Pot plant papercut

I did another papercutting this weekend and although halfway through I felt like I was going insane I am so so pleased with how this turned out! 

This piece reminds me a lot of Jean Jacques Rousseau, He was one of my favourite artists growing up. I love all the stylised foliage in his jungle pictures. Apparently he spent a long time in botanical gardens painting different exotic plants which he later used in his paintings (that from a essay I wrote for my IB art class..). 


I especially like that this piece depicts our actual plants on our actual window sill. Most of my papercuts are pulled from my imagination so it was nice to do something different. 

But man, I could really tell that this was a new direction...I must have gone through 10 blades cutting this piece. That window pane was a killer. I'm glad I stuck at it as the lines of the panes work really well with the organic shapes of the plants. 

I'm excited to do more of these but for now this one is now available in my shop. 

Catching up on Christmas crafts

It's Easter Sunday and after my my last mammoth post on finishing my quilt I figured I needed to catch up on some of the other stuff I have done since. 

It feels a bit untimely but oh well. 

This past Christmas was the first one that James and I spent on our own. Aside from the initial panic of having to do a Christmas dinner, which turned out awesome in the end, it was really great to have total freedom to do what we wanted when we wanted. 

We got up unpleasantly early to get our lamb shoulder in the slow cooker. 

We more or less followed this recipe - I stuck the shoulder with anchovies, garlic and rosemary and it turned out really great, the gravy was especially good. 

We rewarded ourselves for our early start with some bucks fizz with freshly squeezed orange juice and champagne. 

Check out our vintage juicer - I love it. 









This was our Christmas tree - bigger again than last year but due to all the felt ornaments I made last year it was pretty full. 

It did need some bigger ornaments though so I took some inspiration from a xmas decoration given to me by a friend a few years ago. 


These hearts were quick, easy and I really liked how they turned out, they looked great on the tree too. 

I cut out 2 heart shapes from some felt, used a basic backstitch to embroider a snowflake in a contrasting colour with embroidery floss on one of the hearts, used another colour for a blanket stitch to sew the hearts together, leaving a small hole to stuff the ornament so its a little plump, and then blanket stitched the hole closed.

I finished then up with some floss as a hanging loop adding a few sequins for decoration. I'll be making more of these for sure. 

 

Elephant baby quilt - done!

I have finished my quilt! 

It was a LOT of work but it went really well and I got it to it's intended baby before he was more than a few month old so that was a result. 

I didn't blog about all the steps in between where I left off and the finished piece - I was all focussed on just getting it done. The previous posts on my quilt progress are here: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

So, the elephants are done and stitched to the quilt top and next I moved on to the balloons. I decided on 3 different red fabrics for them, and decided on an arrangement that worked with the position of the elephants and sun. As with all the other elements of the quilt I first drew and cut the shapes on to tracing paper and then fusible web. I then used the tracing paper templates to cut out the balloons from the three red fabrics - I prepared the appliqué balloons the same way as the sun - turning in a 1/4 inch seam allowance around the edges of the shape. 

Once these were done I was able to assemble the quilt and adjust placement of all the elements:

And then blind stitch/applique them all down on to the quilt top - it was a good feeling to finally have all these bits and bobs come together into one unit.

So after that, I employed some very basic embroidery to work in the elephants tails and the strings of the balloons.

I used chain stitch for the balloon strings and most of the elephants tail and satin stitch for the end of the tail.

I really have no experience in embroidery but I liked doing this and how these bits turned out.


So at this point I had a finished quilt top. Awesome. 

Next up, putting it all together. I knew my backing was going to be this great blue and white polka dot, but I wasn't sure on the binding... I was thinking about red or yellow but they seemed too close to the balloons and sun so I decided to bind the quilt with the backing fabric. 

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1. To make the quilt 'sandwich' you need enough floor space to lay the quilt flat. I laid the quilt backing, right side down, on the floor smoothing out any wrinkles. Then I laid the quilt batting on top - getting this positioned and flat can be tricky, batting is sort of clingy. 

2. Next the quilt top goes down - face up. You can see that the batting is cut slightly bigger - I find it easier to do this and then trim it down to size. 

