I am giving this velvet away on Facebook. In order to be in the running, all you need to do is “like” the Unique Stitching page and either leave a comment or share the post with others. The address for my Facebook page is www.facebook.com/UniqueStitching
Don’t miss out – see you there.
Want to make this? Some of you already have. For the rest of you I have made this free for you to play with. Simply go to http://artquiltclass.wordpress.com and there are six simple steps to making this.
Enjoy, share, have fun with it.
I have just loaded another tutorial page on the Blog. This page looks at three different ways you can use foils on your fabrics.
To do this, I have had to rearrange the site a bit, so you can now find the information pages on a menu on the right hand column under the “About Me” segment. This allows me to increase the number of pages easily and allows you to access them all without having to use complicated searches. Every day I learn more about social media.
I have also activated the sharing buttons. I meant to do this a year ago. What this means is that when you click into an article or open a page, you have the option to share the material quickly and easily. I encourage you to share as long as a link back to the blog is included in some way or some other form of acknowledgement that I am the author of the material.
I hope you enjoy the information on the Foils and have a play.
Over the Christmas period I have been mixing the traditional with the art quilting and surface design. It has been an interesting mix moving from one to the other and back again. The traditional quilts are gifts for family members, the non traditional are class samples or samples for the stand amongst other things.
If you have been following me on Facebook, you will have seen the enormous piles of pink I have been working with. I started out planning a pink quilt for a little girl in my life and then got nudged towards making a second. After being surrounded by boys for the last 20 years, pink has been an experience. I think I may have overdone it slightly, but never mind. So I made two quilts at the same time and just doubled everything. Both are 66 inches square. I have finished one top and am in the process of finishing the second. Then, I will quilt them both. In the mean time, I thought I would share the finished top. The photo is not great, but you get the drift. Here it is:
I love stars, particularly this one. This block is a variation of the friendship star, but adds a bit more complexity to the piece.
To see the blocks in more detail, here they are:
Basic Friendship Star
friendship star with more detail - my favourite
This is a great block for scrap quilts. Just seperate the lights, mediums and darks and make sure that the mediums are the stars.
Are you looking for a quick project for a gift or to dress your Christmas table. Here is a free pattern for a quick, easy and achievable table runner. You can use scraps of fabric. My sample is in cream Christmas fabrics, but you can use anything you have in your stash. It will literally only take a couple of hours from beginning to end. Feel free to share it if you like.
Here are the instructions and pattern Simple Christmas Table Runner
You can make it larger by adding blocks or increasing the size of the blocks.
Do you ever find yourself looking for something quick and easy to play with to get the creative juices flowing? Well, perhaps you should check out the CT Publishing Free Projects page. They have a number of small, achievable projects that you can use. Take the ideas, adapt the techniques, use in your own projects or just play and make a nice small project for a gift or to use yourself.
The link is C & T Publishing Free Projects. At the moment, there are a number of ideas using TAP and Lutradur. I am sure you can find something you would like to try. I did!
Someone emailed me a while ago, last week I think, to ask if they could share my dyeing instructions with some friends. The answer is YES. I provide everything on the free information for you to use and share. I lost the email before I responded, so hopefully the author is reading this.
All week this week, I have had children at home with the Flu. My older son, Stephen’s whole year 12 cohort was excluded for a week when less than 50 of the 175 Yr 12s showed up for school on Monday – the rest of the students off sick. I have learnt all sorts of interesting facts about the flu vrs Swine flu this week, particularly that in most cases the doctors are not even testing for swine flu unless you are REALLY sick and that the presence of pneumonia with the flu is one of the potential warning indicators of the potential for rapid deterioration. Fortunately for us, no pneumonia, slow but steady improvement and both boys should be back at school on Monday. I am well and truely over this winter and all the lurgies.
However, today I decided I was going to create some samples and worksheets. I have made silk paper from a silk batt; felted a long scarf using prefelts and hand dyed wool top, decorated a wool and silk blend wrap with Shiva stiks and started some velvet applique. I will load pictures of everything as it dries or is ready to show.
I am still waiting for the Shiva to dry on my wrap, but here is a picture of the work in progress. This is a really light weig
ht, but really warm wool/silk blend that I hand dyed (imagine it being red!). I have been wearing it all winter as is and am pleased I have finally found the time to embellish it as planned. I used one of the fabulous Laura Murray Stencils and a gold iridescent Shiva Stik. I will soon have all of Laura’s stencils on the website for purchase. They are gorgeous.
I used this process to take some photos and build a one page worksheet/tutorial on using stencils and Shiva stiks. This is now loaded on the Free Stuff page of this blog for you to use and share. It is pretty simple and straight forward, but so are these products.
I am very happy with the felting I did today, but it is currently hanging out to dry so photos tomorrow.
I have posted a range of free information and instructions onto this blog. click on the page – Free instructions etc and then choose what you would like to know. Feel free to share links to this page with your friends, but please do not copy or use these except for personal use.
Cecile's Unique Stitching Blog 