Vintage embroidered pouches

I have many gorgeous vintage embroidered tables clothes, especially from Eastern Europe. They a gorgeous heavy linen and then use lovely wool threads to embroider them. I love the colours and textures. Slowly, slowly I am repurposing them!

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all. Let's hope it's a great one! I haven't blogged for more than a month now as I was lucky enough to go home for Christmas!

I have some many things to blog which I didn't have time for before Christmas so I guess I'd better start blogging.

One of my favourite items I made for a customer is this growth chart. It's very different to my usual charts as the request was 'textural'. I used all different fabrics and techniques to create the sense of texture. I was able to use my absolute treasured hand dyed felted wool - LOVE! I also used some textured trims and threads as well along with tulle here and there. For more photos go to Flickr.

Christmas decorations repeat themselves!

Some things from the past must be repeated. I loved making these last year and here they are again available in my shop! They are made with beautiful Italian wool felt and then appliqued with hand dyed felted wool. So cute!

Juju's Crazy Wool Quilt

Here is some more progress on mum's crazy wool quilt. There are four panels, with one for each season. There is an individual photo of each season on Flickr. She is almost done with only a few minor things to finish off then she will add the borders and make it up. That probably won't happen for a while because whilst its only spring in Brisbane, it already feels like summer so it's too hot for wool quilts!

Sue Spargo Class @ Material Obsession

Today I had the absolute pleasure of taking part in a class with Sue Spargo at Material Obsession in Sydney. I have looked forward to this for so long and it has taken me several years to be able to do a class as I could never fit it in with work. Several weeks ago, I picked a kit from a choice of three. I came ready with my background wools stitched down as the class was all about learning to embellish.

 When Sue arrived she started off by talking about her work and what we would learn. The great thing was she explained the different types of threads and fabrics that she uses and what needles are best with each one. Then she showed us some of her work which took our breath away. The photos I have seen in her books and on her blog just don't do them justice. Every single piece was amazing. The amount of detail in each one was inspiring and her imagination is endless as everything was so different. They are all multidimensional and they are so tactile.

I loved the quilt below. I actually have this pattern and have only made one block so far. It was the first Sue Spargo project that I attempted. This quilt was amazing. Each block is only 6" and they were much smaller than I though they would turn out but I loved them. Now I am inspired to finish this quilt!

One thing I also really loved was the way Sue quilts her work. She has different free-motion patterns all over her work. It is so perfect that it looks like she has used a pattern although I don't think that she does. Just have a look at the quilting below. I haven't quilted a quilt on the machine yet and think that I will need some practice before I attempt something like this.

I learnt lots of new stitches today and it was fun to see all the different projects that people were working on. Some of the lucky girls went to all three days of the workshop and had made lots of progress. Have a look at Sue's blog to see some of the photos from the class. Here is a sneak peak of what I did today. I haven't made much progress so will blog it when I get more done.

The exciting thing is that Sue has a new book coming out later in the year. I can't wait to get it. Here is a photo of Sue and me! She gives me lots of inspiration. It's a pity that Rach and mum couldn't be here today and I hope that they both get to go to one of her classes one day. Rach- I recommend that you go to the Italy tour as you will absolutely love it!!! If you have any photos of Sue Spargo creations that you have done, add them to my Sue Spargo Inspiration and Creation Flickr Group as I would love to see them.

Sue Spargo Needle Roll

In August I am going to a Sue Spargo class at Material Obsession in Sydney and I can't wait!!! I have been wanting to do one of her workshops for years but they are always during the week when I have work. This year they had some on the weekend so I was so excited to be able to go. For the workshop we had the choice of three kits- one of her circles, the one with the tear drops and one with birds (see samples of tears below).

The aim of the workshop is to teach us how to embellish using a whole variety of threads, buttons, beads, ric-rac, fabrics and embroidery stitches. When I discovered Sue's work, I started collecting things like different threads and can't believe how much I now have. I selected the birds as I think it would be a funky wall hanging. Our homework was to have our shapes stitched down and ready to go. I spent two days cutting out 36 little birds and stitching them onto my background. I really wanted to do more but we had strict instructions not to open our embellishing pack until the workshop so I decided to get her 'Contemporary Folk' book and stitch one of the projects that I had wanted to do for a while- so I made the needle roll.

 The original was a pale blue but I didn't have enough of that wool so I used the same pattern in pink. I was happy with the colour combinations.

I used some ribbons, ric-rac and thread to create the pattern on the back. This was something that Sue did on another project.

