Brooches in progress...

This weekend I'm working on some new Paisley-shaped brooches.  I particularly enjoy these as they're a bit bigger than my rings or necklaces so I have a larger area of felt to play with.  Again their colours have been inspired by my new supply of felt hankie fibre - and I'm trying to be a bit more adventurous with my bead colour choice, mixing colours together rather than sticking to shade variations of one colour.

This brooch will be called 'Chartreuse' - I'm really loving these delicate spring green shades at the moment:

I generally play around with bead placing for a while before I make the final decision (although sometimes it evolves as I go along).  It's pretty much impossible to keep the un-sewn-on beads on the felt as I sew, so these wee beauties come in very useful:

These are some of a set of tiny wee ceramic dishes made for me by Karen of hodgepodgearts - they are handy for so many crafty purposes, but I particularly use them for holding my beads as I work.  They are works of art in themselves (Karen made me a beautiful set of 8, each a different size and colour) and I just love to use them.

I've also been working on 'Iroiro' this weekend:

Still loving the rainbow colour combination, and I can't resist adding in a touch of gold with the beads.

I generally seem to do the beading first before the embroidery - I feel somehow that the beads give structure in a way that embroidery doesn't, so I tend to fit the embroidery stitches in around the felt textures and beads.  Embroidery for Iroiro and Chartreuse will hopefully be happening this evening!

Silk hankies and general fibre goodness...

The penultimate item of my recent fibre order extravaganza arrived this week - beautiful silk hankie fibres from EndlessInspiration. 

 Did I mention how much I'm loving working with silk hankie/bell cap fibre at the moment?  Although it's a bit tricky to manipulate with my dry winter hands, it's just so light and beautiful, and a little goes such a long way!  

This wonderful  rainbow mix of colours inspired me to have a go at making a start on a project prototype.  It's an idea I've been thinking about trying for a while, which then became more defined through discussion with my sister when I was visiting with her recently.

I won't say any more just yet, but here is a sneak peek at the initial stages - I made a start on 2 different versions today:

Last of all, I've been really enjoying working on more rings - here they all are:

...rather fiddly (even by my standards!) but very satisfying :)

Colour Chart Poster

Colour Chart Poster, originally uploaded by Tate Gallery.

As promised, here is a picture of the 'Colour Chart' poster that I mentioned in a previous post - Tate Liverpool very kindly sent me two copies, and my name's on them and everything! :D

My favourite supplies... Part 1!

I've been thinking for a while now about how lucky I am to have access to all the wonderful sellers who produce the various supplies that I use in my work, and wanting to acknowledge that in some way.  The internet, and especially Etsy, have really enabled me to 'make' in the way I do.  When I bought my embellisher, I really had no 'formal' idea of what to do or how to use it 'properly'- but I was able to find shops on eBay and then Etsy that stocked things I had never even heard of, much less though of using, to try out - and what's more shops run by helpful and friendly sellers (which makes such a difference!). It is because of these sellers that I am able to enjoy crafting as much as I do - so as a 'thank you' I have decided to post occasionally about my favourite suppliers.  Hopefully you will see something that will inspire a new project!


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My first favourite supplier is Sarah, of therainbowgirl, on Etsy.  Sarah is a fellow UK Etsian (always great as it means the goodies arrive faster!!) who sells really beautiful hand-dyed threads, fabrics and fibre.  

Sarah has a wonderful eye for colour, and puts together many marvellous selections of different hand-dyed fabric like this:

I've used pieces of Sarah's fabric for smocking (the variegation of colour looks great), embroidery and also in my fibre art cards.  Here's some more beautiful examples, which you can find here:

Unfortunately I'm no quilter (but it's on my list...!) - but I can imagine a gorgeous, sunny quilt made using these lovely pieces.

Sarah also puts together fantastic mixed thread selections, which I love to use for embroidery, couching and my kumihimo jewellery. This beautiful sandy and green selection available here:

Another great idea is her fabric and thread kits in co-ordinating colours, like this one:

And then there's these beauties:

- a 'mixed bag' containing cotton and muslin fabrics, lace, trim and threads, again all hand-dyed in such pretty colours.  I have found these packs so useful for using with my embellisher and as the basis for fibre art pieces.

These are delicious silk-carrier rods which give wonderful texture to felted pieces:

-and there are plenty more wonderful delights in a tempting rainbow of colours to browse in the shop.  If you ever buy supplies (and come on, I know you do :P) I urge you to check it out!

I am a regular customer of Sarah's (she knows my address off by heart!) and using her wonderful threads and fabrics in my work is a real pleasure.  However, Sarah is not only a supplier - she is also a very talented embroiderer and artist - check out her new blog for some wonderful work and inspiration.

Thank you, Sarah!

Exciting news...!

A while ago I submitted some close-up photos of textures of my work to the Flickr group 'Colour Chart'. The group is moderated by the Tate Gallery Liverpool, as part of their exhibition 'Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today', being held at the Tate Liverpool 29 May - 13 September 2009.

The group purpose was as follows:

"Photographs submitted to the group will be shown on Tate Online, and 36 images will be used to make a glossy Colour Chart poster ... displayed at Tate Liverpool. "

All photos submitted had to be 'colour monochrome' images with the main colour making up at least 95% of the image. Check out the group pool to see some great photos.

I had forgotten the original purpose of the group as I had just been enjoying looking at all the photos in the pool so much, with their wonderful range of colour. Amazingly, yesterday I was contacted to say that one of my photos had been chosen, from over 4,300 total submissions, as one of the 36 images that will go on the poster! So exciting!!

It was this image that was chosen - a close-up of the texture of my 'Heliotrope' brooch:

The Tate is also sending out a copy of the poster to all 36 selected. Can't wait to see it!

New necklace prototypes - at last!

Well, it's taken me a while (after the build-up to the craft fair in May, I couldn't face anymore whip-stitching for a good long while!) but I've finally finished a couple of new necklace prototypes.

Introducing 'Carnivale'

and 'Mer' ~!

Carnivale's felt is made from rainbow coloured silk throwsters waste, silk ribbon, cotton nepps and silk fibre, embellished with glass beads and hand embroidery.

Mer's felt is made from a beautiful turquoise mixed fibre batt from ArtemisArtemis - including fibres such as wool roving, bamboo, angelina and angora, which has then again been embellished with glass beads and hand embroidery.

No metal backing for the necklaces this time - just felt, so they are very lightweight.

Carnivale measures 8cm long by 2.5cm wide, on 45cm of chain...

...and Mer measures 9cm long by 2.5cm wide, again on 45cm of chain.

I'm definitely liking the curved shape, and I've added lots of wonderful new fibres to my stash recently from the likes of fibrespacesupplies, therainbowgirl, flightsofwhimzy, thredfairy, lalafelt, All Twisted Up, and Jacinta Leishman, so I'm feeling quite inspired to try a few more of these in both sizes :D

A crafty Saturday afternoon...

Had a fun afternoon experimenting with solvy, machine embroidery and my embellisher, in between catching up with slightly more hi-tech craftiness happening on Space Shuttle Endeavour/the ISS via Nasa TV (totally obsessed by mission STS-127 right now - can't get enough of astronauts carrying out such complex, hi-tech tasks in their socks!).

So, in my socks too, but with gravity, although without any robotic arms, here's what I came up with! Haven't dissolved the Solvy yet, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

Following a suggestion a while back from Lin Moon, (thank you!), I'm going to make a couple of the pieces into paisley-shaped brooch prototypes. Also below are the 'new' necklace prototypes (*ahem* got a bit distracted by other crafty things and still haven't finished these yet) - so these 4 are what I'll work on over the rest of the weekend.