Embellishing fun!

My lovely friend lent me her embellishing machine for a few days - what a lot of fun you can have with that! The piece above started as a section of a felted jumper onto which I fused wool, felt pieces and braids. The design just kind of grew organically and then I machine stitched on top for some more texture and sewed beads on to finish it off. I have to find a use for it now!

This piece is felt, wool, and wool fibres fused on by the machine onto scrim which is very fine and loosely woven. When the piece is turned over and you run the embellisher on the back some of the fibres show through to give more texture.

After I had embellished the whole piece, I cut it into sections, then repostioned them and, using the embellisher, worked over the joins so them met together again. This gave the piece added texture and interest. It seems the only limit is your imagination!

Venice colours

Take a look at this gorgeous wool I bought in the lovely Loop shop in Islington, London! (http://www.loop.gb.com/) It's so amazing I shall have to have it sitting out in my workroom for a while until I decide how to use it. We had a great day out on Saturday - first finding the Loop shop and a great little antiques/junk market - then seeing an exhibition in the Tate Modern. It was so spring-like we sat outside several times for coffee etc. It struck me afterwards that the wool at the bottom of the picture is Venice colours - below are a couple of pictures of the book I made after visiting Venice last year. Those colours have obviously got into my system!

Blue and yellow

I love this time of year when everything is waking up in the garden and the light is getting brighter. There seem to be colour themes in the garden through the year and in Spring it is blue and yellow. These tiny daffodils and pulmonaria are so delicate and the colours are so pretty together.

These great big daffodils in my kitchen look great in the sunshine and against the blue tiles, mirroring the colours outside.

And even my knitting seems to be following the same colour theme - blue wool and yellow needles!