working...

towards the next craft fair on Saturday 6th march at Morningside, Edinburgh

I was trying to make a few new unframed pieces, this is a small snippet of one of them.

 A bit of a challenge the other night when I was carrying my bead box (aka shirt box) up the stairs, an accident waiting to happen I'd say with my box being the most wobbly kind of box there is. Yes I dropped it. Evidence here...

I do think that I got off lightly as most of the beads are either in plastic bags or boxes and none of them burst open, whew!

This picture shows all that spilt out...

  I still see the odd glistening piece as I go up and down the stairs all the same. Think it may end up being like pine needles from the Christmas tree. No matter how many times you hoover up they still appear months later!

I'd been beading some of my heart brooches...

think I may have shown snippets of these in the past. I seem to have made a meal of working on them. I think this may be the last lot like them as I've had a few new ideas which I'm keen to try out. I hope to get them done soon.

Think that's it for now, back soon,

Byeee! :o)

and the rest.....

this is the deleted photo, ....in progress....

and here is a close up of one of the ones I was working on. I think that is one that is finished.

I thought that maybe they needed a little addition....

...now which one will I choose.....
Have just realised that this post probably won't make any sense without reading the prevoius one!
Bye for now.....

starting now....

decided to show a few photos of my latest. I'll catch up with what I've been doing between last post and now, was it really that long ago!!!!

I was running low on my cards so decided to make a batch. I tend to work like that, nothing for ages then blitz, loads of stuff.

I spent most of yesterday working on these but am not sure if they are going to be ok or not. I felt that they were a bit aimless. You probably can't really tell as I haven't shown a completed one in the photos.

OOPS, JUST DELETED A PHOTO !!!!!!

I'm using Picasa now for my photos but although I tagged 6 pictures it only seems to have uploaded 4. I've also been having a problem with my new camera uploading things because my card reader won't read the camera card and going direct from the camera eats loads of power and , and, and .....basically I need to get back to the drawing board on this one.
I've taken the last lot of photos on my old camera.
Obviously it all needs a bit of thought.
Keep taking the tablets!!!!

Heart time again!!!

Yes that's right folks, me who never needs an excuse to make a bunch of hearts!!! Good old Valentines Day...Don't you just hate when this happens whilst free machining. I do !! The only remedy for it is to snip the couched yarn. At least with free machining it's easy enough to anchor it back down without it really being noticed. Not so bad when it happens at the edge of the fabric like this one, it probably missed the heart shape and ended up on the waste pile!

I like the combination of the sheer fabrics with the fancy yarns that you can get nowadays.

I particularly like the colour combination on these ones. Must remember it and try it again sometime. I've been starting to add little amounts of different types of fabric in these not sure if you can see the little piece of blue diamond patterned fabric peeping out on the one above.

Some of these fabrics really fray quite a lot. I like this type of edge so that's ok.

That was definitely not taken on a yellow background and I think these hearts were in the pinky red range rather than the orangy red. Of course that might just be the inspiration for the next piece of fabric I make...

Anyway, these are some of the hearts cut out from the "made" fabric. Don't know if you can see it but I tried machining little hearts as I went along. Of course it ended up being an after thought so there wasn't a lot of room left for them otherwise they might have been covered in them!
This batch of hearts have had a little zigzag added to their edges. I liked the touch of green on these ones.I have made about three different batches so far. I only get about eight at the most out of the pieces of fabric. I think that I prefer to work on smaller pieces of fabric, it keeps them more interesting.

Fiddling about with buttons (I love buttons :o)) The one at bottom right was just a bit on the big size but I was just throwing my bundle of red buttons around to see what went where, if at all!

I decided to do some black and white cards as I know these colours are very popular at the moment. I added a pearly button althugh I think that they were more like a shell button rather than mother of pearl. They were a bit old and tired bit I thought they went ok.

I thought that they could be used as wedding cards as well. If they sell well I can see me trying a whole load of them all in different colourways.

Here I go again, any excuse for making a bunch of hearts

Happy Valentines Day when it comes... :o)

unsure...

... found these photos. I have this piece hanging around. Could probably call it WIP , yes think I will as I really don't think it's finished. I'm at a bit of a dead end with it. Really should have it pinned up on the wall to inspire me but haven't got that far...

