Fascinator Revealed

Da dah...!

To all those who where unable to be at Urchfont College this week-end

here are various views of the Fascinator

Summer School

I am so excited to be going to Summer school on Sunday I have already begun packing!!!



The fascinator is completed, BUT I would prefer to unveil it to my Distant Stitchers and Sian before I show the World. I hope you don't mind!

Well, maybe a taster of what it looks like...

I like it so much I am contemplating making a dress to match for a wedding I am invited to at the end of August!

Resolved Piece - Final Layer

Just to remind you of where I left off

The final layer has been influenced by the spiral staircase in St. Paul's catherdral.

The tracing was enlarged and the smaller second mini spiral in the line drawing was made using foam board covered with embellished fabric.

The rest of the main spiral was cut into sections . These boards where used as templates to made a delicate lacy topping (see picture below in top left hand side of sample)

I made the lacy sections by sewing patterns into soluable paper

First I printed out the base design, using a spiral printing block

Once this design had been machine embroidered in the green thread, I over sewed bigger spirals in a deep pink. Then I machine embroidered smaller light pink spirals and finally printed a swirl design which I oversewed in a dark green

Once the sewing was completed I cut out the sections and pinned then to a foam board

and rinsed them under a running tap where the soluable paper dissolved.

The lacy shapes have been attached to the foam blocks - which I had covered with light pink felt

The foam blocks are sewn to the background fabric and the fabric was mounted onto foam board

Piece Resolved!

A nicer picture of this final piece will be appearing soon in the coursework gallery blog.

Day 37

It's been a busy half term, as usual. We've been at school quite abit with rehearsals and scenery painting. Inbetween all that and a sleep-over last night I have been trying to create the Resolved Piece. After looking through the Computer Designs for inspiration I had an idea which just had to be created...

Inspiration for Resolved Piece

This piece has to evolve, no planning required, which is a freedom I love. Each layer is like the next generation of the original idea!

IDEA!

Computer generated designs, felted embellishment with embroidery and rubbing made with Markel sticks

First Layer

Space Dyed Cloth

Second Layer

Markel Sticks rubbings in green and pink

Third Layer

Felted Embellishment using a Clover hand embellisher

Felting fibers and woollen threads follow the Markel pattern

Fourth layer

Hand embroidery

with a variety of threads

Inspiration for Fifth Layer

The Sunday Times had an article about St. Paul's which reminded me that I had postcards from my last visit of the spiral staircase in my reference folder. Using the photo from the article I traced an abstract design to use for the fifth layer.

The larger spiral - in the picture above - has been cut into "bit size" pieces and foam board blocks made. I have printed spiral designs onto green fabric and am waiting for them to dry before I iron them to fix the fabric paint, after that I will machine and hand embroider into the printed fabric. Once that has been done I will wrap the fabric around the foam-board forms and embellish further before mounting the piece on a board.

Hopefully by the end of the week-end the Resolved piece will be completed.

Day 45

Thursdays are supposed to be for Coursework, so I've swept the kitchen floor and pegged the washing out, chatted to a teacher regarding the scenery she would like me to do for the school play, which my son is in and opens while I am at the Summer school! Son and I are counting the days while I create and he rehearses.


So no more excuses - COURSEWORK...

This is the paper idea I had for the accessory I need to make, well actually this is the base - the accessory will be the buttons and tassel attached to the hat. The idea came from the punchline of a joke told to me once I had mentioned I was making a "fascinator"

"I have a donkey jacket it is great, it has nine buttons but I can only fascinate!"

This is the title for this piece, it has nine buttons of varing sizes and only eight will be fastened.

I made another toile in vilene and calio, but it was far to large - more hat then fascinator.

Did some resizing and here is the new toile

Front

Side

From the top

I am now creating the fabrics - fabric printing and embroidery and will use the toile as a pattern to make up the finished piece. The nine buttons will "move" down the spiral, eight will be fastened through button holes but the nineth will sit on the spiral and the "empty" button hole will bend down the side of the head into a spiral tail and the tail will end with a tassel.

Off now to do some more!

Final Samples

Here are the final samples before I begin the Accessory, leaving me May and June to create design boards and the hat in time for the Summer School in July. I have astounded myself in how much I have done in the last 10 months bearing in mind how long it took for module 2!

I'm itching to get started on the next chapters but thought it best to clear up the bits and pieces before I do.

Sequin Sampler

The following is a sample of "Trapped Beads and Buttons". This had originally started as my bead sampler but then went big time spiral - see earlier post - I hate to waste anything and loath to waste time unpicking stuff so the top leaft hand corner of the sampler stayed and I developed the design from there.

Covering the beads and buttons with a shere fabric which I then sewed into

The completed Sampler

I really enjoyed making this, the resulting sampler isn't too good in the photo but looks good in real life! I would like to make another but use a calico so that the colour of the beads and buttons don't show through and only the shapes are important. I'll add it to the list!!!!

