Old Books and Bad Cats

I am going great guns with the stuff for my embellisher DVD. I have also roped in a couple of my friends who have specialised knowledge of bits I am not good at! So we will get to visit them and they both have exciting studios. I am keeping their identity a secret for now so you can have a surprise.

Have also been buying materials - why do you never have the right stuff? Foolishly left my expensive silk chiffon on a tabletop and it got Smudged - interesting design but not what I had in mind.

Washed it and silk dyed some for sampling and now it is sitting in soggy lumps due to the weather. We haven't had rain (or sun) for ages so dyeing this must be the equivalent of a rain dance.

I am determined to make a jacket out of this yardage of excitement, so I had to look back at one of my old books for a pattern. This one was the first book I had anything to do with. It was a collection of projects by people like Ruth Issett, Sian Martin, Sarah Burgess and several other eminents and was edited by Val CH. This was the cover of the American version: the UK title was Starting to Stitch Creatively, which we all hated.

I made some little flat pots with hand stitching and machine auto patterns - see below. It was fun working with all those great people. I much prefer the American cover and title.

The reason I needed to refer to it was the fact that Ruth had made a jacket with Markal decoration, taping off areas as resists and brushing Markal (Shiva) oilbars onto the fabric with a toothbrush.

I loved this jacket so much that I bought it from Ruth. I still wear it sometimes and it always gets comments. She gave a scaleable pattern which I might try, although I think my fabric is too floaty.

This is nearly the end of the stitchy part of the embellisher movie and I am about to move onto the mixed media ideas. It is so good to be working properly on big pieces. Loving it.

Don't you love this elephant below. My friend Maureen Beale made it and I kept forgetting to take a photo for you. I think this wonderfully channels the current vogue for stuffed heads on plaques (have you seen the sequined zebra that keeps appearing in the Sunday supplements?).

Off now to see if the rain has stopped enough to hang out my sample pieces. Otherwise it's going to be the workroom floor and the hairdryer - too impatient to wait. I am having a give-away soon, so keep checking the blog.