More cushions!

This cushion was made with recycled vintage fabric and trims - I particularly like the vintage ribbon with blue flowers. Good to make use of older fabrics and use them in a new way. This was also the first project that I used a zip in. Quite complicated to learn, but looks a little more professional than the envelope style that I normally use.

Shoe Making with Hetty Rose

I spent today at Make Do & Mend in Chelmsford, learning how to make shoes with the brilliant shoe-maker Hetty Rose. These are my finished pair - just need to wait for the glue to dry before I can start wearing them!

Experiments with Patchwork and Silk

This blog is to share any other textile work that I have completed that is not connected to my City and Guilds course.

Arabian Nights in the Log Cabin...

I was experimenting with traditional patchwork techniques that could be mixed with other techniques and cultures. I have a little bit of an obsession with very brightly coloured silk and rich textures, so tried making a cushion cover that mixes the traditional technique of log cabin patchwork/quilting with Arabic colours and embellishment. The centre panel is covered with gold, lacy fabric and the gold flowers are machine embroidered over a flower stamp.

A close up of the centre of the cushion cover

Crazy Patchwork

This was my attempt at crazy patchwork, which started out by using a monochromatic colour scheme, but ended up with other colours creeping in!

I found that started with an irregular shape in the centre, with an odd number of sides made this a little easier, although it was much more difficult than I imagined it would be!

Post and Rail Experiment

Back  to the brightly coloured silk again, but this time in autumnal colours, and embellished with gold braid and automatic machine stitching in gold. This was quite tricky to sew, as it was difficult to get all the strips exactly the same size and to match up the seams, but I got there in the end!