Building relief on the left side

The items are sewed on.....

and covered by the top fabric.

Where the buttons and the three balls are hidden (in the middle and at the bottom) I attached the fabric with a few invisible stitches.

The relief is very clear.

Three layers of felt for the padding of the shell, each a bit larger, are sewed on.

I sewed the fabric around the edge of the shell taking care that the shell puffs up.

Constructing waves

Side-view of the two waves.

First I sewed on the padding for the hearts. I thought it would be enough to pad only the top, but I wanted the hearts to have a filling so I sewed on more padding.

I sewed around the hearts and in the middle so the filling can show up.

On to the first wave. I attached the small sticks of bamboo.

This was a very accurate task, because I wanted the spume of the first wave to be just over the top of the wave.

This is the right position. You can see the breakers come rolling in.

The larger sticks for the second wave are sewed on. There will be only two waves in connection with the amount of space. Between the sticks I attached three layers of felt. The top fabric will be sewn on the felt.

The next step was to sew the top fabric on the bottom fabric. I used matching cream sewing thread.

The advantage of the weave of this fabric is that your stitches remain invisible.

I made a few invisible stitches at the top, left of the white wave to make the wave stand out. Between the two waves I stitched the top fabric to the felt.

On the right side of the two waves I sewed the top fabric to the bottom fabric.

The waves viewed from aside.

The pebble adventure continued

A couple of years ago I took the online class "sumptuous surfaces" with Sharon Bogon.

This is the piece I made at that time. However I never finished it off.

When I was working on the first pebble this piece came into my mind and I thought it would be perfect for a second pebble. I only had to change the order of work.

Starting with an finished piece of embroidery and decide where the relief will be.

I backed the embroidered piece with muslin because the fabric is not very dense as you can see on the picture.

This is the bottom fabric, a piece of an old sheet. I drew the two hearts on it. This helps me to place the trapped items.

Here are the items that will be trapped between top and bottom fabric.

The top of the hearts will be raised just a little with batting, so will the lower part.

On the right are small, medium and large bamboo sticks, to represent waves.

On the left from top to bottom: a few layers of felt to shape the shell, a plastic bead, a few plastic buttons and three plastic balls attached to each other.

The first pebble adventure has come to an end

First I wrapped the pebble in a piece of batting.

As the left side of the pebble is a bit concave I folded the batting there a few times double. Than I basted the sides of the batting.

For the bottom I cut a piece of turqoise fabric and a piece of an old sheet and basted them on the batting.

Than the top fabric was cut into the correct size.

 I folded the seam inwards and sewed it on the bottom fabric. As I wanted there was as little visible of the bottom fabric as possible, the sewing line is almost at the bottom of the pebble. However this results in a little wrinkling at the seam. This doesn't really bother me. The eye is caught by the top of the pebble.

Sideview

Sideview from the other side

Starfish and other things

I started with about evenly spaced pairs of straight stitches with pearl 5. I suppose a starfish doesn't pay attention to the exact spacing of his five legs.

Than I weaved around the straight stitches with the same pearl 5 and DMC metallic to add a little sparkle.

The center was padded with three layers of straight stitches. The top layer is embroidered with two strands of DMC coton and one strand of DMC metallic.

As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost I found the chasm too wide. I sewed both sides together at the start of the chasm and in the middle. It isn't a yawning chasm anymore. 

From Anchor variegated pearl 5 I made three josephine knots and sewed them in place.

TAST week 11: whipped weel

Sorry, again a bad picture. I am pretty sure now my camera doesn't like this color. It is exactly DMC 3843

The stitch of TAST week 11 is whipped wheel. I decided to try a irregular shaped whipped wheel.

I started with straight stitches for the spokes. The length varies. The two stitches at the bottom reach over the hidden tube.

On this picture I have whipped a few laps and threaded a bead. Sometimes I whipped one spoke, sometimes two spokes.

When a spoke was full, I skipped it. That means I went under that spoke and continued with the next one.

The longest spokes I whipped a few times.

The thread I used is Gumnut Buds color 408

This is where I am now.

On the left side of the chasm I stitched a "normal" whipped wheel.

More work on the pebble

On the left side of the pebble I embroidered some cast on stitches with DMC pearl 5.

You find the cast on stitch here.

Here I have added some raised cups. You can find here how they are done.

I used three or four strands of DMC floss. Some all the same color, some two different colors. The heights differ from one row to three. The biggest cup  is not round, but a bit oval.

Sorry for the bad picture.

Here you can see where I am now.

I think of making the chasm smaller. It looks like a huge gaping wound.

Tatting exercises

As I want to tat leaves to use on my crazy quilts I started with this pattern. It is part of a larger pattern, a collar, and it resembles a leaf, at least as I see it. I used DMC pearl 8 in a vague color, extremely suitable for practise.

You see?? A leaf shape. I "only" have to adapt the pattern a little bit.

I tatted the "new leaf" in a cream DMC pearl 8. Does it look like a leaf or not?

Amber striped spider

The body is embroidered with padded satin stitch.

The stripe on the back is Kreinik fine braid #8 amber.

Straight stitches for the legs and french knots for the eyes.

Here is the finished block for February. I added two more orange violets.

Pansy corner

With Yli silk ribbon 4mm I made little pansies.

The two top and middle bottom petals are in looped straight stitch. The left and right bottom petals are in looped ribbon stitch.

The stems are embroidered in stemstitch with 2 strands of DMC coton.

The leaves are a few straight stitches on top of each other.

Spiderweb and butterfly added

The spiderweb is embroidered with Kreinik very fine purple braid #4.

It is partly couched.

I sewed a butterfly on.

Here is a closeup of the butterfly.

My plan was to tat a butterfly, but I found this beauty in my stash, just the right colors.

I sewed it on and added beads to the wings and antennae.



Stumpwork pansy: tutorial part two

This is the second part of the stumpwork tutorial.

The first part can be found here.
The pansy looks huge, but is only 2,5 cm long!

In the centre of the pansy I pierced the fabric with a needle, than with an awl.

This is the first back petal. The metal wire goes through the hole to the backside of the fabric.

The wire is pulled till it has completely disappeared.

I flattened the petal against the fabric and held it tightly.

At the same time I bent the wire sharply upwards in the same direction as the petal is.

I secured it with tiny stitches and machine thread.

I "opened" the hole again with a needle and pierced the next wire through the hole.

All five wires have been secured. I will not cut them yet.

The front looks now like this.

I bent the wires in the opposite direction to make sure the petals can't move anymore.

I secured them for the second time and cut the wires.

The heart of the pansy is a french knot, embroidered with 6 strands of DMC coton with one wrap.