Felty goodness

On Monday I went to London to go to Ginger Wildheart's birthday bash at the Forum. On the way I went to Felt Mistress's exhibition at Foyles bookshop. I adore her monsters, with their intricate suits, antlers and mini-biographies. Her main site is here, and the exhibition is on until 1 Jan.

I hate organza

I have had a very frustrating evening attempting free machine embroidery on organza. Soooo much tangling and stuck needles. Not going to try that again...

Well that's a bit embarrassing

Turns out the Psychic Garden we visited in Petersfield is actually the Physic Garden. That makes slightly more sense..

Beautiful winter's day with mistletoe

Or maybe it's officially still autumn. Certainly felt like winter when I had to scrape the ice off the car this morning. I'm very glad it's finally stopped raining and even more glad that I don't live in a flood zone.

As far as kitty adventures go, yesterday Miskit managed to flick pee in my face (in my EYE) from her catbox on the way back from the vet. She also managed to get so much out of the box that it ran down the car seats and soaked my skirt. Then left little pissy pawprints all over the house. Ewwwwww.

Arty/blurry pier picture

Brighton West Pier from when I went  to see The Peacocks in the summer at The Albert (awesome band, sweatiest gig ever).

 

I wish I could have taken tours of it before it collapsed too much and caught on fire, the photos from that time look really interesting:
Wikipedia

Apple tree

 

Let's try it through Flickr instead *sigh*

Minor travels

Today I went to a small arts and crafts fair at a church in Petersfield where I bought a wooden toadstool (useful, eh?). We then saw a sign for pottery exhibition down an alley and ended up in the Psychic Garden. I have no idea why it's psychic. There would have been a photo of an apple tree here, but Blogger is refusing to upload any photos. Grrrrrr.

Oops

I meant to post every day in November - I guess I ran out of photos and ideas to keep it up! Hopefully it's got me into the habit of posting more frequently than every couple of months.

I've finished one of the Super-Secret cross stitch xmas projects, well the stitching stage anyway. I've painted the hoop but need to reverse-engineer the felt backing as I don't want to remove it from the hoop as it took forever to get it into the perfect position.

Just need to sew lots of embroidered leaves onto my C&G project and cut the tubing I'm using for hanging it, then I'm done except the dreaded paperwork. I then need to start tea-dying fabric for my second project.

This morning I tried to move Miskit and she hissed and scratched me quite badly. I'm concerned she now has the taste for blood after we watched Hellraiser together this week....

The end is not yet in sight

Updating my blog every day in November seemed like such a good idea at the start of the month...

Hopefully my first final project for my City & Guilds course will be finished this week, I need to find a saw to cut up the electrical pole I'm using for hanging. I'll post photos when that's done. I'm still not entirely sure how to do my second final project - the main section will be using calico but I then will be somehow introducing scrim and tattered organza so it gets gradually more deconstructed towards the bottom, I just can't work out how to merge them.

Awkward places Noddy sits

 

1. On my flute

Charity shop find

I don't know when this is from or if the transfers still work, but I'm really pleased with this.

I like the old adverts:

And the circus transfers:

Awkward places Miskit sits

1. On top of the wallet needed for paying for dinner

I love the colours of Autumn

Nearly there....

I'm finally nearing the end of my first final project for my City & Guilds course. I never want to use this colour green again! I just need to attach my dissolvable fabric leaves and attach my corded lengths to look like vines. Helpfully I managed to fix my sewing machine (I hadn't lined the bobbin mechanism up properly) which means the second final project should get done in time. There will be much tea-dying in my near future....

Autumn leaves in streetlight

City & Guilds panic

I'm now on the last week allocated to my current project, and then have 4 weeks to do my next project. As my sewing machine is broken, I am panicking a tiny bit. I have about 2 hours this week with a machine at college to do a stupid amount of cording, finish the "moss" stitching on my wall and put a backing on it so my messy free machine stitching can't be seen. Argh.

Have a picture of a pretty moth from my bathroom. I have no idea what sort it is but at least neither of the cats ate it.

Oh woe....

In my endless quest to make embroidered leaves using dissolvable fabric for my final C&G project, I got my bobbin tangled up and had to dismantle the inners of my sewing machine (obviously not the one I bought at the weekend). Unsurprisingly, it no longer works. I have now decided I have made enough leaves and will finally succumb to a sewing machine service :(

Ooooooh....

 

Look what I found at the tip! I think it's a 99k model from 1951. The belt is rotten and I can't work out how it was powered, but it's so pretty!

2012 Calendar

Attempting to schedule this post as the Blogger iPhone app always messes up my photos and I can't be bothered to kick my laptop into life at the weekend.

As 2012 is coming to an end and I will soon need to start stitching my 2013 calendar (which will probably take me till March), here is the 2012 version:

This is from a printed panel from Polka & Bloom (link shows the 2013 panels which are different) with added embroidery and ribbon by me.

Sugar skull cushion

 

I made this for a Christmas present years ago. Sewing through multiple layers of felt glued together was fun...

Current cross stitch

This is the cross stitch that I am working on (except for Super Secret Christmas presents):

I've been stitching it during the 2012 motorbike racing season on TV, I'm a bit further on than in this picture (its got at least one more leg). Working in one colour has been challenging, but at least using a printed PDF means I can scribble on it to keep track of where I am.

The pattern is from What Delilah Did where there are other amazing patterns, I also have Libellule lined up.

Kitty tongue

Halloween Sampler

Finally finished my Batty sampler, pattern from badbird.

First time using my light box for tracing patterns, I used a pencil as I knew I wouldn't be stitching it quickly but was too impatient so there are pencil marks in the wrong places that I can't get out.

Also I'm obviously allergic to ironing...

I'm really pleased with how it came out otherwise, now it's on the wall I can't see any of the dodgy marks.

Doodling

I've recently finished an e-course to help me kick-start my creativity (UnEarth Your Creative Nature - the latest run started this weekend) which involved me doing daily doodles and starting and finishing a project in one evening.

This is one of my doodles:

And this is the finished project based on it, which took just under 3 hours:

I've never finished a project based on my own design that quickly before, I tend to get part of the way through then give up and leave it in a pile. This was a really good exercise in getting over my perfectionist and procrastinating tendancies, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

First post, eeeek

Hello! My name's Mad, and I am the slave of two warring cats and a large amount of brambles. I also attempt a wide range of crafts, not always successfully. I'm 2/3 of the way through a City and Guilds in Machine Embroidery and can often be found swearing loudly at a sewing machine.

This is Miskit (short for Miss Kitty Fantastico - obviously I have a Buffy problem) - tiny brain but unfortunately accomplished hunter:

And this is Noddy, former chaser of badgers, now acting like an old man because he disapproves of Miskit's presence in our lives: