Birds of a feather.........................

I'm still playing with birds. I had in mind a flock of brightly coloured birds to decorate the craft stall. I finally settled two shapes: my "chicken" shaped bird and one other, courtesy of Nellie Durand. I've used Nellie's pattern before, but I gave my birds nice big feet to make them stand up better.

Here's my flock of bigfoot birds:


(Click on photo for bigger image)

They are made from left-over scraps of quilted or "embellisher" fabric and have needlefelted beaks.

This one is my current favourite, made from my "chicken" shaped body pattern with Nellie's wings.

Bird brained

Still trying out different bird shapes, again all stitched together by hand because it's still too cold in the workshop:


(Click on photo for bigger image)

This one has a slightly different body shape and a three-pointed tail. It is made from left-over scraps of quilted fabric.


(Click on photo for bigger image)

Not sure about that tail.

Again the seams are buttonholed together and embellished with trellis stitch. I added embroidery in coloured threads to help co-ordinate the different fabrics.

Out and About with the Creative Co-op

It's British Tourism Week, with a particular focus on traditional seaside resorts and their piers. The Creative Co-op organised an Art Out on the pier. The plan was to have artists and crafts people sketching, painting, photographing and if possible demonstrating for a couple of hours on Saturday. Work would then be finished off as quickly as possible, ready to be exhibited during the week as a venue became available. Fourteen people came along to take part and generated quite a bit of interest.

It was a bit difficult to think of a way to demonstrate textile work on the pier, especially as it is always windy. I decided to take along some small pieces of fabric and some dye sticks and do rubbings of interesting textures.

Here are some of my bits:



and here's what I did with them when I got home:



Cut up, layered and bonded to a dishcloth made from recycled plastic bottles.



Some simple stitches added



and finally stitched to a backing. Measures about 12 by 8 inches.

The View from the Pier. (The sea, the beach, the cliffs and the downs.)

It's been a long time since I did anything on the art quilt front. I did this very quickly and I wasn't best pleased with the result, but it has given me some ideas for later!

International Womens' Day

March 8th is International Womens' Day. There's a Post a Photo challenge on Stitchin' Fingers to show something made in the suffragette colours of purple (for dignity), white (for purity) and green (for hope).

Here's mine, its a pin doll:


(Click on photo for bigger image)


(Click on photo for bigger image)


(Click on photo for bigger image)

There's a fat bird in my sitting room....

and it's not me. Well it is! But there's this one too:


(Click on photo for bigger image)


(Click on photo for bigger image)


(Click on photo for bigger image)

I've been playing around with different bird shapes. I cut this out from my usual "embellisher" fabric and sewed it together by hand, because the sewing machine was outside in the workroom and it was just too cold to go out there. I buttonholed all the raw edges together, decorated it with hand stitches and finally finished off the edges with trellis stitch. The beak is needlefelted.