Poppies....

....everywhere.

I had the pleasure of working with Port Talbot Quilters yesterday. Apart rorm lots of stitching there was lots of laughter and lots of lovely homemade cake!

For me it was a thrill to see these ladies, working outside their comfort zone in a free style, and enjoying it.

If you fancy doing some poppies, there are some ideas here.
And don't forget the giveaway here.

Giveaway! Giveaway!!!

I tried to think of a catchy title for this blog post but failed but as promised here is a giveaway of Seaside Home.

The book is full of great projects from quilts to stuffies and bags, all with a seaside theme. This morning I rustled up this from the book using my hand painted fabrics (of course). "Three Wish Fish" was submitted by darling savage, and is a fun, quick to do project.

If you would like to win a copy of this book leave a comment telling me the name of your favourite beach and I will enter you for the draw for a hard copy.

If you would be so kind as to promote this giveaway on your blog or facebook page, I will enter you for the draw for an e-copy of this book which will be sent to you direct from C&T publishing, who just require an email address. Just post a link in a separate comment for this.
In the unlikely event that someone wins both draws I will email that person asking whether they would like to take one prize and put the other back in the hat (so to speak!) or nominate a friend or family member to receive the ebook or hard copy.
Sound okay?

Here is a peek of my project and you can see more by visiting Amazon for a "look inside", or the C&T flickr page

I will post internationally and I will keep this giveaway open until April 23rd as I am off on my hols!!
Have a great Easter everyone.

Recommended

I am sometimes surprised that there are often those who interact with me or this blog who do not realise that what I do here is mainly about PAINTING fabric and not dyeing fabric. Now I know that you can paint a fabric with dye but MOST of the time, everything you see here is done with textile paints and not dyes.

It began with this piece.

Which was the final piece that I had to do for City and Guilds Patchwork and Quilting. It had to be monotone and after dyeing yards and yards of fabric (with varying success) I was looking for another way, so I decided to use textile paint. All of the fabric for this piece was done with one small pot of Pebeo Setacolor  Transparent fabric paint, with more or lesser degrees of water added to achieve the different values.

Well what can I say, for someone like me, working in a domestic situation, I was hooked.

I wanted to learn more and with that aim in mind I purchased this.

As you can see it is well used and I still refer back to it often. It was my guide to getting to know the ins and outs of fabric painting and if you are keen to have a go this would be one of my Top 5 recommendations.

Those eagle eyed among you will have noticed that I recently added an Amazon window to my blog.
I have done this not because I anticipate financial gain but because it seemed to be an easy way of showing you the books that I have used and would recommend one obviously being this one.

I can also recommend her DVD. If you want to see more of Mickey Lawlers beautiful hand painted fabric visit at SkyDyes.

And if you like books stay tuned because by the end of the week I will be having a giveaway of Seaside Home.

"the sun has got his hat on..."

You know that expression- Make hay while the sun shines.....

Well in this house it is- Paint fabric while the sun shines!!!!
Making the most of the unseasonably warm March weather!
Hope you have all had such a fabulous sunshine filled weekend.

The Prayer Flag Project

I have been a contributor to The Prayer Flag Project since October last year. This week I posted a couple of Creative Courage flags, which I want to share with you here.

I began with some pieces of  hand dyed fabric and cut them to size. These are 16 x 5 inches.

These will be folded over to make a pocket from which to hang them. I like to make mine double so that the back covers up any unsightly stitching. 

Next I decorate the fabric with stencilling and stamping.

I added some birds and stitched in my theme.

The Prayer Flag Project is open to any one. It is about sending out wishes, giving thanks, commemorating a  friend, a loved one, or an event. It is about giving support to those near and far.

see the running stitch along the top to join the two sides

It is also about celebrating ones creativity in a positive way. The flags can be a simple or as elaborate

as you would care to make them.

Why not join in?

There are more details on the blog or you can email me your photos for inclusion.

You can also find more of my prayer flags here.

Wishing you all some Creative Courage this weekend!

Seaside Home

Seaside Home, a photo by C&T Publishing on Flickr.

Carrying on from yesterday's Seaside theme (it wasn't planned) I have just discovered that this book is now available.
It seems like an age since I was contacted by C&T publishing to submit my Pebble Stack design for inclusion.
Well, it is now available, and today there is a giveaway going on over on the Stash Books blog ...where you can see a piciture of my design...with my name......on a C&T publishing blog...I am so thrilled!
Stay tuned because I will be having a giveaway here soon!

Scenes from a Seaside Home

In an earlier post I said I would share some info on fabric paper. Here it is at it's most basic.

A copy of a photo, and some white fabric.

 Some PVA glue mixed with a minimum of water, and a plastic tray.

Cover the fabric in glue.

Lay the paper on top and also cover in glue.

Now there are a few points to remember. The ink will run (this is a print from an ink jet printer), but you can keep it to a minimum by not too much water in your glue and not over brushing. You will have a few wrinkles and a bit of blurring but I am happy with that.

A simple fast way to get an image onto a piece.

This is what I did with mine.

I put it onto some wadding, added a few strips, and then added stitch.

Now I have a great "random zig zag" stitch on my sewing machine that I like to edge things with sometimes. Like me, you probably end up with something like this when you zig zag an edge.

After trimming this is what I do.

I add a touch of paint (or sometimes glue or acrylic gel medium) all along the edge, to neaten everything up.

It works a treat!

If you want to learn more about the delights of fabric paper I can highly recommend this book.

Stitch Alchemy by Kelli Perkins is like a comic for grown ups, and I mean that in the best sense. It is so full of colour, it is a real feast for the eyes and packed with ideas for making and using fabric paper. I love browsing through my copy.