers . . .

. . . let's have some stitching. The next two 12" x12" journal quilts.
My work done at Lyn Prosser's workshop day with West Country Embroiderers . . .wet felting
and 'faux felting' , which is not felting at all really.
... and some stuff done with my embellisher/needlefelting machine. This one is done with wool tops, slivers of fabric and bits of knitting yarn.
This and the next pic are all one piece. I'm planning to make a bookcover out of it, with . . .

. . . a pocket on the back. The pocket was made just with wool tops and was punched into place. I've more stuff to put round it, then I shall stitch some felt pieces to the ends inside to make sleeves into whch the cover of a note/sketchbook can be inserted.Let's finish off with a needlefelted postcard.(You see, I don't spend all my time swanning round gardens.)

Please read Dec 7 posts in reverse order.

Scroll down . . . . . . and read the post below first. This is the back of 2 of the pieces pictured below. Interesting.

Then I did some more blending and couching and have made a re-useable cover for a book.

Both sides with the book in - my TAST notebook actually! The whole spread:

And, nothing to do with the above . . .
. . . this card came from Oxfam. What wonderful metal embroidery, done in India.

What a pessimist . . .

. . . it was just a momentary blip.
I've been making postcards again, trying out faux chenille, where the top fabric doesn't look like such a good choice as it is staying a bit flat. Or maybe the lines are too wide. The strips seem to be my default mode! Then I fancied doing something in black and white, and stitched writing interests me too at the moment. The second one uses up some scraps from, believe it or not, my C&G part 2 quilt, where I coloured a lot of fabric with oilbars (Markal / Shiva paintsticks). That was about 10 years ago. How's that for hoarding?

Then there is yet another palm tree. They are all over the place here where we live, and the one in next door's garden fascinates me. The black/yellow one is a nice bit of batik, a black strip and a yellow ribbon, hand fly stitch with colours reversed, very simple.

At the Quilters' Guild day where I won the embellisher we had 3 workshops, one of which was Carol Dowsett doing a postcard using cut-out leaf shapes and fabric transfer paints. Same technique as in the taster for the new QuiltWOW, beginning soon, quilters' version of the embroiderery Workshop on the Web. I got it finished eventually, when I ran out of space for seed stitches.

Finally, the one postcard I've made so far on the embellisher, plus some beads.

October windfall

On the last Saturday in October I went to my first Quilters' Guild Day back here in Poole and bought a strip of raffle tickets . . . and won . . . . . this!!!!!I hadn't even realised it was a raffle prize! People were talking about winning 'the embellisher' but I thought it was some special competition and didn't take any notice. Then the number that came up was mine! I don't always even buy raffle tickets, and had only bought some that day because a nice little girl who had come with her mum for the day came round at lunchtime asking if people had got their tickets yet! Perhaps I should share it with her mum!

Anyway, eventually I stopped feeling stunned long enough to start playing with it and looking for examples of work on the internet. Any links to interesting embellisher work pix from readers of this blog will be gratefully received and could be emailed using the link on my profile page.

One postcard, and a Christmas star - they need some hand stitching and beads, but I've posted them in their plain state to show the needlepunched work. The card has coils of knitting yarns and both have scraps of synthetic organzas pushed into felt. The star is double-sided, 2 worked stars sandwiched together. The back of the postcard shows how the fibres get pushed through the foundation stuff.