Crafty As L

This week’s post is something I’ve wanted to attempt for over a year, since I went on my first free-motion embroidery course with Alison Holt.   I fancied trying to stitch a picture of my cat’s eye and the summer challenge from the Chairwoman of my textile group to make something using textiles featuring animals gave me the impetus to get going with it. After overthinking the project, trying to think of the problems I might encounter, I finally just got on with it and figured I’d address them as they arose.   To start, I traced the picture, added gutter to define the sections and then painted with silk paints.   As you can see, the eye was dismal so here was problem one to overcome.   I didn’t want to stitch the eyeball as I wanted it to have a smoother texture. I decided to cut out the eye and do it with some other media.   I snipped the fabric, folded it back to the inside and then stuck the fabric down onto a sheet of self-adhesive dissolvable stabiliser...

My friend and I were going to visit Dougie, one of the veterans from Project 71, and he kindly lets us stay in his static caravan, which is in a glorious position mere metres from the coast just outside Cardiff.   We like to make his something as a thank you and this time we decided to make a cushion.   Each of us would make a side, not disclosing what we’d made until it was finished. Dougie sometimes stays with us when he comes back for events so I decided my side would reflect what he gets at our house, namely cats and music.      He used to have cats and enjoys playing with ours and he also likes to listen to me playing the organ.   I bought the Four Cats Quilt Block pattern from Etsy but each of the finished blocks were too big so I had to redraw them to get the block to be 15” finished size.   I added the seam allowance and cut out each template. The first step was to make the intertwined tails by starting with the small squares. Next, t...

The Stampers Anonymous Snarky Halloween Cats is my most recent purchase.   Whilst I don’t send Halloween cards as such, I liked the other sentiments in the set so decided to purchase it anyway.   The thing I really like about these sets is that it’s easy to make quick cards with them as they don’t need much colouring. To make the backgrounds, I used Distress Stains in Mustard Seed, Lumberjack Plaid and Distress Spritz in Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade for two.   The other two were sprayed with Villainous Potion and Twisted Citron Distress Stains and Wilted Violet and Twisted Citron Spritz.   For the latter panels, I had to wait for the different colours to dry so the colours didn’t get too muddy. I wanted to use the witches’ hat on one of the panels so I wiped the ink off the sticking up ear before stamping. The hat then sat nicely on the cat’s head. To add a little colour, I used a white pastel pencil and coloured pencils.   To make the eyes ...