I quite like parts of it but as there is no artwork to go with it (naughty, naughty!) I'm not sure which direction to take with it.

...mmmm, think that last one looked like it had a heart in it, can't imagine where that could have come from!!!

Anyway here it is in its unfinished state, or maybe I should just call it finished!!

...mmm...maybe, not!

Think I'll pin it up!!

byee!

It's been a while!!

Found a few photos that I'd forgotten to show. These are still from my seashore series. They may go on for quite some time!

...little fly stitches, a change from all the straight stitched and French knot flowers. Although I still use these stiches a lot as you can see.

...a mixture of sheers, wool fibres and machine embroidery...

...I quite liked the different colours on this one. Especially the strong red and turquoise.
The sandy beach at the top is actually my table!!

Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures, I seem to have developed a wobbly hand these days!

There you go, a few to be going on with. Will try to get some more things together soon to share.

Bye for now

x

heaps'n'heaps...

...I've been busy making loads of little pieces for cards. I need them for exhibitions and the shop/gallery. I can't believe that they take so long to do, probably hardly worth doing them, but I like to. I've worked on a batch of hearts, surprise surprise!...trying to change them as I go...

...here is one of the heaps!

...and here's another!

These are my little leaf pieces. The format is repeatable but I like to make little changes as I go along, just like the heart pieces.

I liked the colour of these. I used a piece of hand dyed fabric under the sheer fabric.

I'm sure you'll recognise some of the fancy yarns I've used on them...

I like a little bit of glitz!

A little bit of gold ribbon on this one.

That's all for now, but I have bits of my work from the Embroiderers' Guild (Scottish Branches) summer school at Stirling to share with you. I'll need to photograph them as my batteries had run out at the time which was a real pity. Anyway I'll post something about it once I've got that done.

Bye for now,

:o)

July!

No way!! Can't believe that time is going so fast. Thought I'd give you a bunch of flowers to say sorry for the lack of posts!

a little bit of colour to help us on our way.

Here's a little WIP

...as you can see most of it was done on the embellisher. Oh!

You'll never believe what I did. I dropped one of the little black screws that hold the needles in place! Yes, it bounced on the wooden floor, bounced to who knows where! I managed to track down someone who had them and arranged to get them sent to me. That done I thought that I'd shuffle things round a bit in my workroom. I hauled a huge bag of fabric out into the hallway, turned round and there it was right in front of me, yes, that little black screw staring up at me. Result! I couldn't believe that I'd found it. I carefully laid it up on the machine and finished tidying up (only a little bit you must understand) I moved a piece of work I had been doing at the embellisher and noooooo!, it knocked the little screw off on its travels again , bounce! Oh how luck must have been on my side thet day because there it was nestling on the non slip mat under the foot pedal, oh joy! ... Somehow I think I'll just keep those extra screws on order, phew!!

I'll finish on a few hearts...

...for cards, yes more of them...

...a nine patch!

Don't think I'll really be able to do many more posts in July so roll on August when I'll be in the throws of the festival. It's going to be a crazy time. I'll try and get a post out mid week to let you know how things are going.

Bye for now,

Moira

:o)

bit of a mix...

...I can't believe that I misssed out on my 50th post!. This is my 51st so I'll just have to save my celebrations for my 100th post!!. So here goes with number 51. A little bit of this and a little bit of that... ...these hearts keep croping up every now and again. I'm intending to do lots more so watch this space...

oops! didn't mean to upload this one. Never mind, it's just a WIP.

Hope to do a lot more work on it soon. It's the usual mixture of free machining the embllisher and some transfered dyed velvet.

This is a one of my "micro" panels. It's probably about the size of an ATC.

I've made a set of four "daisy" pictures, two I had framed up and the other two I mounted on board and packaged in cellophane as unframed pieces. I ended up abandoning trying to frame them myself and sent them to a framer. They make such a good job.The next two photos also come from an unframed piece.

Just a little set for today.

I'm off to see the Mongolian felting exhibition at the Collins Gallery in Glasgow tomorrow. Might manage to visit a few shops as well, oh dear! Poor me!!!

That's it for now,

Byee!

:o)