Daughter's on an INSET day so we're off shopping for spring/summer clothes. It's great being a school girl - since the two weeks holiday she's been on a four day week, what with teacher's strike, INSET day and next week a Bank Holiday. Never mind, there's the dreaded SATS coming up!!!!!

Absent without Leave

It's been a bit of a week...the last post although started Sunday evening has only just been posted as I either can't get on the computer due to the other occupants of this house being on it, or visiting parents needing me everytime I sit down at the computer, or not having time to sit at the computer as I am finally returning the house back to normal as P-in-L have returned home.

I did however get some things done on the course work front!


I need to add to the button collection as I have bought the "Covered" button kits but hadn't used them. So I took some fabric that I had printed on and embroidered into it following the shapes of the printed pattern

Fabric with the circles drawn on showing the area I need to embroider

And here are the finished buttons I completed on Monday evening at the Quilting Groups AGM!

We had a Sewing B while the official business was going on. I did take some hand quilting to do as well!

I had some tassel ideas as well...

I hadn't made an example of tassels with embroidered heads, so I did...

And while I was making the Bead Sampler I remembered I had bought some large beeds to make some tassels with bead heads, so I made them as well...

I still have some more buttons and toggles to make to complete the chapter, so that's what I'll now be doing this afternoon.

Bead Sampler Part 2

It has taken a week to complete the sampler, but I feel it has been worth the time because I have enjoyed myself and I like the result. I enjoy buying beads, abit like a child in a sweet shop! Although once home I wonder what I will do with them so, similar to the Fat Quarter stash, I occassionally take them out and enjoy looking at them! It has been fun to spread out the bead stash and wander if this bead will go with that bead etc, and I now know - should I need to use beads in the future - what sort I would put together. One of my favourite sections is the pale green seed beads and the moulded shell shapes. Go and have a good look at the completed sampler and tell me which section you like...

So here is what I did...

I wanted to have the beads forming a spiral so I made some drawings.

I collected together all the pink and green beads I have bought over the last year.

I machine stitched the design on to the fabric and layed out the beads to see how they would look together.

Sewing down the beads...

Nearly there!

Completed! Can you see the section I changed?

The final piece is very heavy and has been put on an embroidery hoop to keep it taught. I intend to tidy up the edging fabric - similar to Suffolk Puffs, (Yo-Yos) - by gathering the fabric with stitching and then back the hoop with the bead edging sampler to hide the fabric. Leaving me with a double sided sampler for chapter 8.

Completed Super Tassel

I've completed the Super Tassel!

Next Chapter...

Super Tassel in Progress

Just to show how I go about creating stuff, here how the Super Tassel came about.

Here's the page from my notebook/craft diary where I dooble and log the time I spend doing the course work - well that's what I usually do, but I 've noticed that I haven't logged the time I spent on this page!!!

So I wrote of what I intend to do and a drawing of how I wish to do it - I promise that I drew this before making it!

This is the top, thread wrapped napkin ring and a thread wrapped wooden bracelet. The top of the napkin ring has been threaded similar to a Dorset button and a hanging loop added.

Under the top is a maquette of how the cable will be twisted and where the wrapped washers will be placed.

Covering the ugly electrical cable

I covered the cable with macrame, using a green cotton thread/wool, the knotting of the macrame caused a twist to form around the cable which was a nice effect.

Putting in the Twists

As the length of covered cable grew I began to attach the wrapped washers to give the twisted cable stability and stop it unraveling.

Another twist added

A couple more washers are needed and the wires that have been released from the gray plastic covering need to be covered and twisted.

So does it look like the drawing yet?

I intend to add something to the centre and cover the three bare wires and twist them and add a tassel to the ends, similar to the one thats complete and then I shall post the completed Super Tassel on the coursework blog.

Tassels

A Tangle of Tassels

Simple tassels using knots to form the heads. A more detailed group of photographs will be posted soon on the Coursework Blog

My Favourite Kind of Shopping!

I re-read through the Distant Stitch Course chapter on buttons last night. I have a few samples made using shop bought kits and they are nice in their own way, but there's something to be said for creating the buttons from scratch. So I have been shopping for button forms, (the base onto which you will put the textile top, in case you don't know), but not the usual packets you can find in haberdashers. Oh, No, I went to the local Homebase and perused the plumbing and hardware sections. I like to look at the things you would use one way and then think how I could use it in a textile way. So washers, wooden dowel plugs and foam guards for furniture become my forms for the buttons I shall be creating. I also went to Woolworths and Ryman's for bubble wrap and foamboard. And to British Home Stores for tights to hold all the padding down.

My Button Form Shopping

I returned from shopping to find my neighbour had kindly taken delivery of this lovely bunch of flowers. Happy Valentines Day!

Valentine's bouquet with a yellow rose!

I love yellow flowers, they brighten the soul, yet yellow roses have a bad meaning if you read some "The Meaning of Flowers" books. I don't care, DH can send me yellow roses instead of red any time of the year, I'm not a conventional girl!