Postcards

These are a couple of birthday postcards for some friends on Fibre Art Friends.

The backgrounds are painted felt and I used strips of fabric to add interest.

The first one has Japanese style fabrics so went to Mags with the Garden Gate (previous post) as they matched.
The other with some of my own painted and stamped fabrics went to Lynda.

Postcards are such a great size to work on.

Through the Garden Gate

The last page for the swap on Fibre Art Friends is for Mags.
She asked for doors, windows and garden gates.
I chose garden gates.

The background fabrics are some lovely Japanese style fabrics that I thought were just perfect for this project.

I printed the photograph (of the rose garden where we spent our hols last year) on to iron on cotton and ironed to the background fabric.
This was layered on to cotton batting so I could get a quilted look.
I did a little machine embroidery around the photograph to soften the edges and pull your eye into the garden.

The gate worked out better than I hoped.
I drew the gate pattern onto water soluble fabric.
I wanted to do some free machine embroidery onto water soluble fabric but I had not done this before so, being a coward I put the water soluble fabric onto some black organza.

When the embroidery was finished and the soluble fabric washed away I burnt out the organza with a soldering iron.

I hand stitched the gate to the edge of the quilt so it would open and you can walk into the garden.

I hope Mags will like it. If not my Mum says she can send it back as she quite fancied it ;0)

Seahorse Fantasy.

My partner on Textile Challenges in January was Lyn.
She expressed a preference for blues and greens and loves the ocean.
A woman after my own heart ;0)

I've been gathering things together on this theme for a while and not done anything with them so this was the ideal opportunity.

The background is hand painted cotton.
I used Dye-na-Flow paints. I love the way they dye the fabric without all the messing.
The seahorses are my own drawings that I printed to white, iron on cotton, I cut round the pictures and ironed them to the background.

I quilted round the seahorses and then added fibres by needle felting them down to represent seaweed.
Some shell pieces and little beads add embellishment.

The arch measures 8" x 4"

I had great fun making this piece and it has given me ideas for a bigger piece. Now I just have to get those ideas out of my head and on to fabric.

Art Nouveau

The theme for January's swap at Unlimited Textiles was Art Nouveau.
Well new year, new art.

I love this style. It flows and grows with spirals and curves and is just beautiful.
With my love of flowers it was certain what I would choose as my focus.

I had some lovely pieces of green silk that were too small to do much with but made great backgrounds for my flowers.
The flowers are organza. I cut out the shapes with a small point on my soldering iron.
I like to do this as the edges don't fray but I have to remember to wear a mask as the fumes are unpleasant.

I did a little detail with gold thread which quilted the items too.

The ATC's are zig zagged onto pelmet vilene and the quiltie (5" x 5") is backed with hand painted cotton.

African Mask

My January fabric page on Fibre Art Friends was for Kim. Her theme is African Masks.

Now if you remember when I made the India page I struggled to get my idea to work and I thought I would have the same problem with this.
But thankfully the mask was in a good mood and played along beautifully.

The picture doesn't really show that the centre of the mask is quite padded and is quilted over the eyebrows and nose.
The Hessian is spray glued to some heavy paper to stop it flopping about.

I used some gorgeous hand dyed fabrics that I received in a trade with Marion.

All in all I had a wonderful time making this page ;0)