Monday 28 November 2011

The facebook page has arrived

I have now set up a facebook page dedicated to Sewing the Thought and will link the blog as well as adding lots of photos and comments.So search for the Sewing the Thought page on Facebook and click on the like button and you will get all the updates and blog links

Will eventually add the like button to this page, but one step at a time !!!!

The button obsession continues

Well after yesterdays blog update I thought that would be it for the next few days, but oh no that was not to be the case I was on a role and  I decided to have a tidy up of the corner of the spare room where I keep all my art and craft materials.

The things you find stuffed away in boxes and this time it was some buttons kits which just need to be covered in fabric. So off I went to the scraps box and located lots of little bits of fabric and turned them all into buttons which I can use on my new bag collection.





Now if you think that was it, oh no I was becoming obsessed with the scraps box and found some lovely chintz fabric which was just crying out to be made into something. As it was evening and too late to get the sewing machine out and I was also wanting to chill out on the sofa, so decided to stitch this by hand and made a little pouch to carry my sketch book and pencils. This will fit into my bag and stop the edges of the sketch pad getting damaged.

By then it was time for tea and hot buttered toast and bed, but then I spotted my fabric designs from last week and thought I could leave that to the next blog,so as they say in TV  to be continued.......................

Sunday 27 November 2011

Buttons, Buttons everywhere

Its been a busy weekend on the craft front. I have had  a couple of days holiday and the weather was cold (even a flurry of snow this morning) so I decided to have a quiet long weekend at home and get busy with my projects.

First up were some new Christmas decoration which are a great way of using up all the buttons that seem to accumulate in the sewing box. Hearts were cut out of red and grey felt, and a collection of buttons were sewn on one side of the one of the hearts. The pair of hearts where then hand sewn together and then stuffed with toy stuffing and a ribbon added. You can use any combination of shapes, colour of buttons and colour of felt and ribbons to make a great collection of decorations.







Next up were  a couple of little lavender bags that can be popped in among your laundry, this was great way of using up some bits of tartan wool that I had in my scrap box. I even added on a little unusual button that I had bought some time ago and hid  in my sewing basket






My final project of the weekend was a few more bags to be made up ready for setting up the shop on Folksy/Etsy. I decided a couple of week ago that it time to build up a stock of products to get ready so here are a few samples





Oh there are still lots to go what a busy weekend !!

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Christmas is coming, PANIC!!

I was just planning the next few weekends and realised how close to Christmas we are and a minor panic set in. So much to do and so little time.

Christmas is a great time for turning craft projects into gifts but of course that takes time, so I a decided to have a real focus on the weekend projects.

This weekend was gift tags and wrapping, I use luggage labels in all colours then decorate them with stickers or stamps  and same goes for plain wrapping or brown paper and in under 30 mins I had a great little collection going




I also hunted through this years craft projects to see what I could make good use of. In an earlier blog I mentioned the ribbon brooches that I had made, well a collection of them brightened up an plain bag.

So a great shopping companion and something to carry all the christmas pressies in.!


Saturday 12 November 2011

To print or not to print !

It seems such a long time since I last updated the blog,  but I have been so busy I now have a host of projects to update you all on so I thought I would do in all in one big page.

Well I cannot believe it but there is only a couple of more weeks to go and my first term at art school will be over. I have absolutely loved doing the textile course and learning all the techniques in printing, fabric and colour and the group on the course have been great and we have really been bouncing ideas off each other.

I have spent this term not only learning all the different process's but also trying  lots of different designs to find a theme I want to work on, I have also have loved designing and making stencils.  Next term we are looking at building our portfolio ready for our exhibition and I have a few ideas I am working with and suprisingly they have a vintage theme. I also have to decide with I want to focus on interiors or fashion, oh the decisions!!


I have found freehand work very calming but with interesting results as you can see from the pic my tulips are not perfect but I kind of liked that but it was really time consuming and you had very little control over the final look.

Tried a couple of techniques with stencils this week, using a pre dyed  fabric and using a discharge technique to strip the colour out  and leave the pattern  we also used a similiar version that replaces it with a colour. This has been the favourite of mine up to now. I enjoyed doing the arabian stencil  which turned out to be really intricate after it was drawn.It was also great to try different types of cotton fabrics to see the varying results.




I even managed to try a few colour combinations to dye the fabrics and it resulting in some interesting combinations.


Lookin foward to exposing images on a screeen this, so look for next weeks results