Inside there is two pockets, a needle book (top right) and the center part is filled with lavender and is used for storing pins. The lavender makes the whole case smell really good.

It's only about 6 weeks until my workshop and I am counting the days!!!

Mum's Crazy Wool Quilt

Mum has been working on this quilt for a while. There are four large blocks- one for each season. She is not finished yet but I thought that Rach would like to see her progress so far. The whole quilt is made up of wool fabrics. There are more images on Flicr.

Christmassy stocking

The last few days I have been working on these lovely stocking. The themes are based on my client's requests so I hope I interpreted them correctly! It's always great working on something someone has requested as it opens up new possibilities and designs you hadn't thought of.

New stockings

I have finished off some more stockings, getting ready for the festive season! I love making these! Two I made from designs I did last year and the one with the snowman is a new design. It's so cute I really can't tell which is my favourite they all have such a different look. I love combining different fabrics, I have used cottons, Japanese linen mixes and some antique linen/hemp. Then the applique and embroidery are equally as fun! All available in my shop!

More christmas decorations

I finished another set of Christmas decorations. Love the way these turned out! Lulu and my favourite may be the reindeer but I do really love all of them! They are again made with wool felt and beautiful hand dyed felted wool (so lovely to work with). These will be going on Etsy.

Christmas decorations

I did a whole lot of designs the other day for Christmas decorations. I started straight away even though I have so many things on the go which need to be finished! A while ago I bought whole lot of hand dyed felted wool. The colours are beautiful and I've been itching to use it! These decorations are made with a thick wool felt and then most of the applique is felted wool. It's such a lovely material to use. I cut out a whole lot more so stay tuned. These will be going on Etsy.

Family of snowmen

Well I can't believe we are already at the Christmas end of the year my brain automatically starts thinking about Santa, snowmen, angels and snow!! It feels like yesterday I was preparing to go home to Oz for Christmas. As I was very busy last year with orders I decided to play around with my ideas early this year otherwise they just don't happen!

I made this sweet family of snowmen. They are made with a mix of techniques and fabrics. The large snowman is made with a mix of antique hemp/linens, linen and cotton fabrics. I also appliqued hand dyed felted wool hearts on him. The middle snowman has a patchwork pocket , felted wool holly and a heart. The little guy is made with antique linen, an applique patch and holly.

I think they're so sweet together, they'll have to remain a set!

Magnolia Quilt Block 4

This is my fourth block in my Magnolia Quilt. It takes a bit of time to complete each block due to the embroidery. Whilst it is simple stitching, it does take time to decide what to do and also decide when to stop. You need to be a bit controlled or you can probably take it a little too far. I really enjoy using a variety of threads. My collection is building and range from cotton, perle, silk, wool, chenille e.t.c. I have a lot of plain colours as well as an increasing range of variegated and hand-dyed threads. I can't believe that I recently went to the Quilt and Craft fair and did not buy one piece of cotton fabric.... instead I bought felted wools and threads.
The crossed pattern on the flowers are silk threads that are hand-dyed. I might add some beading later. I have some beads but need to increase my range for this type of quilt.

Here is the full block (un-ironed). I am excited to start block 5. I will do that tonight. I have also started a Flickr group for work inspired by Sue Spargo. If you do make some of her work or are inspired by her, add some photos.

I also wanted to let people know a few great places to source wool as it can be hard to find especially in Australia. A recent website that I bought from and found very cheap was Ram in the Thicket. Wool can be very expensive and her prices are great. She also have a huge range of colours to select from which can be a little overwhelming at first but will you will probably find just what you need. We also buy from a couple of different people on Etsy- Quilting Acres here colours are fantastic and she has come great textured/patterned wools. Three Sheep Studio also has some great colours and textures/patterns. Finally an Australian artist who has some nice wools is Anni from Hatched and Patched.

Sue Spargo Magnolia Quilt- Block 3

This is my third block of my version of Sue Spargo's Magnolia Quilt. It is turning out to be an extremely bright quilt but I really like it. I have been collecting a lot of different threads and fabrics lately with this quilt in mind. Sue's who philosophy is that you can combine any fabrics especially felted wool and layer the fabric to give it texture. She then embellishes her work to give it even more dimension. She used perle cottons, silk threads, wool threads, chenille threads, beads and a whole lot of different embroidery stitches to make her work so interesting. I am trying to make mine interesting as well. It's fun doing the embellishments as you can keep going and going and going!! I have started to cut out my fourth block and will continue working on it tonight. Stay tuned for more! If you are interested to see some of Sue's work, check out her blog.