Quilting over papers

A few years ago I owned a box of small fabric samples and thought they were perfect for making a quilt using papers over triangles. The projects took a long time and the top has only just been finished. I have yet to back and quilt it.

It needn't take so long to complete such a project. I recommend knowing how big a quilt you want and having the cut papers prepared in advance. My pattern is a random one but you could plan one too.

The quilt top is very attractive and eye catching and sewing a quilt like this, y hand, over paper templates, is very relaxing. A perfect project for these cold nights that find us indoors more often. 

I'll report back when I've quilted it!

quilting over papers

Garlands from scraps.

I've just returned from my crafting class where my learners are beginning to make decorations for Christmas. This garland was a popular Christmas project.
We used a florist's copper ring frame as the base. Afterwards we threaded small pieces of fabric, the size of two stamps side by side, onto lengths of strong cotton leaving long ends to tie up with. 
Once we created a large strip of fabric strips we wrapped them around the frame and sewed a few places to make it secure. Junk shop chains, broken jewellery and brooches were used to decorate further and recycled ribbon tied on to hang it. 
An inexpensive and effective object.
Today there were no copper frames to work on so someone cut out a stiff cardboard ring and tied lots of 12" x 2" strips of red cloth all the way round. It looked classy and expensive. A great low cost project with wonderful results.

www.marthastewart.com/christmas-garlands

Marbling - a pleasant addiction

I have always wanted to try traditional marbling, the sort you find on the inside pages old ledgers and dictionaries. I have the instructions and methods ready but have never got round to buying some of the unusual ingredients needed.

In the meantime I've tried commercial marbling kits. Small droplets of marbling ink of varying shades are dropped onto water in a shallow dish. designs are made in these inks by dragging through them with a toothpick or by lowing them.

Paper, laid carefully over the inky surface of the water, picks up the design and a new hobby is born. Paper is a good place to start. Try embossed surfaces, wallpapers, music sheets. Just as good are fabrics - plain or patterned - but you could marble shells, pegs, hollowed eggs and large pebbles. Even your fingernails.

Paper and fabric can be further embellished with stitches and can be used as pictures or motifs on cards. The design possibilities are vast. 

As a tutor I've run marbling workshops for a wide range of people and found that it is universally popular. It's messy too so plastic gloves are recommended.

I used the marbling shown as a writing prompt and as a result it is to be included in a pamphlet of work to be produced by the writing group in question.

Have a go!

marbling demonstration

Bracelets. made from sewing box treasures

I first saw this bracelet in a 'how to' book. It looked fabulous and I made it immediately by threading buttons, charms and beads onto safety pins and threading them onto elastic as instructed. It was gorgeous. It was also heavy and the threaded pins slid about and the elastic on one of the bracelets unfastened. I made it again with knots, with fewer safety pins, with smaller accessories but was never full happy with the result. 

Finally I threaded the safety pins onto a chain of a decent size with solid links. Then I attached fastenings and a more wearable bracelet was made. Chains come in different sizes and types. Colours range from bronze, gold, silver, black and grey as well as primary colours from some suppliers. 

This is a fantastic bracelet to make. It costs about £15 if you are buying stuff, a lot less if you have the buttons and beads and bits already. It makes a great accessory for an outfit, a fantastic gift and a wonderful project to make in a class or with a family member/friend. 

I have one made entirely from gold buttons, another from black and another from silver. They are eye catching and unusual. I hope you make one.  

notice boards and headboards

I bought a bed and didn't like the headboards that went with it and so made my own. I've made headboards before and have also painted them onto walls. The one you can see cost about £30 in total and the ones in the shop were four times the price. It consists of a piece of firm MDF, wadding, and fabric. I bought curtain fabric and doubled it but you could use upholstery fabrics or something that's firm.

Once you measure our wall for the size of bed head you need it's a case of laying wadding and fabric over and stapling them to the back. You have to make sure the fabric is even and tight so that it doesn't wrinkle after use. I fixed this to the wall with four metal plates that are screwed to the back of the board and then into the wall. They are visible. Other fittings exist.

