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My 2nd Quarter Challenge is Progressing

My 2nd Quarter Challenge is Progressing

I’ve been working on the stitching for my basket organizer.  The first part I did was the waves. I liked them but I didn’t like how the edges were fuzzy.

 

I went looking in my stash for the right size yarn to edge it. I found my stash of Briggs and Little Sport singles. I picked up several colours cheap from a weaver who had finished a project.  I picked black to outline the waves.

 

I used the outline stitch. I used the tutorial in this great stitch dictionary. https://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/stitch/stem-stitch/outline-stitch/

You can see how the wool yarn is raised adding texture as well as definition. I enjoyed following the curves with my stitching. more fun than straight lines. I only

And finished. I like it much better the black outline really makes the waves pop.

Next was the rectangles on the flap at the front bottom.  I used some red this time.

At first, I thought I would do a Fly stitch up the middle of each one.  My stitching was really uneven. I didn’t like it, so out it came.

I decided to put two lines up the rectangle. the stitching isn’t fabulous because I had no line to follow. the only thing I had to mark it was chalk. I did try it to see how it would brush out and it was really hard to get off the felt it wanted to move further into the felt rather than come off.

And after I cut off all the tails.

So far so good. I have a plan for the last part of the decorating. It will need lines for me to follow so I will have to wait for the heat erase marking pens I ordered. After that is the really hard part……….. the finishing.

Felted Case

Felted Case

This week, I made a case for my best friend’s birthday. I made it all in one piece using a resist. I laid out a piece of silk on the resist first so that the back inside had a nice pattern, I also thought this would help strengthen the flap so it doesn’t stretch if it’s opened often. This is the front with the flap open:

And the back with the flap open:

This is how it looked with the flap closed:

I used some dyed silk throwster’s waste and dyed soy staple for the embellishments:

The silk has a paisley design on it, which can still be seen, but close up you can’t tell with the texture:

I always have trouble choosing buttons for cases/purses etc. I’m sure I said this last time, but I really need to make some more buttons out of polymer clay. I bought a bag of green buttons at a hobby fair about a year ago, I thought this one was quite nice, but a bit small:

I liked this ‘fancy’ button, but it’s a bit big and too thick:

This was my favourite and what I ended up using:

I blanket stitched around the button hole and around the opening/flap, but didn’t get chance to photograph it finished. My friend loves it and he’s already using it 🙂

Cases And a Cover

Cases And a Cover

I got a couple of cases made this week. I thought I’d made a mistake and forgotten to add the cord at the right stage for this first one, then remembered I wasn’t making a bag after all! I added a piece of braiding/trim and a split ring. This is the felt side:

And the back/fabric side:

I did change my mind about what I was going to do with the piece of felt I used on this next one. If you saw my last post, I’d planned to make a small shoulder bag. But as I was cutting it out, I thought it was too narrow to work that way, so also made this into a case:

I changed my mind about the fabric to use aswell, I wanted something a bit more sturdier, so chose what I think is upholstery fabric:

A while ago, I made a piece of nuno with lots of shrinkage and rippling. I kept looking at it and thinking it’d made a cool book cover, so that’s what I did. This is how it looked after sewing up, but without a book in, outside:

Inside:

I wanted to keep all the edges as they were, and only had to trim off one small part. I haven’t decided which side I like best, so here’s one side:

And the other:

I might go over the stitching again, I want it to be secure, but don’t want to zig-zag stitch it as I like how the edges look.

Synthetic Fibres and Fabrics

Synthetic Fibres and Fabrics

A couple of felt pieces I chose to make into things for etsy recently were both made using nylon fibres. This first piece has crimped nylon fibre which I dyed myself, blended with merino tops. The felt had a really nice feel to it, thick and kind of spongy but still light, and the nylon gave it a nice texture and sheen, a kind of wet look.

Nylon rainbowoIt was the perfect length for making into a notebook cover, and I got to keep the natural edges again too.

notebook coverI decided to use the orangey yellow side as the front cover:

OrangeThe other piece was one I made a while ago with trilobal nylon. It comes as rainbow tops and I carefully separated out some of the colours and blended them with merino. The result was hard to capture on camera but it gives a nice texture and shine to it, and when the light catches it, it really sparkles. The piece was big enough to make two camera or gadget cases out of. I’m just finishing a slightly larger one than this, but this is the first one I made:

stripey nylonI hadn’t realised how small my new camera was until I used some props for demonstrating the size of the cases, apparently mine is about the size of a pack of cards, it makes the new iPods look huge 🙂 I used a standard sized camera to test the ‘fit’ here:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI was really pleased with the way the flowery camera cases came out. These were made from a piece of nuno felt I made with a polyester scarf on the top and muslin underneath.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd because I keep moving all my sewing stuff from upstairs to downstairs and back in a shoe box, I thought I’d make myself a little case to keep my glasses safe. It was made from a piece of felt I made ‘just for fun’ last year and has as many different fabrics and embellishment fibres on there as I could find room for!

glasses case

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