A red-riding hood box case for a Galaxy Ace

A month or so ago I accidently destroyed my mobile phone. This was my old, reliable, Nokia that cost £7 and could do nothing fancier than send text messages and make calls. Oh, it also had a torch. On the night of Diwali I left it next to a bottle of water. The condensation from this bottle then formed a pool around my poor phone. It's battery was completely destroyed. 

Old phone and new phone

So I was forced to buy a new one. I had been sneaking covetous looks at my boyfriend's smart phone so bought one similar, but an older model (I don't need to go overboard with the fanciness). As I had a new phone I needed a new case (old phone didn't even have a case so unconcerned for it's well-being I was).

I pulled out the pelmet vilene, bondaweb, fabric scraps and embroidery thread and started to make a case.

Measuring

Checking for size

Pieces waiting for assembly

Ta da!

It is ever-so-slightly too big. Blast! And I did so much measuring. I think the problem was that I gave a seam allowance which I didn't need because I sewed the pieces up using blanket stitch. It is fine for it's purpose though.

A souvenir of Bangalore

I've been working fairly slowly the last few weeks on a new project. I want to make souvenir postcards of places I travel to so as I'm currently living in Bangalore I started there.

I used different materials and techniques to make it. The background is painted with fabric water colour dye and finished with pastels. The main body of the rickshaw is appliquéd onto the background. I stuck it down with bondaweb and stitched it down. The details are added in running stitch with embroidery thread. 

The front and back have pelmet vilene in-between them to make the whole postcard stiff.

I embroidered the back to make it more postcard-like.

The great big stitched postcard swap

I joined the do what you love great big stitched postcard swap. The theme was 'Discover'. Above is the postcard I sent my swap partner in the U.S.A. You can't see it too well in this photo but I stitched around the M25 circular and sewed on beads for each place name within London. I made the map in a similar way to my mixed media book cover. But with more pastels.

This is what she sent me:

Very cute and lots of fun.

Embroidering the hot-house

The Hothouse at Kew Gardens

A few weeks (months?) ago I went on a school trip to Kew Gardens. As well as ushering year 8s around the gardens I also took some photos. I was particularly inspired by the outside of the hothouse where the plants were pressing to the glass. I really liked this effect and decided to christen my new sewing machine by making an embroidery based on it.

I dug through my piles of fabric scraps for green fabric. Turns out I don't have much green fabric. I assembled six pieces of greenish fabric (including one scrap of green chiffon scarf).

The third picture is me free-machining trailing leaves. Woo-yes! This was my first time. During the process I wore sunglasses as shields for my eyes because I was afraid of the needle snapping off and embedding itself in my eye. Actually I ended up taking them off because it was evening, dark and frankly the glasses were making it difficult to see.

And then I broke the needle.

But it stuck in the fabric and not my eye! Huzah!

For some reason the free-machining Gods then decided to revoke my free-machining prowess. So I had to do my bigger leaves with the foot on. The bigger leaves I then cut through to reveal the fabric underneath.

I also sewed on felt leaves and machine embroidered leaves onto the fabric. Then I covered the whole thing in some plastic table-cloth I bought at a local shop and sewed it down.

This is when I broke the second needle.

I wanted to give the whole thing the impression of being through glass.


This is the final result:

Some close-ups:

It's eeeeever so slightly wonky. Oops. It feels nice and weighty though.

xxx

A mixed media book cover

Opium Dreams

This was so much fun to make! It involved glue, paint and acrylic wax. Three of my favourite messy components. It was fairly messy. Luckily I for once remembered to put down newspaper before beginning - hello flat deposit, I will see you again.

This technique was recommended to me by my mother based on the work of the fabulous Beryl Taylor. Beryl Taylor is a mixed media artist. This means she uses a variety of materials to create her work, including fabric, paints, dyes, glue, paper, etc.. The list goes on and on.

Her work is so beautiful:

Wings, Beryl Taylor

Go to her website and have a good nose at her work. It is inspiring. She also runs classes which I'm sure must be great fun to attend.

Anyway, back to my modest book cover...

I made it by getting a piece of calico, coating it in a mixture of PVA glue and water then sticking down pieces of paper napkin (pick one with a pretty pattern).

Next I placed a sheet of tissue paper on top and paint-brushed PVA glue/water over the top to keep it in place.

Then I had to wait a long time for it to dry as it was quite sodden. Speed this step up by using a hair dryer to dry it.

Once it was dry I whipped out my water colour dyes (I used Koh I Noor Travel Sketch Set) and started painting on details.

Once I was satisfied, and the paint had dried, I painted over the whole thing with acrylic wax. This made the whole effect nice and glossy. Then I trimmed the whole thing to size and sewed it onto my nominated notebook.  

The yellow piece to the right above is one I experimented on at the same time but have yet to make into anything. The process was the same except that for this one I also stuck down scraps from wrapping paper, stamped it with my initial and sewed metallic thread lines onto it. The metallic thread didn't work so well as it kept snapping in the machine.