3. I used a few pins to secure the 3 layers together. I find it best to start in the middle and work out toward the edges, smoothing it all flat as you go. I folded over the edges and clipped them together.

4. Finally, I used a basting stitch, starting at the middle and working toward the edge in straight lines and then again in increasing concentric circles. This is a sort of annoying and time consuming task but it is really worth it. It makes it much easier to work with the quilt all the layers are well fixed and not slithering about. 

SO THEN...actual quilting...finally. I don't really have any pictures of this as its hard to photograph but basically I used small running stitches in matching colours (yellow for sun, red for the balloons etc) to outline the different applique elements. 




The sky and grass had some large areas which needed some additional quilting to keep the layers together so I added some quilted clouds in the sky and some scattered flowers in the grass. 

Once all the quilting was done it was time to do the binding. I trimmed the quilt top and batting to 1 inch less than the backing fabric. I folded over the excess backing fabric twice, first fold with the raw backing edge against the edge of the topper and backing, then over again on the quilt top. 

I used the much more detailed instructions over on the super helpful tutorial on cluck cluck sew.

I added a last minute label to the back of the quilt - my name and date I finished the quilt. I guess this is a thing that's done? It's a good idea. 

And it's done! After a final wash in the machine (on gentle). 

I'm really pleased with it. And so was my friend, the baby seemed indifferent. 

This was a pretty all consuming project for a while and sort of bumped all other crafting and papercutting out of the picture for a while. I did manage a few other projects since then so more on those next...

Making a baby quilt - Appliqué sun (part 2)

I mentioned my first steps of my baby quilt in my last post, here.

I made some good progress this weekend, luckily as the baby was due last Friday - luckily the baby is shy and hanging on and buying me some time (thanks baby!).

When I left off I had done most of the elephants - folding in the edges of the various pieces they are comprised of and securing with fusible web. 

Next I tackled the sun. I wanted this placed in the top left corner - I find it helpful to have the quilt topper out so I can test composition options:

I used a conveniently yellow piece of scrap paper to check size and placement. 

Also at this point I was looking at different options for binding - the red at the bottom was considered and then discarded. I have other plans for red. 

Back to the sun - when I tried this I decided that I wanted a spikey (?) sun rather than a smooth round one. Nice. Much more work!

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1. I used the paper template to trace a circle of fusible web and yellow fabric with a 1/4 in seam allowance. Two points to note here - first, the little 'v's nicked out of the seam is a good trick to help turn in a round seam. Second, I folded the template circle into eighths to give the width of each of the sun-rays (spikes!)

2. Folding in the seam allowance bit by bit and pressing as I go to secure with the fusible web.

3. All edges folded in and secure, on the reverse side.

4. Right side up - main bit of the sun done!

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5. For the spikes/rays I cut out a triangle template with the edges of the same witdth of the folded template in picture 1. I cut out eight triangles of fusible web, and eight triangles of yellow fabric (with a 1/4 inch seam allowance). I placed the triangle of fusible web in the centre of the fabric, nipped the corners off to help with the folding in, and pressed in each edge of the eight triangles. 

6. I pinned each of the triangles to the circle and stitched together with invisible stitch. 

Sun: Done. 

 

Making a baby quilt - Appliqué and elephants (part 1)

One of my best friends is having a baby very soon (too soon, quilt-wise) and I am making a baby quilt for her. 

Years ago when the first of my friends got pregnant I decided to do the same thing and made my first quilt. I think I sort of understood the basic principle (a batting sandwich) but it was a pretty challenging experience - and as I chose to do the whole thing by hand, lengthy too.

But it turned out pretty well in the end and my friend was really chuffed. 

Anyway, that was over 6 years ago and I have no idea how I got from the pile of material stage to the one above. It involved appliqué...lots of invisible stitch...and a bit of luck?!

Well, I'm doing it again and this time I will try to document the process better. 

I knew I wanted to do something similar to my first one. I really like how fun and bright the quilts look. I figure they are more likely to be used as a playmat or even a wall hanging so I wanted to do a fun scene. This time with elephants. 

With all projects I start with a small sketch, just to see if what I have in my head makes sense in terms of composition and proportion.

I drew the sort of shape I wanted the elephant to be - then tried to place it on the quilt, at which point I thought I wanted to add a baby elephant and a sun and some balloons to balance it out.

