This is the blog post that I have been trying to write for the last two weeks and now I feel that I am finally ready. You may remember that I said that I was building my own website so that I could sell my hand dyed fabric and threads. That website is now fully up and running and I have even sold several items. I do want to try to keep everything together in one place however, and I would be so pleased if you decided that you wanted to stay with me and would be prepared to go to the other site (Maggi Birchenough Hand Dyed Fabric and Threads) and subscribe to my blog. This is not a ploy to try to persuade you to buy anything, (although of course it would be nice if you wanted to!) but simply because I enjoy the company of all my followers and don’t want to lose a single one of you. To make sure that you recognise where you will be arriving, this is what it looks like.
Now that the redirection has been done, what have I been up to lately? As you can imagine, a lot of time has been taken up with dyeing but I did get the chance to do some more monoprinting on fabric with the gelli plates. Most of these were done with bubble wrap and shredded paper.
I wanted to put some of them together in some way an realised that they would probably make a good cover for the thread booklet that I made, quite a long time ago now. so I cut some of the pieces into strips, wove them together and fused them to a piece of Evolon. I decided to use Evolon as the backing as that is what the booklet is made from. This was the final result and I am more than happy with it and can now start to use it. It will be very useful for keeping hand sewing projects together.
Thread booklet with cover closed.
Partially open
Fully open
The actual thread booklet itself when fully opened looks like this, in case you hadn’t seen it before.
Not much to show for a long time away but I am looking forward to getting on with some new projects now that the website is out of the way. I was, however, lucky enough to win a parcel of goodies from Maggie Grey after making a comment on her blog. There are some lovely rayon threads, silk, metal organza, a book, some heavy soluble film, copper shim and some fancy knitting yarn. I’m now trying to come up with some original ideas to use them in.
Those of you who have been following my C&G efforts may remember that the first assessment piece that I made was one that I knew I would never love. I am, however, delighted to say that it has been chosen to be included in the Pieced Patterns exhibition which will be touring with the ICHF shows starting at Exeter on September 27th. The dates are below if anyone is interested in going to any of the shows. I will be able to see it at Fashion Embroidery and Stitch in March next year. This is the actual quilt.
Spears in the Cabin
Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts, Westpoint Centre, Exeter: 27-30 September 2012
Creative Stitches, Glow Centre, Bluewater: 31 January-3 February 2013
Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts, EventCity, Manchester: 7-9 February 2013
Creative Stitches, SECC, Glasgow:7-10 March 2013
Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch, NEC, Birmingham, 21-24 March 2013
Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts, Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool: 25-27 April 2013
Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts, Brighton Centre, Brighton: 9-11 May 2013
That really is all for now. I feel the urge to get out and enjoy some more of the sunshine in the garden. I hope the weather is good where you are and I hope to see you soon here.
Maggi