Creative Sewing!

I've done some creative sewing recently and it been a lot of fun. I wasn't sure how it would turn out and I'm not finished with it yet but I thought that maybe you'd all like to see it. I had a crew on board who asked me if I could get her going on something creative while we sailed. That night I thought about it and in the morning I suggested we try sew a Mola style clam. Hmmmm you might say. But recently we'd visited Atutaki in the Cook islands and been educated as to the rarity of these giant clams in the area because the people are eating them before they have time to reproduce. The story about them will be uploaded onto my Sailing blog soon, but in the meantime here are some photo's of the clams.

Clams being bred in captivity.

Clams at various stages of life.

They can grow even larger than this.

Close-up.

Close-up of the work

Sewing it.

The Mola look is there but instead of hiding the stitching I accentuated it. This has created some depth and it has started to look more three dimensional. As I said before, it isn't finished yet but I'm getting there. :-D

A creation from my creation

I wrote a blog about sea stars or starfish a while ago. Well I painted them and sold two to a lovely person in America. She made them into two great cushion covers for her son who is away from home at the moment. I also recently sold another one, so they are selling really well, and I'm a happy girl!

Here are some photo's for you all to see.

A Great Cushion.

Sweet huh!

The two together.

Aren't they great! I just love it when I get photo's of  the final result! Thanks Leslie :-D

Starfish! or Seastars!

I've been working hard lately. I received an email from someone in America asking if I was ever going to do a sea star to sell. I had been thinking about it, but had been putting it off as they are so very involved...well the ones I wanted to paint were anyway.
I'd been snorkeling in Honeymoon bay on an island just off Escondido on the Baja Peninsular of Mexico, and I saw these most amazing sea stars or starfish. They were incredible. One was full of spikes. Now, I don't ever touch anything underwater. Some corals burn and some fish are poisonous and even some shells that still have their occupants will be able to give you an extremely nasty sting...so I don't touch.

Crown-of-Thorns Starfish.

It was just as well because when we got back to the boat we looked up the spiky star fish and saw it was called a 'Crown-of-thorns' starfish. The book said that this starfish had spikes that are capable of inflicting severe wounds and poisoning....oooeeerrrr so glad I didn't try and touch it.

As we swam around we came across a large rock and on it were several gorgeous brightly coloured starfish. The book told us that these were the Common Knobbed Starfish...yes well I don't know how common they are supposed to be but I'd never seen anything like these before...and I've snorkeled in the Indian ocean, the Atlantic, all over the Caribbean, off Hawaii..so clearly I still have a few wonders to experience.:-D

Common Knobbed starfish

My Favourite one!

So Beautiful!

These are the starfish that I was considering.

I drew one out and designed the stencil, then I cut the stencil....yeah hours of cutting....then I started to paint....

The drawing...

The Stencil.

Slowly and carefully till these ones below seemed to almost appear out of the fabric. They needed considerably more hand finishing than any of my other quilt blocks that I have painted. And the photo's do little justice to the detail of the finished work.

The first.

Ahem..the second :-D

Do you like it?

THEN I decided to discard the stencil and paint from scratch. I now have produced a further two starfish that are completely hand painted and totally original. These are of the highest quality and will be placed on Etsy for $120. The vibrancy of the end product does show a little in the photographs, but once again can only truly be appreciated on close examination.

Free hand one off.

The Last one also free hand.

 There are so many extraordinarily beautiful living creatures that most people never ever see.

I was showing a young man some photo's I have of starfish and he saw some purple and pink ones that I'd photographed on Salt Spring Island, Canada, and he said when he saw them.."They're not real!" but after a careful look he realised that they were and was astounded....

Beautiful Purple Starfish at low tide..

There were loads of them :-D pink ones too.

 I'd appreciate some comments on the subject.... :-D
Thanks.

................The Homespun Loft: Something I Heard....

................The Homespun Loft: Something I Heard....: So, this is of concern to me...and maybe others of you selling online. I was listening to the radio in my car to a national station and the...

Click on this and have a read. she's a new member of our Quilts quilts quilts team...rather interesting...hmmmm 

Welcome to Curly's Quilts!

Another new Author. Curly's Quilts is a special shop. I sells carefully handmade small childrens' toys. perfectly safe for those kiddies that just LOVE to put EVERYTHING in their mouths. :-D

I absolutely adore her ''Crazy Art Quilt'' it's my favourite.....But then again she has this Black and White Quilt, {shown in her advert}, that has taken a piece of my heart..oh heck choices.....sigh....this quilter has untapped talent and I'll be looking forward to seeing what else she produces. :-D

Her shop's advertisement is as usual placed down on the left side of the page.
For those of you who decide that her toys are worth a buy are to be assured that you are getting more than your money's worth. It takes ages to put one of those things together and I think she should be charging a lot more for those toys...so maybe you should get one quick before she decides the same :-D

Well people, have a wonderful day, week, month oh to heck with it...LIFE! happy reading!

It's not too early for Christmas

Not only is Christmas a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it brings back so many fond memories of my childhood. I become a child again. Many years ago I sewed Christmas stockings for my husband and three children. Then a couple of years ago I designed a reversible stocking pattern. In this blog, I will guide you through the steps so you can create a masterpiece yourself.

1. Using cardstock or heavyweight paper (a paper bag works well), draw a stocking in the size and shape that suits you. Remember to allow approximately ½ inch for seam allowances and add to the top for the foldover portion. This will be your template.

2. Choose two coordinating fabrics. For EACH fabric, fold over so you have two layers. Place the template on top of one fabric and cut out (2 pieces). Place the template on top of the second fabric and cut out (2 pieces).

3. Cut 2 lengths of ribbon for the hangers. I used a narrow satin ribbon and cut each one 7 inches long.

4. Measure down 3 inches from the top and along the back side of stocking. Pin the ribbon to the right side of fabric with ribbon ends aligning with fabric edge. Pin one fabric right sides together and sew with a ¼ to ½ inch seam allowance. Do not sew along top edge. Repeat for other fabric.

5. Clip seam allowance around curves (inside and outside curves) being very careful not to cut through the seam. Press gently.

6. With 1 stocking turned inside out and the other right side out, place the right side out stocking inside the inside out stocking, matching top edges. Sew along top edge matching seams and leave an opening for turning right side out.

7. Pull each stocking through the opening so they are right side out. Tuck one stocking inside the other. Press top edge of stocking (just stitched) folding under the edges along the opening not yet sewn. Topstitch close to the top edge of stocking to complete. Fold over top edge to show coordinating fabric.
   

Now, the hard part is deciding which side of the stocking to display. Merry Christmas!

Lorri D.

Welcome to Quilted Pleasures!

Well, I have to tell you that we have a new author! YUP !!! She has a delightful shop on Etsy...as all my Authors do :-D

Quilted Pleasures has her advert down on the left side of this post, so if you want to see more of her work you should click on her shop name at the bottom of her advert :-D
This shop produces Quilts and hats...lovely warm cozy hats..I love them   and my favourite quilt is her autumn one..click here to see it :-D

I'm sure we'll be reading about things that drive the creative emotions soon :-D
Happy reading everyone.
Welcome to the family!