I'd like to pretend that there was a little more technical planning at this stage but nope, those scribbles are about it!

I had some fabric left over from the first quilt but needed a load more so I got to head over to the fabric shop. I live in south London and this is my closest go-to haberdasher. 

So I stocked up - lots of patterns - maybe too many? Er. Oh well. 

Also useful to document the other equipment I'll need for this project. 

- self healing mat 
- rotary cutter
- sewing scissors
- tape measure
- pins
- various thread
- washable vanishing marker
- wax
- craft paper
- pencil
- fusible web

I'll also use my sewing machine although the vast majority of this will be hand sewn. 












So the first thing I did was wash all the fabrics. This is exactly the sort of boring-but-really-important step I would have tried to skip out of when I was a kid. It's tedious and I'm usually raring to get going with my project and really resent this delay. 

But I'm older and wiser now and although its still tedious it really is a must for any quilt project - you have to wash the quilt at the end and how devastating if you have colour run or shrinkage? 

So wash the fabric first. You'll never regret it. 


My quilt is going to be about 120cm x 85cm. This will maybe shift a bit with trimming and eventual binding. The first thing I did was to piece the quilt top. This was quite simple, 2 pieces: the blue sky and the green with daisies. I ran this across on the sewing machine. 







Next up I tackled the elephant. There are 2 options here. You could cut the whole elephant shape from one piece (easier) or the elephant would be made up of different sections (legs, head, body) - this is more fiddly but I prefer the way it looks - it gives more detail and 3-dimensionality to the elephant. 



So to do this I first drew the elephant out, in the size i wanted it for the quilt, on craft paper. I cut out the different pieces.

Then I arranged these on the fabric. Make sure you think about the eventual orientation - I wanted my elephant facing right so here have places the right orientation on the right side of the fabric - but you could of course flip the templates over and place them on the wrong side of the fabric - the latter may be preferable if you are marking up with pencil and don't want this visible on the right side of the fabric. 



So here you can see that I used vanishing marker to mark about 1/2 inch around each piece of the template. This will eventually be folded in on the finished appliqué. 

One additional step here which isn't essential and I stupidly forgot to photograph is the use of fusible webbing. This does help with the folding in of the edges and eventual positioning on the quilt top. The fusible web should be cut out  the same size as each elephant piece (ie, without the seam allowance of the fabric)


Below is step by step of prepping a piece of the elephant, in this case a leg.. 


At the top of the picture you can see the paper template - this is the size and shape we are aiming for with the final piece. 

In this picture you can see I have the piece of fusible webbing in the centre of the piece of fabric. 

I have folded over the left hand side of the fabric (over lapping the fusible web) and pressed it in place with an iron. The web then 'sticks' this in place. 

(NB. You can see that I have trimmed the bottom right corner with a diagonal - this makes it easier to fold in and less lumpy as there is less fabric folded in) 

I then placed the template back on the piece to check the next fold. I lined up the left edge of the template and left pressed fold of the fabric.  

Then, as shown, I folded up the bottom of the fabric pressing it with my fingers and keeping it in line with the bottom of the template.




  









I then carefully slid out the template and used the tip of a warm iron to press the fold down and stick down with the fusible webbing.










I repeated this for the next 2 sides until all edges of the piece have been folded in and secured with the fusible web. 

This shows the right side of the leg and another one that I completed. They should be the same size as the paper templates. 

This stage can be a bit fussy, especially with small pieces like this but the folding in of the raw edges is important to avoid fraying on the final piece. 






I repeated the above with all the elephant pieces for the big and little elephant. I could then lay these out on the quilt top to see how they looked:

Not great pictures but you get the idea. It's nice to see it all coming together. More progress on this soon! 

DIY - Hanging a massive print

I am in the middle of a massive post about my quilt project but in the interim I thought I'd mention this DIY I did this bank holiday weekend.

We bought this great old Dutch (?) map when we were living in Crystal Palace last year. As far I can tell it's a map of textile and petro-chemical industry over Europe - just what every home needs! Anyway, it's great and we love it but its about 1m x 1.5m and quite heavy paper and displaying it is a bit of a challenge.

