For the Burrowing Owl Centre in Moose Jaw, SK.

I've been working on more Owl Advice accordion booklets.  Proceeds from their sale will be given to the Burrowing Owl Interpretative Centre in Moose Jaw.

 I just love working with Lorraine's hand dyed threads and I received these in the mail last week from her Etsy shop Colour Complements.  Thank you Lorraine!  Can't wait to begin using them :)

 I participated in an atc swap recently and this was the lovely canvas stitched atc I received.  Thank you Kerry :)

 Played with the end of a pool noodle, a stencil, and a rounded stamp to make marks on a couple pieces of yellow cloth.  They are going to cover a book box which we will learn how to do at this evening's stitchery guild meeting.

We have 7 Black-billed Magpies coming into the yard every morning and this one perched on top of a pine tree long enough for me to grab my camera and take his picture :)

Have a wonderful day everyone!!

Four Felting Pieces

 Our latest Stitchery Guild project has been needle felting and this is the design that I created inspired from Liinalommi Felt Design.  We were each given a 9 x 9" piece of acrylic felt and roving plus a needle felting needle.  A lot of stabbing went on that evening and a few ouches too.

 After some free motion machine sewing the stalks now look more like wheat.

 Having some bags of wool from previous projects I decided to play a bit and laid out this design.  After wetting with warm soapy water and rolling and rolling and rolling I let it dry and then

 did some sewing. I'm in the process of adding french knots and bullion bumblebees.  I will add wings once I have made a couple more bees.

 With a small piece of felt I made an artist trading card stitching only with french knots. 

Am also working on this piece that I had wet felted.  I'm needle felting additional roving to give it more life as well as french knots. I'm certainly enjoying these felting projects.

Happy Stitching everyone and thank you for stopping by :)

Hearts and Tyvek

 A quick and easy cross stitch heart pattern that I came across at dandee designs.  One for each of my daughters and I'm set for Valentine's Day :)

 Hearts stitched together pattern also available from dandee designs.  She stitched her hearts separately which actually look better.  If I have time I'll do another one.

 Been playing this week with some Tyvek (house wrap).

 I cut it into pieces and painted them with metallic acrylic paints.  They all dried in less than 1/2 an hour.  Then I ironed them between sheets of parchment paper.  Some I ironed a bit too long as it just melted and disappeared.

 Other pieces bubbled and puckered and holed up nicely which I then free motion stitched owls on.  Not sure yet what I'll do with them yet.

 This one will become an artist trading card.  I need to back and put an edge around it.

 Also played with candy wrappers again and made another couple of atc's to trade.

 Thankfully I have co-workers and friends saving wrappers for me.

 Last week we went down hill skiing at Castle Mountain in Alberta and I was thrilled to see Stellar Jays.  I had put out some peanuts and cracked corn and within minutes there were 5 of them right outside the door.

Have a wonderful week everyone and a Happy Valentine's Day :D

Whole Cloth Piece with Bugs

 Finished with my whole cloth piece which is about 22 x 22 cm or 9 x 9 in.  I painted some of the flowers using acrylic paint, appliqued, fused and made a few 3-D flowers too.

 Just had to add some bugs and made this caterpillar and bees using bullion stitching.  On hindsight I wish I had made them a bit bigger as they are rather lost on this piece.  I'll know for next time.

 Tried my hand again on a stumpwork lady bug.  I first tacked down a small piece of black felt and stitched black and red threads over it.  Made a few french knots on the back and added a couple of small black beads for the eyes.  Straight stitches for the legs and antennae and there you have it.  One small ladybug complete.

 This inchworm should have been larger too as it is hardly noticeable.  It is one long bullion knot with a couple of black french knots for the eyes.

 So the whole cloth piece was our December project in our stitchery guild. This Sashiko piece was made in November.

 The colours of India was our October piece and for January

 we are needle felting.  This is how my piece is looking so far.  All our pieces are approximately the same size and we'll be making a book box to keep them all in. 

The stitchin fingers atc swap of the month theme is Winter.  Using candy and gum wrappers and some free motion embroidery this is my progress so far.  Will add a few more threads to it I think before I send it off.