This system scaled down is great for notice boards. Simply add thin ribbon in a criss cross pattern to form a grid effect into which letters and photos can be tucked and a hook on the back.

Very cheap and cheerful but fabulous results can be gained and the items are useful.

craftstaplegun.com    Have a look at these items. They make crafting so much easier and increase the range of jobs you can do.

Lamp Shades with Dionne Swift

Lighting up my life.

I enjoyed making lampshades with Dionne Swift. She showed us many valuable things on her one day workshop. One was how to make a lamspshade. Another was how to create designs on lampshades with free machine embroidery and an embroidery hoop to maintain tension. What fun and what good results. No sticky mess and ending up with something that has to be hidden. Every lampshade made in the class was gorgeous. Precise cutting and measuring and attention to technique is how you get a strip of reinforced calico and two frames into something that can shed light on your life.

Another lesson, for those of you whose idea of machine maintenance is a quick blow of the feed teeth and a polish at Christmas....was this.

Dionne, who teaches and also makes lampshades to sell, cleans her machine properly every half hour and has it maintained months apart in order to keep it in the condition needed to produce professional work. She changes needles frequently too, not just when they break and pays minute attention to the thickness and quality of sewing threads, the dimensions and tension of bobbins and shuttles and instantly removes fluff that builds up when she's sewing. I think that lesson and example alone was worth having.

For crafters and teachers, making lampshades is a must try. There are costs attached to the products and no real way of making this a cheap exercise, but the results are rewarding. We used free machining over fabric but you can dye fabrics, block print, mono print, embroider or create designs with pastels. Lampshades can be made from printed fabrics (100% cottons for example) or soft furnishing fabrics left over from curtain and cushion making.

For an idea of Dionne's work look at dionneswift.co.uk You'll see her products and workshops and the other good stuff she does too.

For a demo go to You Tube 'Make your own Cath Kidston Lampshade' for a brief video. (I will learn how to embed these clips so you just have to click on them)

cathkidston.co.uk

Then try it yourself and tell me about it.

New blog on the block

By the way hello and welcome to this new blog. I teach crafts and will be sharing projects with you. In my class this week there were many projects on the go at one time. One person was so looking forward to making paper and had brought lots of interesting wrapping paper to use and nearly didn't get to make it. She had a very stiff neck and I didn't have the right equipment.

I usually pulp paper in a blender but couldn't find one that worked. I was tempted to use the centre manager's smoothie maker but it wasn't a popular idea. Did I abandon the paper making project...did I pretend to be ill to get out of it? No. I imagined a time before technology, before the industrial revolution, and I beat the paper and water mixture with a whisk then squashed it about with my bare hands. Satisfying. The resulting paper was fab. Lilac with gold strands in it and of course the delight on the face of the lady who made it was wonderful.


Challenge of the week: 

Try to imagine how things were done without technology. Paper id thousands of years old and blenders are a relatively new idea.




     

plant pots from guttering and drainage tubes.

Have you ever gone to the garden centre thinking that you'd like to buy a few plant pots. Say four or five? I have and then I've been disappointed because they've been so expensive and I haven't even bought one.

A few years ago I lived next to a woman whose house was slick and gorgeous partly because she used her imagination when it came to materials. Her front garden was filled with earthenware drainage tubes like the ones above. Each contained plants or shrubs and the whole effect was very artistic. She surrounded hers with small pebbles.

Instead of plant pots you could go to a builders yard or DIY suppliers and look at drainage materials, guttering and tubing. There are lots of materials that would make interesting plant containers. I know some soap makers use guttering that has been sliced in half lengthways to make half moon shaped soaps. Some of these items will be cheap and if you're lucky or uncommonly good looking, some items might be free.

In the picture above I've placed smallish drainage tubes onto a piece of slate to provide a base. Then I've grown sweet peas in them. The sweet peas will have to be moved to a bigger tube soon as there's not enough soil to support more growth. But guttering and tubes are fun to use and do look appealing. Note the suds where I hastily cleaned caked mud away.

I was inspired to write this blog by  Claire who runs a blog called claireabellemakes.com  Go and have a look and see what she's been making and see if you can enter her fantastic competition.

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