Escape! Sun printing, Desigual inspired shirt and making faces!

I have had a blissful weekend away with friends and sewed till after midnight. BLISS!!!!! Here is a quilt I made a while ago. The colour squares are made with sun printing using transparent fabric paint and then placed in the sun after laying on leaves to create the patterns. As the fabric dries, the area beneath the mask loses colour. how cool is that?

I decided that I wanted to add some free machine quilting to it so I used black thread and machined over the coloured squares fast, loose and free. GREAT fun!!

I will post a picture of it when I have added a hanging sleeve to it

Here is a face in the making for another project and as a teaching sample for my Fabric Faces

 day school.

 

I enjoyed adding stuff to my Desigual inspired shirt. Here is a cupcake recipe...This was Hilary's idea. Fun isn't it?

and the cupcakes of course, all sparkled up with blingy bits....

I have added a little more stamping to the front and a splattering of beads and sequins....so I think it must be nearly finished!!

I will post my shirt when I have added the last few bits then I'm going to have a lot of fun wearing it!
See you soon
Moira x

 

 

Farewell to Belstead and CUPCAKES!

I have SO much creative stuff to share but my poor fingers can barely type as they are so chapped and cracked from all the scrubbing and cleaning I have done over the past 2-3 weeks! Our daughter and son in law have moved with their two little girls from the house opposite us to a bungalow just around the corner and yes, you guessed it, we have been helping them most days. Thankfully they are now finally installed. Phew!!
Here I am with all the wonderful scrapbookers at Belstead House, our last weekend there. It is closing at the end of December and I feel very sad about it. I was SO thrilled to be given the most gorgeous wallhanging made by all of the girls and put together, upstairs, by Emma on the Friday night. Thank you Emma :) Each 6" square is so very special...it really is a wonderful treasure and is hanging in my studio so I can enjoy seeing it every day

I'm sorry the photo quality is not very good. It has been pretty gloomy here for the past few days!

Each of these squares has such a special meaning to me.....This one is from Barbara...a Tangram with wings!

This is from Debs.....dangulators is one of my 'words' and I always have to add ribbons and pockets to my scrapbooks

 

A delightful piece of patchwork from Pam....with my word 'exiterated'....this seems to be a permanant state of affairs at Belstead....

 

gorgeous dyed fabric and more lovely dangulators from Lynda....

 

A very sophisticated square from Tracie.....so beautifully painted and such lovely words........we are all going to get together next November at Grafham water! The fun will continue

Sandie sacrificed a piece of screen printed fabric for me and she has printed my picture onto fabric too!!

and Claire added really dainty wire flowers to this lovely square.......:)

 and I LOVE all those buttons from Pauline...........and another of those words!

Stardust, smiles and laughter from Linda....how special!

I laughed when I saw this square from Jill....complete with the doily challenge on it! Here she has used it as a stencil.....and look at the 'aged to perfection' confetti!!

 

Lots of woven ribbons, and upcycled bits and pices from Toni, Jean and Jacqui....remember those jointed shiny fishes?

 

                            and this gorgeous square made by Emma has a tiny pocket in it....

 

with a perfectly folded, hilarious piece about my name and its meaning,  and me. LOVE it!

 

Jo made this square and this is a picture of me ckecking our lottery numbers in February.  I was SO SURE we were going to win so we could buy Belstead but it was not to be......

 

and inside the pocket was this tag....and a lottery ticket for Saturday night. Sadly it was not a winner. LOL!

 

I feel so very, very special to be given something so beautiful! Thank you to all of you special people who made it and to Emma for putting it together

xxxx

 

 

and finally.....it was Barbara's birthday this week and so we celebrated early while we were all at Belstead

 

 I baked lots of cup cakes before I left home and then, on Satuday, assembled them in my bedroom!

I made litte stands for each one using card roll from wrapping paper (NO LOO ROLLS!) cut into 2" length and painted them white then they were stamped with musical notes. This was to remind the girls of the song I wrote about Belstead and which we all sang to the tune of Wild Clover!!

