No More Burnt Hands

A little while ago I was given a very cute little enamel saucepan with a metal handle - cue lots of 'ouching' as the handle gets very hot and using a tea towel to hold it is a bit risky as it tends to catch in the gas!

So at the weekend I had a lovely few hours sifting through fabric scraps to and sewing them together to make a pot holder.

A mix of vintage and new,

quilted, backed and edged.

No more burnt hands

and it looks rather nice hanging up too.

I also made this card for my Dad's birthday, from silk tops and threads worked together on the embellisher with beads and wire hand stitched on.

I hope he likes it as the beads made it too thick for a standard stamp and it cost me a fortune to post it!

She Sells Three Shells

A few days ago I finally finished (I think) another small textile piece that I started after I'd been to the Knitting and Stitching Show. 

Three Shells - 10cm x 20cm

It's embellished sari silk, with silk fibres, banana yarn and scrim.  I've sort of stitched the shells on, which are years and years old (there's a good reason for not throwing stuff out!) and then added a few french knots.  I'm having problems stopping the shells from falling off, but if I don't touch it they're fine!  Anyone know a good way to secure them?

If you're interested in textiles and live near Bury St Edmunds, the 'Out of the Fold' exhibition is well worth a visit.  Fran and I went yesterday and were really impressed, it's on until the 29th Oct. And if you want a cuppa afterwards then head to 'Harriets' - lovely tea, and the cakes looked good too, although we both managed to resist (this time!)

Busy Doing Lots of Things

I've been rather busy of late - busy marking student teachers' assignments (a task made less tedious by finishing off the Christmas chocolate biscuits!), busy creating printable teaching resources to go with our story animations on The Treasure Tree and busy creating an embroidered seascape.
To start with I embellished (with the embellishing machine) various merino wool tops, silk bricks, ribbons and yarns onto a washed babywipe.  This is it at that stage:

The waves at the top are the microwaved dyed wensleydale fleece from here.  Then I hand embroidered more yarns and silks on (mainly using lazy daisys, fly stitches and french knots) before adding beads to all represent the fish and seaweed.  (I think I may be addicted to french knots!).  This is it finished:

It "grew" quite alot during the embellishing and is about 50cm x 20cm.  Below are some close-ups of some of the detail (if you click on any of the images they'll enlarge - the occasional cat hairs are added extras not visible except through the camera lens!)

It's been many years since I've done any embroidery so I did quite alot of unpicking along the way, but I enjoyed doing it and am quite pleased with how it's turned out especially as I had no real plan when I started - I think planning is something I need to work on!

Now I'd like spring to come so I can get busy in the garden.