Pages from Sketchbook 26

 I worked on the backgrounds first by adding texture and painting over with watercolours. I came back to the pages after a few weeks and did a bit of doodling with pens and promarkers.

Knitted Poodle Bag

I made another bag as well as the one I showed you yesterday. The poodle is a knitted sample I did years ago, it was one of those things I was saving for a rainy day. Most of the samples ended up in blankets but I thought this dog would make a nice motif for a bag. The black background is some velvet which has been in my stash for years too, the lining was fabric from a garment I think, also from the stash.

Swatch Bag

I made a bag out of some of the fabric swatches from Spoonflower which I will use to carry my work and equipment in. As each swatch is 8" square it is quite a large bag which is good as I usually have loads to carry. I've used the swatches that had big patterns on them; I've altered most of them so they are a lot smaller now.

The sides of the bag fold in and have velcro attachments so the bag can expand when needed.

King Bear and TAST 1

Above - digital collage using images from the Graphics Fairy

Below - Take a Stitch Tuesday - the stitch is knotted feather stitch which I have worked on a collage of paper, some art work, some found papers. This is WIP, I will be adding more to it and it will be a page for my Green Book.

Last year I worked on a large project and posted some snippets of the work when I had used a TAST stitch. If you would like to see the finished work click here.

Pages from Sketchbook 26

I've textured all the pages first with newspaper/magazine transfer, then applied watercolour over. I used liner pen, brush pens and promarker pens for the drawings on top.

Mixed Media Houses

 Houses [pen liner and promarkers] on a textured page, painted with watercolours

More Fabric Swatches

Above is the Spoonflower 8" fabric swatch, the design was created for the art deco dress competition.

And the repeat pattern

another swatch

This fabric is similar to the green one I posted the other day, inspired by the tiles at the Alhambra Palace.

 And as it would look like as a repeat pattern.

This one is based on games, it is one I did a few years ago and I won a commendation from the Bradford Textile Society for it. I have it in other colours too. The pattern will be smaller than seen on the swatch, I forgot to alter the DPI, Spoonflower uses 150 and I was using 300 and I've altered since this came.

And as a repeat

The photo is not so good on the swatch below - the pattern was created with hand made stamps, the paint kind and hand made stamps, the postage kind.

And as a repeat

The Elephant swatch - this was based on some embroidered pictures I had done

And the repeat

another swatch - I've altered the size of this one too, it is smaller now.

And the repeat

The swatch - this pattern was created for the Matisse/Nasher competition

And the repeat

another swatch

I was going to make this one smaller too, but I decided to leave it for now. It is better at this size for wallpaper, but if anyone does want it smaller let me know and I'll alter it.

Another swatch, this is another older one, also games related.

And I have altered the size of this one.

Another swatch - inspired by the sea

And the repeat pattern

I have shown some of the patterns before, but not the swatches, I've included them to compare colours to the original design.

The link to my Spoonflower shop is on the right.

Winter Wonderland

I met up with my arty friends today and we decided to go for a walk in the winter wonderland. They say we are in for the big melt soon, so we thought while it was looking so pretty we would go out.

I took these photos with my mobile phone, but I'm quite impressed; the mobile is just a cheap one so I was expecting them to be as good as this.

Tortoise Embroidery

Take a stitch Tuesday has started again which got me thinking ...I never did show the finished embroidery I was working on last year. There were a number of TAST 2012 stitches used in the piece, which I posted about as I did them. I started the piece as a painting on fabric, then did a lot of freehand machine embroidery mainly on the grass but also on the tortoise and flowers. The picture directly below was taken after I had first started on the hand embroidery.

The entire tortoise shell is covered with beads, sewn on.

I also added beads and sequins to some of the flowers.

Click on the images to enlarge.

I didn't show it before Christmas as it was a gift for my daughter.