Bits and Pieces

Life has been busy and I have fitted in stitching 'as and when' but here are a few of things I have been busy with.

This denim bag was made for a charity raffle - front and back views. I hope someone is enjoying using it.

We have started making Travelling Journals at our Inspire group. This is my journal which will be 'travelling' around the group. Quite exciting to see what appears in the book each month.

journal cover (back)

journal cover (front)

This is the piece of work I have put in the journal - a needle felted picture started on a one day workshop with Michala Gyetvai

and this is the first piece of stitching added by a group member -Jan. Stunning!

I am now busy preparing samples for a workshop - Playing with Papers for Stitching and trying to catch up on my Jackie Cardy felting course.

Felting with Jackie Cardy

I have just started an online felting course with Jackie Cardy - see her blog at dogdaisychains.blogsot.co.uk. Although I have done some wet felting before, I have never been particularly happy with the results so I am hoping to pick up some good tips. Jackie is posting some videos - about two per week I think. The first two were very clear and really inspired me to get going. Following Jackie's instructions was certainly less messy and more successful than my previous attempts at wet felting!
Here are my first two pieces - no stitching yet , just basic felt. The stitching videos come later!
The first one is based on pictures from my garden

first - 3 layers of green wool tops

then some flower shapes 

the final piece after wet felting

The second piece is inspired by Autumn leaves

the fibres laid out before felting

the felted piece ready for some stitching

tactile books

Our embroiderers' guild has started a new project for 2014 - making tactile books for blind and partially sighted children. The charity Clearvision  lends these books out to the children, after braille has been added to the stitched pages. Making these books is quite different to the textile books I have made in the past, where the visual look was all important. These books have to be made with quite different concepts in mind.
It has been quite a learning curve thinking of ways to introduce tactile and sound elements into the books.

Here is my first attempt.

It was really fun to make - I hadn't done any knitting for years so it was quite a change making the little knitted jacket. The books are quite addictive once you start - I have two more on the go at the moment!

There will be lots more photos posted on the Solihull E.G. blog over the next few months, so take a look there. solihullembroiderersguild.blogspot.co.uk