 They were piped with buttercream.....

and each one had a little flag of printed sentiments about friendship in them.

Barbara's also had 7 candles which we lit and were blown out immediately for fear of setting off the fire alarm!!!!!

 

Happy Birthday Barbara

xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bunting Production line!

It is the centenary of the Cambridge Motor boat Club this year and they have had burgees made so, for some reason, I thought that I could make some bunting using the flag pattern. DUH!!!!

Anyway....here is the pile of screen printed flages waiting for a marathon stitch-a-thon!

And here is the process. I seem to have lost one of the pictures showing the cutting mat and all the teeny weeny bits I so carefully cut out using scissors and scalpel from a paper print of the burgee design. Here, the pieces have been carefully placed on the old white sheeting (surprise surprise!!!!) awaiting to be printed

Oh how I ADORE the immediacy of print. I think I should have been a factory worker...I adore mass production and I got quite carried away making these flags....

I filled all the gaps with more flags....

Until my studio was filled to bursting ponit with blue flags. 85 in all! As you can see, I ran out of paint and had a quick re-mix mid-print. Rubbish! They are totally different but hey...who cares?

Tonight Tony helped my cut them all out using my rotary pinking cutter. I shall machine them another time and I will blog them BIG time when they are up at the club

This afternoon I cut out the component parts for a few card designs as you do when you have a few minutes to spare.....

and yesterday was Mother's day and guess who ended up doing all the cooking? Yep. ME! I make 4 HUGE pizzas from scratch for my mum, both my children and grandchildren. Here is the baked bean and ham for Grace in mid production. The other half is braised leeks (from Claire's allotmentof course!) and ham for Hope. Cheese topping coming up!

My workdesk this morning as I was trying to sort my cards into groups. Arrrrgh!!!! It is so difficult to do. I don't like this bit at all. all I want to do is sit and sew and invent and play with colours...this decision making is HARD!

So far I have:

'Cupcakes wings and Things'

'Hearts and Flowers'

'Occasions'

'Words'

and then what do I call all the other things like the boat and the VW and the beach hut and union jacks? I have NO IDEA!!!!!

I am working on an age range. I have given up on the idea of children's ages...I'm going to do the 30-90 numbers. Maybe 100 too if I get time.

Right. I'm off. See you soon

M x

Christmas is on the way

Cupcake stack...applique on paper fabric and beaded with new beads and sequins I bought at the NEC quilt fair on Friday. The Christmas pudding fabric is a one I dyed and then printed with bubble wrap and black and brown acrylic paint.

Oh dear.....it is too early to start thinking about Christmas and I really struggled with this design but I'm determined to get my Christmas cards made early this year and today I finished the design for the first one. This is just part of the design...I took the picture under tungsten light this evening with Tony's camera and I have NO idea how to use it! Ah well.....I shall post again some time when I have done more designs in the series. I thought I might do four along the same lines....but maybe this is too ambitious!

I'm pleased to say that Rosie looks a bit happier now and has perfected the three-legged run. She has decided that large purple antibiotics are not pleasant and has worked out how to eat her entire meal minus the tablets and so now I have had to resort to posting them straight down her throat. I paid a lot of money for them and she sure is going to take them!!!! Too soon to know if it is grass seed or a cyst on her pad. I'm hoping it will just go away....I'm missing our morning walks together watching the sun come up and planning my day ahead....and don't really want another bill to pay

I had a catasophe today......my brother came over to see mum and I went through to join then with my plate of lunch in one hand, wearing slippers on Tony's advice as my foot is arthritic. As I stepped up into her house my foot slipped out of the slipper (now I know WHY they are called slippers!!!!) and I crashed against the door jam crushing my ribs in the process. Bother!!!!! Now I'm in agony......and the worst part is having cracked/broken ribs in the past I know that it will get more painful over the next couple of weeks.

I have taken the tea tray up to our room and loaded it wiith three different painkillers for the night. I'm already rattling. I suspect I could end up surfing the net at 3am if I can't sleep!