25 Printed Postcards

25 Printed Postcards

I love making stamps. I now have several that I have made to print postcards.

I'm experimenting with different materials to carve into, some are easier to handle than other but all are fun to do.

These are some of my stamps:

Stamps

Most of these postcards were printed and then stitched on fabric that I either dyed or painted with liquid dyes.

Blue Jays on hand dyed, map and hand made paper.

Lady slippers on hand dyed and hand painted fabric

Three clematis and an acrylic painted flower over the print

Abstracts on black fabric and hand made paper

Original bird design made at a printing workshop

Albatross and Life is Good which was made to print on a quilt but is perfect postcard size.

Linking to The Needle and Thread Network.

Happy Quilting,

Terry

Take a Stitch Tuesday

Stitches 97 to 103

TAST Stitches 97 to 103

Four more samples for TAST this week with Sharon b. at Pin Tangle. 

Sharon has been presenting a new stitch challenge every week at Take a Stitch Tuesday.

She is presently taking a breather but has promised to returned if there is enough interest.

There are presently 140 stitches to choose from.

After practicing the stitch around a 4” frame, I try to come with a design using that stitch.

Am really loving the adding of beads to traditional stitches.

I always stitch the traditional stitch as the border and the version(s) of, in the centre.

Stitches 97 & 98 – Shell Chain and Beaded Shell Chain Stitches

I really like the beaded version of this stitch. I did this sample in a fine variegated wool.

Shell Chain and Beaded Shell Chain Stitches

Stitch 99 & 100 – Eastern and Beaded Eastern Stitch

I much prefer this stitch used singly and beaded rather than in a straight line as in my border. It might look better if it was beaded as well.

Eastern and Beaded Eastern Stitch

Stitch 101 & 102 – Triangular and Beaded Triangular Buttonhole

This is so easy and fast and I think there are many ways it could be used to make different patterns.

Triangular and Beaded Triangular Buttonhole

Stitch 103 – Beaded Butterfly chain stitch.

I think the Butterfly Chain Stitch is beautiful but can't say that I care for beaded version much. (Maybe it's just those bright yellow beads :-)

 Beaded Butterfly chain stitch.

I feel like I'm on the home stretch now that I have learned over 100 stitches.

Happy Stitching,

Terry

Chatelaine

Chatelaine

At our February,Kirkland Lake Mile of Gold Quilters' Guild meeting, our program director, Sandy, demonstrated the making of a chatelaine.

An information sheet and two pieces of fabric in colours of our guild name tags were handed out to all members.

Members were encourage to design and personalize their own in any way they wanted.

Several members showed up with theirs completed at the March meeting, everyone different & looking great.

I traced around one of my husband's tie for a pattern, rounding off the bottom ends.  

Both sides are the same shape so there is no left or right sides, it can be worn either way.

One side has a pin pad made of felt that is covered by a flap.  A small piece of velcro on the underside sticks to the felt to hold it flat. 

The flap also covers the end of the ribbon tied to the scissors which sit in its own little pocket.

The excess ribbon can be tucked under the flap as well.   Also added a little bling to the end of the ribbon.

Felt pad for pins, scissors/pocket

 At the bottom of that side are two pockets, the top one is held closed with velcro.

needle pockets

The other side hold my name tag which hides the end of the ribbon tied to the seam ripper.
It sits in the first of three slots stitched into the uppermost pocket and can barely be seen if the ribbon is tucked into the slot.

name tag and seam ripper

 The lower portion has three pockets, the first with 3 slots that hold the seam ripper, a 6" ruler and a pencil and/or pen.  The middle is presently empty and the bottom one holds a plastic card filled with thread.

3 pockets

On the back of the first side, I added a "secret" pocket (with velcro closing) to stash a little emergency $$$.

"Secret" pocket

This was a fun project to make and will be useful especially for classes or workshops.