Hope everyone is enjoying their January.  Take care wonderful blog followers :)

Running Stitch Circles

 In my previous post I mentioned that the stitchery guild program for this year is to explore embroidery stitches from around the world.  September was to explore the embroidery of India and I've added circles of running stitches around a buttonhole stitched washer.  For the centre I used a piece of paisley material I had.

 Along one of the sides I added this star shape and played with filling it with different stitches, ie:  stem, straight, chain, buttonhole and herringbone

 I liked the star design so I also put it along one of the other sides again experimenting with different thread colours and stitches ie:  chain, straight, buttonhole, stem and french knots.

 At the October meeting we were to explore the embroidery of Japan by stitching a shashiko design. We were each given this indigo blue cotton 12" x 12" piece of material to which we marked a grid and added circles using a white dress maker's pencil.  This is my finished and first shashiko embroidery.  I did not do the centres correctly but was not thinking of that while I was stitching.  A few of the circles are not perfectly round either. Next time :)

 I received a large bag of candy, gum and chocolate wrappers from a friend at the stitchery guild and I made this landscape fabric postcard using them. Thank you Carol!  I sent it to an International Mail Art Exhibition being held in Nov. and Dec.

 I backed it using a Sun chip bag someone else at the guild meeting gave me.  Thanks Shelley :)

 Also made a couple of wrapper landscape atc's

 backed with more of the Sun chip bag.

 While driving on a back road we came across this beautiful large Great Grey Owl perched on a fence post. 

Needless to say we were thrilled when he/she let us take some pictures before flying away.

Have a most delightful day everyone and thank you for stopping by :)

Swaying Wheat & Dyeing Results Are In

A swaying wheat fabric postcard made on hand marbled evolon, wheat kernels fused using a soldering iron and backed using a metallicky cookie bag.  I'm almost out of candy and granola bar wrappers so last night at our stitchery guild meeting I asked everyone to please save me some wrappers. 

 Left over piece from my Swaying Wheat Postcard which I made into an artist trading card.

 Very poor solar dyeing results using dahlia flowers.  The cloth was very nice and pinkish when I took it out of the jar that it had been sitting in for almost 2 weeks but when I rinsed it the colour all went down the drain.  Nothing ventured nothing gained though and I'll use the cloth for another dyeing experiment.

 The marigold solar dyeing on this piece of evolon turned out much better and I am quite happy with the results.

My first try at rust dying turned out very well! Using an old Edwards coffee can I soaked my piece of cotton in vinegar and wrapped the cloth around the can.  I spritzed it with a mix of 1/2 water 1/2 vinegar and this was the result in 1 day.  I soaked it in salty water to stop the rust process and then washed it in soapy water.

One cannot tell from the photo but the goldenrod solar dyeing cloth and thread did become a nice yellow though not as dark as the marigold.

These pieces will all go into my small fabric stash and I know I will enjoy using them sometime down the road.

Wheat Stitching and Solar Dyeing

 As harvest nears on the prairies I've been stitching wheat lately.  For these wheat kernels I fused a few of layers of organza together and stitched them down on dyed and stamped fabric to make a fabric postcard.

 I recycled a granola bar wrapper to make these wheat kernels and again stitched them down on dyed and stamped fabric for another fabric postcard.

 Playing with organza, I fused snippets of pieces down onto black felt and then stitched a row of wheat using the wheat ear stitch.

 Lazy daisy stitches for the kernels which I made into an atc. 

I should have started this in July but here I'm trying my hand at some solar dyeing.  I mixed a 1/4 tsp of alum and an 1/8 tsp into this gallon jar which I 1/2 filled with warm water.  I added a piece of ready to dye cotton and some white DMC thread and filled the jar with wild goldenrod flowers.  I then topped it off with some more water.  I'm stirring it every day and will see what happens after 10 days.  It rained for a couple of days and it's been cool so I might have to wait longer than 10.

I also started a jar using marigold flowers

and a jar with dahlia flowers.  Both have a piece of white cotton fabric and white thread.  Just have to wait and see what happens now.

Have a lovely day everyone :)