Ispirato

Following on from my previous post - here’s another quick and easy card to make. This one involves a large circle punch which I used on some lightly printed paper. ‘Glued the paper circle in the center and overstamped with a circular flower image, slightly larger than the punched shape.

This was such a breeze to create, it made the making that much more pleasurable. And it has got that ‘homely classiness’ I love. It’s wabi sabi!

I needed to make some thank you cards. I realized, as I sat down in the studio, it had been some time since I’d made a card. I’m a firm believer in the value of a “quick card”. It should look good but let’s face it - the greeting card is a throw-away item. Smile at the sentiment, leave it on a shelf to admire for a week or so, but I won’t kid myself into thinking you will keep and treasure my card for the rest of your life. I’m a realist.

So I pulled out some blank cards, some subtle-printed scrapbook paper (Urban Lilly, I think) and a new set of flower stamps by Autumn Leaves. And I hit upon an idea that involved a couple of rows of machine stitching on each card as the final step.

Do you know, I made 16 cards in under an hour? Whoopie! How good is that? Here’s how I did it: (There is more where this came from … )

This brooch was fun and easy to make and I’m proud to say I figured out the technique by myself, having seen something similar (but not as nice as mine!). I thought I would develop a Go-Make-Art.com eClass around making fabric flowers, and this is my first sample.

Here’s another necklace made using felt balls, most of which I stitched into. I added three polymer clay beads I had that were the perfect colors by some weird fluke, and a few silver and black beads. There are twelve dangles on earring headpins attached to a short length of chain, suspended by a jumpring to a ball chain necklace. I’ve shortened it for the photo, but this is actually worn as a long pendant.

I believe it qualifies for the word “funky”.  It is destined for the class sample case at the Embroiderers Guild of Victoria. I’ve belonged to the Guild for about 14 years now, and at 46 I am still referred to as “one of the young ones”.
As expected, most classes at the Guild fall in the category of traditional stitch, though the committee is genuinely keen to attract trendy projects that involve new or unusual techniques. We are fortunate to have a wonderful space all our own with multiple classrooms and a large gallery. The upstairs classroom has a big row of sinks and plenty of power outlets suspended from the ceiling. It is great for mixed media classes and machine embroidery. The library is excellent.

The state of Victoria is very fortunate to have an Embroiderers Guild with its own building. There are not many female-dominated leisure activities that maintain their own premises, compared to all the male-dominated groups. Gee, that’s sad, isn’t it?

Sunday morning I grabbed a bunch of old craft magazines off my bookshelf to see if I could part with any. It is time to clear space for newer ones.

I was flipping through an Australian magazine called Clever Sewing and Craft - I think the title is now defunct. When I got to this kitchen makeover I laughed out loud. There were instructions for making a valance and matching appliance covers. There was a “before” shot of this bare kitchen with really ugly tiles. Then this photo was the “after” shot.

“Ha-ha!” I showed it to my husband. “Look at this ugly kitchen makeover from the eighties.”

George took the magazine from me and then flipped to the front cover. “This isn’t the eighties. It says 1997 here.”
“No way!” But sure enough. This magazine was just ten years old. It was filled with country style crafts, cross stitch, folk art painting and a bunch of very unsophisticated greeting card projects. They all looked so out of date. Could things have changed so much in ten years?

So I started thinking about the crafts I had done ten years ago, then fifteen or twenty years ago. Remember fabric covered tissue boxes? Padded picture frames? All that gathered white nylon lace? (Ugh.) Piles of buttons glued on box or jar lids. Dried flower arrangements.
Come to think of it, this window valance doesn’t look so bad. It’s mainly the tiles on the wall that are ugly. And the sampler and doll on the windowsill . . . well, they do look a little dated, here. What’s on my kitchen sill? Some knitted cacti in terracotta pots. Oh, they look all right, I think. But will they be dated in another five or ten years?

What’s out and what’s in? Craft reflects design trends in general. This really got me thinking about fashions in craft. You know, Somerset Studio was more about stamping ten years ago. It is full of collage these days - mostly vintage people with with wings or party hats. Scrapbooking - a few short years ago a scrapbook page meant lots of pictures, some journaling and a couple of stickers or die cuts. Now a trendy scrapbook page has a single picture nested in an elaborate feast of decorative elements.

And there are crafts gaining in popularity just recently. Needle felting. Softies. Artist trading cards. Inchies. I hadn’t even heard of these things a few years ago.

The conclusion of my tale? I put the Clever Sewing and Craft magazine back on my book shelf. ‘Can’t part with it yet.

I will need to have another flip through it in 2017, for sure.

These felt beads were fun to embellish with stitch!

As promised! A photo of some of the embroidery I did in my sickbed.

These are handmade felt balls, hand embroidered and turned into earrings.

They are destined for the class sample cupboard at the Embroiderers Guild of Victoria because I’m teaching a two-day class on making felt jewelry (or as we write in Australia, “jewellery”) in January.

But if you can’t be in Melbourne for the class, never fear. I will be developing an eClass on this for Go-Make-Art. Complete with video, because it is so much easier to SEE the process of wet-feltmaking than to just read about it.
I love the idea of making tiny 3-dimensional objects that can be stitched into. Beads are usually hard - not soft. So there’s an element of surprise here.

I will post photos of a necklace in a few days.

I’ve been sick. It’s weird-sick, though. I have a cold with all the symptoms - sinus headache, constant cough, sore joints, extreme lethargy - but no runny nose.

Let me tell you, a cold without the stopped-up nose is the best kind of cold to have. Yes, this is what getting sick should always be like. I have to rest. Have to.

But I don’t have to feel miserable while I rest.

In fact, I’ve had a great time these past couple of days, sitting in bed with my cups of tea, my audio books and my bags of felt beads and embroidery threads. Yes, I’ve been taking my making to bed. And it would just about be heaven, if I didn’t erupt into terrible coughing fits so frequently.

I embroidered felt beads for hours on Sunday, while being coached in NLP techniques by Christiane Turner. Marvelous. And I was ever so careful to keep track of my needle whenever I put it down. I had this maddening vision of losing it in bed, and then getting punctured by it later in my sleep.

My friend, Melanie beads in bed all the time. She says she finds needles and beads and sequins every time she changes her sheets.

I’ll post pictures soon of my lovely embroidered felt beads. But can’t right now. I have a sudden bout of lethargy coming on. Better head back to bed…

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I’ve completed seven pins in Susan Sorrell’s eClass, Fabulous Felt Pins at Go-Make-Art.com. Wore this one yesterday at the Stitches and Craft Show and got so many compliments! Gee, they were fun to make and it was satisfying to make a batch all at once.

Check out the whole lot by following the “more” link” below. (There is more where this came from … )