fabric

Yesterday I met up with a friend, Ann, we went to Somerset House to see an exhibition called Wool House. 

This is a post about stuff I like and think worthy of a mention because of the design and value for money. In the Harlequin Centre Watford I found the shop Tiger, I have seen it aptly described as a cross between Mujie and Ikea. I bought the bicycle paper clips (£1) and four peg Babushkas (£1) amongst other things! It would be a good place to find appealing and reasonable priced stuff for children's parties.

I had an idea for a quilt,  after seeing and making a soft structured cup and saucer, I wanted to incorporate soft tea cups into the design to give it a 3D effect. I started by collecting together old tablecloths and napkins, these would inspire the design of the 'soft crockery'. I sketched out my design for the quilt, it would be formed of nine main table cloth squares. Eight of the squares designed with cups in and the final square would be a mug.

I have a soft spot for 'soft' sculptures, the kind made popular by the American artist Claes Oldenburg, it's the mixture of art, fabric and crafts I like. Claes Oldenburg's sculptures confuse our expectations of how ordinary objects should “behave.” Using ordinary, everyday items, he developed “soft” sculptures using pliable materials such as canvas and vinyl to create flaccid objects. I've included some photos of his work below, the light Switch, French Fries and Ketchup and Soft Toilet.

This idea is so easy, no sewing involved, just buy a roll of stockinette (it's mainly used for cleaning and polishing cars, Wilkinson sell it). Unroll a length about 60cm (24in) long and cut it. The stockinette is a tube, knitted in the round, just pull and stretch the 'loop' and that's it job done! If you don't like the unbleached colour you can dye it. I designed lampshades from stockinette for a book some years ago, I dyed it in lots of colours and it took dye really well. It's a nice scarf for spring/summer as it's made from cotton. 

Over the last couple of days I've been getting familiar with my new sewing machine, especially the embroidery stitches, a novelty to me!

I entered the Morsbags competition arranged by the Knitting and Stitching show organisers twistedthread . I was really pleased to hear, last week, I had won the humour category. I entered three designs but I'm not sure which one was the winner, my personal favourite is the one I made from selvedge strips sewn together. The theme of the competition was 'Sew Salvage and Save', I embroidered 'Sew Selvedge and Save!' see what I did there?

On Sunday 26 September, along with my friend Sue, I attended a one day Nuno felting workshop arranged by the IFA (International Feltmakers Association) Region 5 and run by Emma Jackson 

Last week I wanted to make some pom poms from fabric, in particular try out some purple organza I had. I have noticed fabric pom poms seem to be a popular decoration at weddings at the moment. I get a lot of hits, from search engines, looking for fabric pom poms. To start with I tore the organza into long strips (the width of the fabric) of about 1.5cm wide, tearing makes the fabric nice and 'hairy'.

This is how I made a passport cover following the basic removable book cover tutorial here. I chose small floral print fabrics instead of the normal plain red, white and blue for the Union Jack flag. I didn't neaten off the edges, of the applique, I wanted to leave them frayed to give a softer effect. To emphasise the frayed edges after I had sewn the shapes down, with a straight stitch, I washed the material.