Wild & Free"

This page was created for the book called "Wild Side". I felt it was a bit dark but wasn't sure how to lighten it up without starting all over again. I created a spiral design with the words "wild & free" & various sized paw prints in my drawing program, & imported it into my digitizing program. The design was stitched onto gold fbaric which was layered over a background created by joining strips of black & green fabric & digitized leaves. Once stitched, the excess gold fabric was cut away to reveal the background. All the layers were then added to another background of brown felt with added brown fabric leaves.

This is the last page in this book series. On reflection, it was great to go back through them all & see just how much I learnt. My main aim when entering this Book Page Round Robin was to learn about my digitizing program, but I learnt heaps about my drawing program & the power of photo editing programs, about layers & effects & merging two or more images together. I learnt not to be scared of computer programs, but to experiment & see what they could do. I also learnt not to be scared of FME, it was not as hard as I had always thought.

The pages have long since gone to their new owners, I hope they have as much fun looking at them as I had creating them.

Regenerate & Recycle

A different shaped page this time, this one for a book called "Regenerate & Recycle".

I started with a pile of plastic rings, the kind that come from milk containers & soft drink bottles once the seals have been broken. I dumped the rings on my scanner to create a pic, which was then manipulated a few times in my photo editing program. The final image ( which looked nothing like the plastic rings any more) was printed onto white polycotton & then layered with net & organza & FME'd.

Fragile Fragments

"Lace - A Frragile Textile" was my page that I created for the book "Fragile Fragments". Lace is my other passion, and though it appears fragile, if it is made correctly it is quite strong, and will outlast most fabrics that it is attached to.

For this page I chose a lace doily from my collection that I bought at an op shop. (The aim was to reproduce it one day) . I then scanned it, cropped it, added 3D effects, embossing effects & printed the final image onto seeded homespun. Digitized flowers, lines of stitching to reflect the shapes in the doiley, & stretched lettering were stitched into tulle which was then overlayed over the doiley image.

All Creatures

This page, "The Pelican - My Forster Friend" was created for a book titled "All Creatures". I love pelicans, & photograph them quite often, especially along the Mid north Coast of NSW. This page was inspired by one of those photographs. The background was created using layers of blue polycotton & organza, using FME to hold them together. Some sections of the organza was cut away to give a different texture. The pelican itself was sketched, digitized, & stitched onto the background.

Colour & Shade

This was the page that I created for a book called "Colour & Shade". Corrugated cardboard pages were provided for us to use, & I seem to remember there were various colours to choose from.

I used a frangipanni shape, overlapped, traced the outline, then mirror imaged. The lines were then digitized. Purple satin was overlayed with hand dyed cotton, the lines stitched, fabric cut away, then more layering with net, more stitching & more cutting away. The final touch were the buttons stitched on with beads, all over yellow felt.

I know I had trouble with this page, everything was always dull. I think I was trying to keep the "shade " part going with the use of shades of purple & it wasn't quite working. Hence the introduction of yellow. Much better.

Loopy Lace Page 13

Made by Dale Rollerson, a background has been created using black felt gilded with gold foil. The letters were digitized, then stitched onto black felt, burnt out, then applied to the background. Other small digitized lace motifs were stitched & applied, then all were covered with a layer of "lace". This lace layer was made by using a fancy machine stitch on Water Soluble Fabric.

This was the last page that I received for my "Loopy Lace " book. It's been nice to go back over them all again after so long. Now stay tuned to see the pages that I made during this Round Robin. There were 16 in all, counting this first page of my own book.

Loopy lage - Page 5

This page came from Toni Valentine who used Photoshop to blend layers of a photograph. The image was then transferred to pelmet vilene using image transfer paper. Pieces of digitized free standing lace were added.

By the time this page was produced, I had already played with the same type of image transfer
paper on a page that I had produced for someone else. I have pics of those pages too, so I'll post them at some stage too.

A Heart For PassionART

My first project for 2010.

The call has come out for hearts, any technique, no larger than 20cm x 20cm, embroidered on one or both sides, lightly padded for dimension & with a loop so that they can be strung.

So the above heart is my contribution. Pieced with three different fabrics, I then machine embroidered rows of hearts in red & white, layered with batting & backing, cut the heart shape, finished the edges & attached the ribbon loop.

All the completed hearts will be displayed at the PassionART Outdoor Twilight Festival on Valentines Day.

W.I.P Number 42 - Finished

Over the last few weeks my W.I.P. spreadsheet list has grown some & reduced some. After finding a few WIPs in odd places, the list got to be at 42, but has gone back to 41 with the finishing of this bookmark. I started this a number of years ago for a bookmark swap with one of my on-line groups. The bookmarks required at the time were all finished & sent, & this piece of fabric was left over, waiting for me to do another one. I pulled it out of my stash before Christmas, thinking I could do a quick present for someone, but that never eventuated, & the fabric stayed at the bottom of my sewing tin, until the last few days.

The fabric is one I created myself, sandwiching threads & paper between homespun & organza. I then surface stitched over the top with chain stitch & woven wheels, finished the edges with machine satin stitch, and decorated the bottom with a tassel of the same thread.

Mmmmm................. maybe I have started my Christmas present making for 2009 very early.

"Seasons Of Change" - April TIF

" Seasons of Change" is my April TIF challenge complete. It began here & continued to this, which I wasn't entirely happy with. So I cut out my leaf & appliqued it onto a green background. I think it looks much better & has more life than before. I tried to portray the changes in colour & shapes that Mother Nature gives us as she changes the seasons. I have used digitizing, applique & machine embroidery to achieve the result.

March TIF Challenge "And There Are Spots"

I Finished the March TIF Challenge yesterday. My inspiration came from the little spotty details on the insects that live in my garden. I rummaged in my fabric stash trying to remember the colour pallete & came up with these. There is some red felt, green satin (though it looks very blue here), three shot organzas (red with black, red with blue, yellow with pink) and a bright pink crystal organza.

I then layered strips of the satin & organza over the red felt taking care to overlap the pieces so I got the colour changes happening, finishing with a whole layer of organza.
This sandwich was then hooped & my basic "spots" were stitched. I then cut back through the top layer (reverse applique) to expose the colours underneath. I had to be very careful here as the fabric was still hooped & had to remain that way so I could then stich the outer section of my spots. The stitching had been digitized & if the fabric moved in the hoop then my outer spots would not cover the basic ones. This is the first time I have tried digitized reverse applique and it was my first time at playing with the textured edge feature of my program. A fun way to spend Easter Monday afternoon.