We moved house about a year ago and I'm ashamed to say that this has just been rolled up in the spare room while I figured out how to hang it. I'd ruled out conventional framing as it would cost a fortune and make it difficult to transport. I had seen the hanging systems of basically a rod at the top and bottom to weigh it/stretch it out and wanted to have a go at doing something similar myself. 

So to do this I needed the following:

- 2 lengths of wood measuring 110cm each (I wanted a small amount of overhang as the map is 103cm)

- matt varnish and brush) 

- small hooks

- 4 bulldog clips

- picture wire

(side note: buying the wood was a full on nightmare here in London. I have no idea why. Numerous DIY shops either didn't have wooden dowels or lengths of wood over a metre. I finally bought 2 mop handles and a saw to saw them down to size!)

1. So the first thing I did was saw my bits of wood to size and sand down any ragged edges. If you are luckier than me in terms of suppliers of bits of wood in your local area maybe you can skip this bit. (On the up-side I now have a saw which makes me feel very capable.)

2. Next, varnish the wood. I just used a matt varnish so the wood didn't look so raw. But you could use a stain if you wanted the wood a specific colour or finish. Make sure you wait for it to dry. 

3. Figure out where you want the bulldog clips - I wanted them right on the edge of the map to minimise the corner curls. Once the clips are in position line up the holes with where the hooks will need to be on the wood and make a little mark. Do this for both the top and bottom pole.

4. Screw in the hooks. I used a hammer and a small nail to start off the hole and make sure that the hook would screw in straight. 

5. I screwed 2 eyelets onto the opposite side of the pole to the hooks to attach the picture wire to the top pole. I kept the wire fairly tight as the poster is so big but it can be made more slack to adjust the distance from the nail/hook.

6. Finally, hook the hooks through the holes in the bulldog clips. The good thing about this is if your hooks aren't perfectly placed you can shift the clips up and down to adjust them. I hung the top pole with the map attached and finally hung the bottom pole off the bottom clips. 

Done!

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. And best of all once I had got all the stuff together it only took a couple of hours to finish. 

I'd recommend this as an easy, cheap way to display a large piece like this. Just bear in mind the weight of the paper - this is very heavy duty. I'd worry about a thin piece possibly perishing under the weight of the bottom pole. 

I'm happy that this map is finally out of its packaging and on display.

Now back to the quilt....more on that soon. 

A foray into scrapbooking and non-linear time

I've been a bit under the weather this winter and combined with my hatred of cold, gloomy days it's meant I have spent a lot of time indoors which is why I have had so many craft and art ideas.

It's actually a little hectic in my head at the moment. I have works in progress that I want to finish, new ideas I want to work up, a commission I need to get cracking with...and that's in addition to normal work, life, feeding ourselves, being social etc. So it seemed slightly mad when I was catching up on blog reading yesterday lunch and came across A Beautiful Mess post about e-course: Capture Real Life in 52 Weeks and I immediately signed up for it. (Side note: if you don't already read A Beautiful Mess, you should, it's fab)

I have plenty to be getting on with already but I think this is going to be great. I have never been part of an active creative community - I mean, I have my Etsy shop and I work with customers and have been creative all my life but I have usually operated and worked in a pretty solitary way. I suppose this blog is me trying to change that...and I think this course and interacting with other participants and seeing what they do will be fun.

I think there is an element of scrapbooking? I have not really got involved with scrapbooking in the past, which is stupid as I am a hoarder of sentimental scraps of memorabilia which are have been tucked away in sketchbooks, bags and drawers for years. Last year I bought a scrapbook and organised all our menus, ticket stubs, cards etc into a chronological pile and proceeded to do nothing with them.

Last night James was out and I was all revved up at the thought of my new e-course challenge so I dragged out various glues, pens, washi tape and the pile o' stuff and attacked with enthusiasm and what turns out to be a not very linear sense of time! Anyway, after a glass of wine, a fair amount of swearing and sticking, peeling and re-sticking glue dots and photo corners I condensed some great memories into a dozen or so pages. This was in no way an artistic triumph, this was more of a get-it-done-already job.

But I do feel better that it's not looming over me any more and I can embark on the 52 week challenge without feeling a bit freer and like I have at least attempted some scrapbooking.