Well I’m still creating madly for our local show, it’s a week on Saturday, so it’s looming up fast! I’m taking a short break from My Splendid Sampler quilt as it was sort of taking over, I’ve lots of other things more pressing at the moment…
Over the years I’ve had a few dabbles in silk painting, I love it, I like the lightness of it, it’s also really easy! I always think of it as painting for people like me who can’t paint! My mum is a brilliant artist, I can just about manage what I call a distant wishy-washy view!
Silk painting, on the other hand, is like painting by numbers. You can trace your design and then paint it. My first dabble at silk painting was at a WI workshop many years ago, I painted a vase of tulips which I still have framed in the hall. I didn’t do any more for years until I wanted a big picture for our bedroom. I’d made a feature wall by painting it dark purple and it really needed a big painting. I couldn’t find anything I liked at a price I liked, so I decided to paint my own! I found a design in an Burda magasine, had it enlarged at a copy shop and painted it. The background was meant to be plain, but I did it in greens and purples, using silver and gold gutta to outline it, my inspiration being looking through park gates at the flowers. I’m still proud of it. Continue reading
We’re over a fifth of the way through the 
There’s a lot of top-stitching on a satchel, so I bought some special top-stitching thread in a gentle contrast of pale pink, lesson learnt, next time (if there is a next time!) it will be matching thread, it seemed like a good idea at the time!! I’ve not sewn with top-stitching thread before, as it is so thick I decided to use a jeans needle that I’ve got in ready for my ginger jeans. My thought being that it’s strong enough for multiple thick fabrics and also used for top-stitching jeans. My machine thought otherwise! It was fine edging the basic pieces, but when it came to the first test of stitching the pocket gusset to the pocket it just flatly refused to play ball, threw it’s teddy out, made awful noises and sent messages on the computer saying STOP! The needle jammed in so much that I had to unscrew it, take the foot off and pull it out with forceps!!
The satchel went together fairly quickly, I cut it out Monday night and if I didn’t have prior appointments I could have stitched it all yesterday.The outer fabrics are all interlined with iron-on woven interfacing, it is stitched to the lining and then turned. What makes it stiff is double sided extra-stiff pellon, it’s weird stuff, feels funny, but it works! It’s cut out 2cm smaller than the pattern so it can be rolled up, slipped through the turning gap and positioned about 6mm-ish away from the seam.After lots of hot iron and steam it adhere’s to both sides, giving it the body it needs.
I bought lots of plants but even at a flower show, I managed to buy some fabric!!! One of the stalls was selling oilskin type fabric for making wipe-able tablecloths etc. I spotted this gorgeous one that is like a carpet of woodland flowers, primroses, violets…it was just asking to be made into a cloth for our conservatory and even better it was only £5 per metre, I bought 2m as I thought that would be generous enough for our table. Our dining room table is in the conservatory and we eat every meal there, it’s a great solid oak refectory table, perfect size, but it is looking decidedly well used! One day I’d like to get it stripped down and re-polished, but for now a pretty cloth will suffice!
thecraftycreek 