Linking to The Needle and Thread  Network and Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Happy Quilting,

Terry

Take a Stitch Tuesday

Stitches 89 to 96

TAST Stitches 97 to 103

 Four more samples for TAST this week with Sharon b. at Pin Tangle.

I made four samples and learned 8 new stitches.

Sharon has been presenting a new stitch challenge every week at Take a Stitch Tuesday.

She is presently taking a breather but has promised to returned if there is enough interest.

There are presently 140 stitches to choose from.

After practicing the stitch around a 4” frame, I try to come with a design using that stitch.

Am really loving the adding of beads to traditional stitches.

Stitches 89 & 90 – Twisted Satin Stitch & Twisted Satin Stitch with a bead

I really like the looks of both these stitches and they super easy to make. Placing them end to end makes a nice border and would look great with beads as well. I also like how they look beaded and scattered about on their own.

Twisted Satin Stitch & with bead

Stitch 91 – Straight sided feather stitch

Stitch 92 – Crossed feather stitch

Stitch 93 – Plated feather stitch

I like all feather stitches, they are so easy to make. My sample shows the Straight sided in the border. The crossed feather stitch is in two colours and the four rows in the centre are the plated feather stitch.

Straight sided, crossed & plated feather stitches

Stitch 94 – Reversed Buttonhole Bar

Fun to stitch and lots of options.

Reversed Buttonhole Bar

Stitches 95 & 96 – Linked Chain Stitch & Beaded Linked chain Stitch

Can easily be made in straight or curved line.  Linked Chain in the border and beaded in the circle.

 Linked & beaded linked chain stitch

I will link up to TAST at Pin Tangle.

Check out this site as well as the comments to see all the beautiful work.

Happy Stitching,

Terry

Competitions & Work in Progress

Competitions

I'm happy to tell you that I am now your hostess for the Call for Entry page  at The Needle and Thread Network. Check it out, lots going on.

On that note, got some great news this morning. Our fibre art group The Northern Ontario Fibre Artists' entry “Seven Create” (see at the top right of this page) was juried into The Grand National, Kitchener, ON.

And personally, I had four pieces juried into the 8^th Annual Juried Contemporary Art Exhibition 2015 at the Museum of Northern History, Kirkland Lake.

Quite an exciting couple of days!

Work in Progress

This is what I have been working on and it is getting close to the finish stage.

Just wondering......do any of these blocks ring a bell? It's a few years old.  If yes, write me a note in the comments.

More later!

Linking to The Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday and Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Happy Quilting,

Terry

ART PROMPT - #19 – Add wood

Red Oak Mini Journals

My prompt this time was to add wood to a project.

I chose to make 4 little journals and make the covers from red oak which my husband cut and planed for me. I drilled the holes for the binding that I wanted to make, all different.   I also gave both sides of the covers two coats of varnish.

4 little Journals

Red Oak covers - coptic bindings

showing covers and bindings - lays completely flat

For the pages I recycled all kinds of paper, cutting each piece 8” x 6” and folding in half to make my 4” x 6” pages. I made 8 signatures of 8 pages for each book.

Each book has 128 pages.

Pages from a Japanese poem book and textured tissue paper

The binding is called a “coptic binding” and is ideal for pages that lay flat, making easy for drawing, painting or writing.

Here are some of the different papers I used.

Acrylic painted and stamped used greeting cards

Textured tissue paper and map

 own photo on copy paper and inked shiny paper

sketching and watercolour paper

map from an atlas

These kind of book are also called Junk Journals because of the recycled paper used.
I'd rather call mine Art Journals.

Linking to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday

See you next time,

Terry

NEXT PROMPT 

ART PROMPT - #20 – Add buttons

HERE'S MY “ART PROMPT” PLAN

One prompt, one project (taking as long as required to finish the project)

It's OK to finish or use a previously started project (UFO) as a starting point.

Make something creative.

Use any Media.

Blog about the project.

Pick another prompt once the project is done.