Embellisher Experiment #6, Felted Landscape

I wanted to see what it would be like to create a miniature landscape using the Embellisher. My plan was to use it as the center patch of a crazy quilt block, in place of the photo-transferred images that are often featured there.
Carolyn Cibik, of Evening Star Designs, calls those central patches "silkies". I used one of the block designs from her CD for my project. (She has incredibly beautiful silkies for sale on her site...but I didn't use one of those this time around.)

This CD would be absolutely fantastic for beginning crazy quilters. Her block designs are interesting and her instructions make sewing them easy. You can order it here.

First I marked out the shape of the central patch from Carolyn's block design...

I've used a heavy cotton duck for my foundation this time. It worked great.
I fused some sky to the foundation fabric, and then started building my landscape with the embellisher.

Doesn't this look like fun?

Here it is pieced into Carolyn's block, but something was missing...

Mt. Hood, of course! How could I have forgotten that?
Then I began just covering the whole block with embroidery. The suggestion is of looking through a window at the mountain, but I wanted to get some foresty-type growth in there, too.

These little leaves were cut out of some vintage velvet ribbon, then fly-stitched into place with some cotton perle from Weeks Dye Works.

Here is the finished block. The blue flowers are my ode to the rare Himalayan poppies that I can imagine growing on the slopes of Mt. Hood. You can see I have touched up the mountain and also added a bit more blue to the sky with soft pastel pencil, in order to provide more contrast.
This 8" block is part of my attempt to figure out how to integrate my little landscapes with crazy quilting....

I am awaiting some silk and merino fibers to arrive in the mail for my next Embellisher experiment, but in the meantime the Take It Further challenge for March beckons....again like last month, the color palette doesn't thrill me although it would be good to work with something like that, that one is not naturally drawn to (and I could use another of Carolyn's block designs), but the concept, "pay attention to the tiny details" is wonderful. Not sure which way I will jump....

Garden Labor!

60 degree days and sunshine!!!!
I've been edging and enlarging the beds in my perennial garden. It feels so good to be out there digging in the dirt.

Defining the new borders of the beds was really the easy part. Now I have to go back and break up all that sod and work in some manure, too.
This view is looking towards the southeast.

And this is looking northwest.

And here is the composted manure pile, brought by our neighbor. This is to be worked into my expanded beds, once they have all been forked up.
I feel like the girl in "Rumplestiltskin" who must spin the whole room of straw into gold...except the whole manure pile must be spun into flowers....

But on days like this, it is all good!

I am almost finished with Embellisher Experiment #6. I'll post that tomorrow....I think my back is going to need a break anyway....!

Embellisher Experiment #5, Denim Shirt, Finished

This really didn't take that long, but what an easy way to dress up a denim shirt. To Marg in Calgary who commented....that Stampede sounds fun and it would be a great place to wear this! I had my cousin's cattle ranch in Wagon Mound, NM in mind, too....

The Battenburg lace has so much going on that I just embroidered simple blue backstitching along the tape, to secure it on and soften it up a little more. A little row of picot-edged lace with some pearly-beads down the front, a few loops in the eyelets there...those were the only elements I added.

So here is the back....

And here is the front. It will look just fine over a new white Tshirt...!

Embellisher Experiment #5, Denim Shirt

Wearable art is not my thing, and everyone who knows me knows that my idea of high fashion is a brand new white t-shirt from Lands End. Or green.
But who amongst us of a certain age didn't begin her embroidery career decorating denim shirts, or skirts? To me there is no more compelling "blank page", as far as clothing goes, than a denim Western shirt in a nice, washed blue.
I just happened to have one in my closet, so started thinking about how I could put my Embellisher to work on it. This is what I have so far.....

I couldn't just felt the Battenburg lace onto the denim. I needed to use a little "glue", in the form of wool roving. So I laid little wisps of it over the lace and felted away. This worked surprisingly well.

Next came the "appliqued" cotton print. This is some of the last of the indigo print from South Africa that I have been hoarding for about ten years.


Here you can see the roving being felted along the edge of the cotton.

The front so far.....

...and the back.
The roving gives a wispy look but I don't think that matters...it softens the lace.
This will be a nice background for some handwork, which will also help secure these felted elements more permanently. I have a long trip to and from having dinner with my father-in-law, sis-in-law, and niece this evening, so I hope to get some done then.

I might even wear this one day....

Embellisher Experiment #4, Finished

My sister, when asked for her preference, said she wanted a nice neat binding on this piece. Cleaning up the edges sure turned this experiment into a "quilt".
This squaring things up changed the whole idiom to me, the compositional issues, everything. Plus, it has been awhile since I sewed on a little binding!

I added some stitching around the central elements to define them a little better...also filled in my "lace" with some more ribbonwork, too.

Here is is finished. It measures 15" X 15".
If I were to do this again, I would try to integrate the central square with it's frame better. To me the one just sits atop the other, and the techniques used on each--machine applique and felting--seem separate too. Or maybe the proportion of the center to the frame isn't quite right. I hope Mary will like it anyway....as for me, I definitely see this as a rough go at the concept, one that could be improved.
And I have to say, I liked the ragged edges better....

Embellisher Experiment #4: Felted "Piecing"

You all are so nice to leave those comments...I appreciate each and every one...and thank you!

I seem to be on a kind of manic roll here...I must have been building up to break out in some new directions because I can't stop working in this (nice clean) sewing room.

Today's experiment actually started yesterday morning. My sister had requested a piece similar to Experiment #3, so I thought I would try a variation: this time I would create a "base fabric" of collaged, felted silk, and then play off that with some flowers and vintage blocks.

What I didn't realize was the power of habit...put a pile of fabrics and a machine in front of me, and I will start crazy piecing. And that is essentially what happened here, only instead of sewing my patches in the usual way, I felted them on one by one. This created the frame for my mandala-esque collage.

This time I used a vintage hankie as well as one of my own printed flower mandalas along with the cut out flowers from commercial fabrics. Then I added the Grandma's Flower Garden blocks. All of these elements were machine appliqued on.

Bringing me to this point...here I have pinned some rickrack along the edge of the hankie.

I didn't have the lace I wanted to give me a white scalloped edge against the rickrack, so I decided to mimic it with silk ribbon detached chain stitch. I will add to this later.

I didn't want to machine quilt over my felted silk...but it isn't exactly stable and could eventually pull off...plus I thought it would be fun to at least allude to crazy quilting by emphasizing the edges of the patches with hand-stitching.
I just used herringbone throughout the piece for two reasons: one was I wanted a kind of consistent, overall look to keep the frame in the background; the other reason was that if I used only herringbone, I could work fast, not having to make any stitch decisions. Speed CQing!!
Allowing the edges of the patches to stay ragged was really different for me. It almost felt like I was working with torn paper instead of fabric. Weird, but fun.

Which brings me to this stopping point (It is a nice day and I just have to get outside.)
I'm not sure what will happen next...!!!