The Panel

I have plenty to show at the moment. Some of it is a little half finished. All of it is badly photographed. Well it would be photographed at 7.30am on a cloudy UK day, with a camera phone.

I have started on my next finished item for college. The item is a panel - this can be a wall panel, a panel for a garment, book cover or a similar item. I have chosen to make a book cover for various reasons these can be divided into 2 groups: reasons not to put in my project book and virtuous reasons to put in my project book.

Good reasons.
- I caught the book bug at the Susie Jefferson workshop I did in January.
- I want to try out an altered board book, which I can incorporate into my design work
- I like food and want to have a stitch and cake crossover.
- I wanted somewhere to store some photos and recipes of my Grandmas, after creating the recipe cards for my sisters.

Norty reasons.
- A wall panel reminds me too much of a wall hanging, and I ain't going back into that territory for a while until my mental scars earned with the last one have faded.
- A panel as part of a garment would mean I would have to sew the garment as well, much as I love sewing clothes at the moment extra sewing on top of the embroidery is the last thing I need to be doing.
- shouldn't be too large in size and would be doable as my hand stitch finished item.

Lazy, moi? I like to think I am (or my mother always said I am) but I will probably end up doing more work than necessary. I need to start making design decisions based on keeping to my timetable. Scrub that - I need to make decisions. (and not procrastinate for England)

A Wet Weekend and plenty of Chocolate Cake

As our unusual cold and dry winter has changed to our more usual wet and drizzly winter, on the first day of spring (the loss of 1 hour as we move to BST is hitting me hard this year), I include this month's recipe. The wartime derives from the influence of rationing on the ingredients list - there is no egg in this recipe. I would have liked to have curled up on the sofa with a slice of this, a cup of tea and some stitching this weekend, but was too busy.

On Saturday I was in a college workshop making a start on our third and final experimental sampler. It is going well but is not finished yet, so will make an appearance when that has been completed, which will be soon as I have a lot of hand stitch to get done. I must admit I did have chocolate cake with the girls then but the recipe for that included plenty of eggs and erm, beetroot, it was published in the March edition of Delicious magazine. We popped into Winchester for a little bit of Mother's day shopping for Mark and thread shopping (yay!) for me. Of course I couldn't stop at just buying thread and bought a couple of books on techniques that have recently caught my interest. Chikan (or chikankari) and Ribbon embroidery.

One sofa I was lucky enough to curl up on was at my friends (that is one comfy sofa). I was a very happy Kitty as I had just eaten a delicious meal which I hadn't had to sweat over (G & Mr T did instead). Salmon wrapped in parma ham served with lentils and spinach. Finished with a chocolate and walnut fudge cake and my favourite bitter orange ice cream (the delicious Nigella Lawson one). I was truly spoilt as I drank champagne and the most delicious dessert sherry.

On Sunday we had to go out to Southampton to find some trousers for the other half and I wanted to track down some lighting components for something I am trying to finish as part of my form work. Then it was off to Winchester again to attend one of the nephew's christening. I was pleased to see that the outfit I stitched for his brother 5 years ago was still going stong if a little crushed!

I was glad when we got back home and I could grab back some of my lost sleep. When I got up I sat down to a delicious risotto that M had made from a butternut squash that he had found and roasted. Yum. Mental note to self, let him cook more.

Scaring off the black dog

Scaring off the black dog is this months Project Spectrum project. I made this little red pointy kitty. Apologies for the appalling photo, if the sun decides to make a reappearance, in this damp corner of the UK, I will endeavour to get a decent photo using a better camera than my phone.
The pattern was the free one at Wee Wonderfuls. It can't be seen but I have tied a little bell round her neck with the nice thick bit of organza ribbon. Red Kitty may have to have a little surgery because I did not stuff the front legs densely enough. 

Another way with layers

This time 6 layers of fabric on a background of calico. Parallel lines machine sewn and then slashed with between the lines. I have distressed the cut areas a little, but I think I need to lob it in the washing machine and then dryer to distress it some more.

Layering by machine

Similar to yesterdays layering but machine stitched and then "cut" away with my soldering iron. The layer of fabric scraps were all made of natural (i.e. non melting) fibres and the top layer was synthetic. I was also careful about my choice of machine embroidery thread (Anchor Alcazar metallic) so that it didn't melt easily with the heat of the soldering iron.

Layering by hand

Normal service should start to be resumed. I haven't been blogging of late. Last weekend I had a college study trip to the V&A up in London. I then needed to get my sister's birthday present sorted and didn't want to blog it until her borthday mid-week. The week actually started in a non-delightful fashion with a 2 day migraine. My sample work is progressing though and I have completed the above sample of layering. The process is:
- iron Bondaweb to a background of calico.
- layering scraps of fabric over the Bondaweb.
- iron to fix the fabric layer to the calico background.
- apply another layer of Bondaweb over the fabric layer.
- layer sheer fabric over and iron to fix.

I then hand stitched the motifs with an assortment of hand embroidery stitches and cut away at the design to reveal some of the fabric layers underneath. 

Birthday wishes

To my sister Helen. Hopefully she received the wool pashmina in the post today, a detail of which is included above.

I picked tha pashmina because Helen has beautiful colouring and looks lovely in blues and aquas. I derived the pink blossom pattern from the design work I did for my embroidered shoes from last Junes college exhibition.

Something red or pink

Just in case I don't have enough to do I have signed up for Project Spectrum. I now just need to decide what to do.... the options are:

1. Make a red pointy kitten from the pattern kindly provided at Wee Wonderfuls.
2. Make some red and pink felt beads, tassels and cords.
3. Make a red cancer club pouch (read "pouch for husbands cigarette making materials a.k.a Mark's BFS*") in the hope that the tobacco spread-a-thon can be contained some what.
4. Make something cute from one of my Kumiko Sudo books.

Decisions, decisions.....

* BFS is the three letter acronym for Bl**dy F(British slang for a ciggie, USA slang/insult for something else entirely) Stuff.

Panel for City and Guilds

Panel considerations
Design Work 1
Design Work 2
Design Work 3
Felt Samples
Ribbonwork sample
Evaluation

This is a place holder for all my entries referencing my panel for my Level 3 certificate City and Guilds qualification. Until Blogger provides (or doesn't) the ability to tag my entries this is the best way of grouping my entries.