The Magic Feather Project

Jude Hill has a fantastic project going on here. I have had a wonderful time stitching my feathered piece. It will be flying away to Jude on Monday.

I have called it "Feathered Rainbow Reflections". This has been stitched on a piece of parachute silk rescued in 1942. My stepfather lived on a farm next to an airfield in far northern Australia. A parachutist missed the airfield and came down in a tree on his farm. The parachute was salvaged from the tree and some of the silk was used to make underwear for the family during the wartime period. My mother hand dyed some of the silk many years ago and this is what I have used. She still has more of the original undyed silk which eventually (I hope) will be passed on to me.

A cloth with a very long history and who knows what it will become in the future. But for the present this small piece is flying (again) across the world to join in feathered unity.

Very worried feathers have got lost in flight to Jude, sent 3 weeks ago, hope they are just hovering somewhere and will eventually drift to their destination!

Hooray, finally arrived! (only took a month, talk about snail mail!)

Lucky me

I was lucky enough to win a give away from Judy's Fabrications blog and I received this wonderful package in the mail. The faerie shoes are delightful and would you believe this is the first ever ATC I have received. Thank you very much Judy.

A bird is nesting

I saw this pic on someone's blog of a humming bird in a nest and loved it.

Unfortunately I can't remember which blog I saw it on. The picture gave me the inspiration to start my latest piece. If anyone recognises the picture can you please advise so I can give credit to the photographer.

I chose three shades of green and cut numerous leaf shapes which have been basted on to some cream flannelette backing. There is a lot more stitching to come, finer branches and more leaves..... lots more growth to come.














For the nest I have used some white silk which has been dyed using pottasium permanganate. This is an interesting technique which I picked up from Ailee Snow who was my tutor at the Tafta Orange Fibre Forum in April.

Place dampen silk pieces in an alfoil tray, scrunching them into folds, then lightly sprinkle over the pottasium permanganate crystals. The crystals eat into the fabric leaving lovely lacey patterns and staining the fabric. The process works faster on lighter weights of silk, so it's just a matter of checking the fabric every so often to see how much has been eaten away. Medium weight silks take approximately 2 hours. This process will work on any natural fibre material. I experimented with various natural fabrics with varying degrees of success but I found silk works the best. This is a piece I did in class which I have used for the nest.

PS: Can anyone else see a cat on the lower left hand side of the piece. Enlarge for a better look!

Heart Banners

I know it has been quite awhile since I've posted but my fingers haven't been idle. These banners were started months ago but only just finished. The background is woven pieces of blue stripe material.

The banners were inspired by my previous piece the Heart book mat seen here

Happy Birthday Mum

I couldn't put this on until today as it is a birthday present for my Mum. The backing is a piece of indigo material with scraps randomly placed over the top with various embroidery stitches.

Embroidered Evening Bag

It seems like I can only manage to post here once a month. I have been busy making an embroidered evening bag for myself. I pieced various silk and velvet strips then embroidered over them making up the designs as I went. I let the materials give me the inspiration for the flow of the designs. This is the finished strip of material backed with maroon silk.


The following three pics are close ups of the embroidery,
















......and this is the finished product, front and back or back and front??

Tropical stitches

I decided to go to a tropical island. Stitched on hand dyed silk, lovely to work on.