Latest Silk Works

 This is the bag that I made from a new fabric made from silk rods. During the latest workshop I lead at Silk-n-Threads we used both silk hankies and silk rods to make new fabric surfaces from  which we made purses, needlecases, hearts and backgrounds for embroideries and silk paintings.
http://silk-n-threads.blogspot.com/ is the link to the Silk-n-Threads blog where the pictures of the goodies made by members.

The bag has a silk dupion lining  and finished off with a machine wrapped cord and handle.

I will be leading a workshop at The Threshing Barn, Leek, later in the year. Details later.

latest pieces

Can never think of a catchy title for my posts but this one is just what it is my latest pieces!

Bought some Mistyfuse on line earlier this week after spotting it on lots of blogs and websites, mainly from the States. As soon as I received it I had to have a play. After experimenting with it on various fabrics I realised two main things. One it does give such a soft result to the finished piece, especially the softer fabrics such as silk, which I use alot of. Secondly it did not leave an opaque effect so ideal for trapping . The picture blow shows a quiltie (5x5inch) using threads from my bit bag.

Below is a closeup that shows how there is no obvious top surface covering the trapped threads as there would have been with bondaweb so I am definitely a convert when I want to utilise this technique. The off white top stitching was FME with cotton perle in the bottom spool.

Do still like Bondaweb where some firmness is needed though and this piece below utilised it perfectly. I made a sandwich from silk hankies which I had previously dyed. I like the ability to handle and control the colour placement instead of making silk paper. As embroideries do not need the stability that silk paper gives my technique is favourite in this case. I choose four thin sheets of silk hanklie and sandwich them with one piece of Bondaweb. Because they are so thin one piece is adequate. This is how fine they can be.The finished patterns achieved are I think better than silk paper. Using a rotary cutter I cut out a 4 inch square which I then FME and finished off with a red heart button. This will be in a black frame and is one of my collection I am preparing for the Christmas exhibition.

This closeup shows the Free machine embroidery detail.
This inchie also uses a silk sandwich which is cut into 9 one inch squares and then embroidered. I am completing a series of these inchie pictures for the exhibition.A closeup of two of the squares.