Gothic Pattern

The theme for March at Unlimited Textiles is Gothic Pattern.
I love arches and ceiling bosses in cathedrals and I remembered a visit we made to Fountains Abbey a few years ago. In particular the vaulted ceiling of the Cellarium.
The Cellarium is only inhabited by bats now. Another Gothic feature maybe but no bats here on this quiltie.


I used purple satin for the background and cut arch shapes from dark green velour.
I wanted to continue the arch theme on the background hence the shadow quilting between the arches.
A close zig zag stitch in gold outlines the arches and golden beads represent ceiling bosses.
OK, I know there aren't any ceiling bosses in the Cellarium but let's just call it artistic license.

Close zig zag stitching finishes the edges. The quiltie measures 5ins square and will be on its way to Sandy in USA very soon.

In need of renovation.

This month at Textile Challenges I am sending my house front to Pam.
Her theme is "In Need of Renovation".

Of course I just had to do a thatched cottage seeing as Devon has lots of them
Most of them are in much better condition that this one I have to add.

I started with painted Lutradur over stone coloured cotton. The window and doors are made using scrapbook papers and roughly stitched to the house front.

The thatch is made from fancy fibres placed a stitched on in a haphazard way. I used a fabric marker to make the black "holes".
Machine stitching was next and the whole piece was rubbed with various brown ink pads.

Great fun, I hope Pam will like it.

My bag is finished.

My bag based on stone work at Teotihuacan is now finished.
I have to say I am rather pleased with it.

You can see more pics at Textiles for Two.

My head is in Mesoamerica!

I have been very busy working on a bag for our Mesoamerican project.
It has taken a lot of my time this week ~ well all of it really but I am enjoying it.
Here is a little peep and you can see a little more at Textiles for Two.

I'm hoping to be able to show you more of it later this weekend.

Eye Candy

Just wanted to show you some of the lovely eye candy I have received recently in trades.

ATC's from left to right are from: Terri, Emmy and Carol. Carol's ATC has some lovely little leaf earrings hanging on it.
The quiltie is from Val for our Vintage Flower Ladies trade.

I love each and everyone of them. Thank you for the great trades ladies.

Peaceful Daydream Blues

I made this quiltie for a trade with my good Internet friend Val.
We both love vintage ladies and both love flowers so the perfect theme to choose was "Vintage Flower Ladies"

I knew straight away the image I wanted to use. I wanted to give the impression that she was daydreaming near a shady stream on a lovely summer afternoon.

The background is my favourite.
Layers of felt, organza and painted nappy liners all stitched together and zapped with the heat gun. This was then covered with a chiffon scarf and flowers, leaves and swirls were free machined over it all.
This is my favourite technique as the outcome is different every time. I never seem to get the colours I think I will get and the texture changes every time. I just love the surprise of it all.

The flowers have heavily beaded centres.
There is a little tassel like embellishment with a "peace" disc hanging from it.
I found one little acrylic flower in the right colour way to add as a falling blossom.
The lovely lady is printed on to iron on cotton (from Crafty Computer Paper) and fused to the background.
A Sari Ribbon edging finished it off nicely I thought.
I'm happy to report that Val liked it ;0)

Before I go I wanted to tell you that I have been working very hard on my website.
It has a fresh new look, new items in the Art Gallery (with a closer look at my Mesoamerican items) and a brand new For Sale page.
I mention this as it is the only place will be selling on line at the moment.

I hope you will take a look at my website and I hope you like it.