Grow Your Blog Party 2015

Hello to everyone who visits us because of the wonderful Grow Your Blog Party organised by Vicki of Two Bags Full; thanks to her for the hard work. We are two friends, Maria, living in Dorset and Gilli, from Somerset - both counties in South West England.  We both have a passion for textiles and everything around them.

This is still a very young blog and Maria and I set it up last year but have only just got back to it recently.  Maria is still new to 'blogging' but is getting to grips with it pretty quickly (I'm not surprised - she had a good tutor!)

We are both members of various groups and have been friends for about five years I guess, but really, really good friends for about three to four years; who knows, time just flies!

We meet whenever we can, outside of planned gatherings at the Embroiderers' Guild and West Country Embroiderers, to have P L A Y days.

We have a Facebook Group, which we have called Revise, Refresh, Review and we use it to take another look at various techniques in our vast collection of textile/embroidery/painting/printing/dyeing books. It's good to have a 'second' or maybe 'third' look at various techniques and to try them out again.  An excellent way of stopping yourself from getting stale in your approach to embroidery. There are various plans for this year, but nothing finalised yet except for two holidays booked at Kingcombe, Dorset, using the embellishing machine with Sandra Coleridge - Fantasy Follies and machine embroidery with Alison Holt, Rivers and Waterfalls at Barnstaple, Devon!

We would love to get some followers, so far we have none - we are interesting really you know. Let's hope we make some new friends.

 Next stage of Needle Case

 Stitching is done and the edges are done and the twisted glitter cords have been added now. I have redone the edging today as I was not happy with the look !
Happy with it now.

This shows the inside finished with a pocket with a KAM Snap

fitted ( new toy from my daughter, used for the first time brilliant gadet, thanks Kayella) to hold my embroidery scissors to which I added a sweet pair of PINK handled nice sharp scissors and a little pair on the out side of the pocket to reminded me what the pocket it for and not stuff it full of other bits !

Pages 8 of these for all my needles, gosh I am going to be so organized and on the right are 4 small pockets for my bits and bobs will also take packets of needles as well, can you see the needle stitched above the pockets?

well I have really enjoyed making this and designing as I go along is such fun.

New Year New Start

Its time to start again for the New Year.

I needed to create something !

This is the start of a piece of work inspired by my friend Angie Hughes who is just amazing. As my needle case is slowly falling apart and no where near big enough, it is my plan to create a holder for them plus extra space to tuck all my other bits and bobs that end up inside my needle case, so I have started out with velvet fabric and bondaweb and my collection of foils and sweetie wrappers! and had fun.

Today I shall be starting the machine embroidery which is the exciting part.

Watch this space for progress.

  Maria

Begin Again!

Maria and I are ready to begin our fun days stitching together again. We had to call a halt for the second part of last year due to the fact that I nursed my husband, unsuccessfully, through cancer. Sadly he passed away in October; it was a short and spirited fight but the disease was too strong for him to win.

We have many plans for this year, so watch this space, and are also looking forward to workshop holidays together.

I have posted photographs of our previous projects which are still to be finished, based on mixed media ideas by Beryl Taylor.

MARIA'S PIECE

GILLI'S WORK

This work is fabric based and has tissue and torn paper additions covered with pva. We have added printed cottons and a variety of items such as dried leaves, torn pages from old books, cotton and sheers stencilled with moulding paste and painted pelmet vilene. There has been some machine embroidery added but still have a way to go.