Every Inchie Monday - Gull and Jellfish

Well what a time we have had - I am afraid last week was spent travelling to a big funeral in Eastbourne, staying the night and then coming back and then off to Hove a few days later with so many things to do in between times I never got a chance to visit or post my blog.  So I missed last week's challenge which was Gull (which I will post beneath this weeks).  The challenge for this Monday was Jellyfish.  I racked my brains on how I was going to portray something see through in embroidery and whilst visiting my sister-in-law in Littlehampton last week she suggested a bubble from bubble wrap and so that is what I went with.  I embroidered the little round flower bit inside (which I don't think you can make out now!) and then did loads of tentacles sewing a bubble over the top of the head - it looks to me more like an octopus in shape and I realise that's because I didn't get it flat at the bottom - I tried to use a bigger bubble but it was too big - anyway I'd gone so far down the line this will have to be it!!

For Gull I had wanted to do Jonathan Livingstone Seagull because I just loved that book,  but the image was too big to put on an inch as it was one with wings spread.  So I managed to do a standing gull on a rock trying to get the flow of the feathers with the lines of stitching.

 I was sad to miss posting it as I couldn't do it via my phone - I usually do it on the main computer but I really don't know how to upload to my blog from the phone - One day I will learn!! 
I did make time on Sunday to make 2 cards, one for my daughter's Wedding Anniversary, I fancied doing a sewn one, and one for a very good friend who has a chicken farm! I thought you might like to see my efforts!

Anyway hope you are all having lovely holidays or at least relaxing.  Thank you so much for visiting and any comments you leave and make sure you visit the other inchie makers wonderful creations by clicking here.

Every Inchie Monday - Frog

So this Monday's challenge word at EIM is Frog.  I could have gone with the old common frog which we have loads of in our garden.  In fact every year around the 6th Feb (almost to the date give or take 2 -3 days) I can hear them all "singing" as they congregate in our pond to mate and they are there for a week and then disappear to wherever they came from!  However I am rather fascinated with the blue poisonous dart frog or it's native name, Okopipi - (isn't that a fabulous word?). It is found in the forests of northern Brazil and it is the poisonous skin toxins that were used on the darts of natives for hunting.  The bright blue warns predators of its poisonous nature which causes paralysis or death.  The black spots are different on each frog making each unique and identifiable.  I'm afraid my frog is not quite azure blue (I didn't have the right colour thread!) and the black spots were difficult to define in thread - French knots were too bold and anything smaller too little!!  So I have large and small black dots but then my frog is unique!!

You may have noticed it's Tuesday not Monday!!!  So the reason I am posting this late is that it was my daughter's birthday yesterday and so her birthday card and cake took precedence!!  I was rather chuffed with both so I just had to show you:

Her cake is a favourite - Chocolate Peach Gateaux except I didn't have time to make it as the gateau so I cheated and made it as a roulade - that way it was just one rather large thin cake with the filling and rolled up with the second filling on top.  This is what it should have looked like:

But I have to say it was delicious and just the same taste as the main cake it just took me half the time to make!!!

So on to the last reason why I was late - I wanted to make an engagement card for her and since their favourite colours are purple and orange I decided to do a series of 9 inchies in those colours and put them on a card.  I toyed with the idea of actually making them into a mini quilt with little dangly bits of wool and beads but time was not on my side so I opted to put them on a card and then later I can always do the mini hanging.  However I really enjoyed myself - I have no idea how other people do this but I used a sheet of fabric colour catcher paper, painted it with brushos. 

Then I laid a sheet of bondaweb over it, overlaid that with thread, material and lace, then another piece of bondaweb and laid a piece of organza on top - then over freezer paper ironed the sandwich together.  This is what I got:

 And after cutting the inch pieces I decorated them with threads and embellishments, here are some finished - I still had three to go.

And now here is the finished card - again photography cannot capture the richness of colour and texture but this is the best I can do:

So it's been quite a creative weekend and after all the gardening and clearing out I think I deserved a play!!  Have got lots of travelling to do again this week and next week so just as well I've got all that out of the way!  Hope your days are bright and fulfilling and thanks for dropping by and any comments you leave, I always enjoy reading them.  Until next time and don't forget to click the link and view the other inchie makers creative work.

EIM - Aligator

Well it's Monday again and I hope every one is happy!?  I took a respite from the house at the weekend and have had a lovely lazy relaxing weekend but I wasn't able to finish my alligator until this morning as the light wasn't right and I just couldn't' see properly - however I don't think it would have made any difference!!  I still struggled with it this morning!  I drew the image onto a piece of my waxing material and then coloured it with promarkers and then began to sew - I had intended to cover the promarker colouring with matching thread but somehow it didn't look right - having sewn all the dark areas and little pointy bumps, when I filled in between with lighter thread it looked awful so I unpicked it (probably should have put more promarker colour onto it as it does tend to fade) - then I tried doing the foliage and even that didn't look right and in an attempt to make the muddy water look like water I used my coloured kreiner thread but the red seems to be more predominant than the blue and yellow but I still think the silver would have been too bright!  Somehow the eyes and nose needed more definition so I added black but when I tried putting more on it ruined it so I ended up doing more unpicking so I have decided to leave it as is - enough is enough - I even noticed a bit of green missing by his nose but I need to got to the attic to find the promarker I used so I'm being lazy and haven't bothered so sorry!!  Anyway here he is although I must say he looks lighter in the photograph than in reality!:

So onwards and upwards with the day, still got things to clear and get rid of so had better get on with it, the day is sunny too so gardening might be on the agenda this afternoon - happy days and thanks for visiting.  Please visit other inchie makers by clicking the link here and thanks so much for any comments you leave.

Every Inchie Monday - Rhino

I am so pleased I am able to blog on time again!!!  Plus I have finished my other projects I mentioned last week and since I am so chuffed with the outcome I thought I'd share it!  My old wicker bedside table which was white and looking very poorly is now transformed using chalk paint in Aubusson Blue which is a teal blue colour and re vamps the whole thing:

Before

 After

And I said I was going to do the Ottoman to match and can't believe I did it!!  And I managed to make the material fit by sewing on a bit at each end to fold over! So here is the Ottoman:

 

Before

 And After

I still need to buy a piece of trim in matching colour to cover the tacks but all in good time!  On to our challenge this week at EIM which is Rhino. I hadn't realised there were so many - I had rather fancied doing the rhino with the plates but discovered that's the Asian or Sumatran Rhino and it has much smaller horns and I rather fancied doing the two big horned variety which turns out to be the classic white rhino which is the biggest.  Did you know the word rhinoceros comes from the Greek rhinokeros meaning nose horned, from rhinos meaning nose and keratos meaning horn! Anyway the poor things are being hunted for their horns for Asian medicine and are all in danger some more so than others.  Such a wonderful dinosaurus looking animal, quite weird in proportion hence only getting the head and foreleg in!  When I first look at trying to put these animals onto an inch in embroidery, my head rebels and thinks I can't do it, but I am getting used to the challenges now and am actually enjoying coming up with something acceptable!!  So here is my white rhino grazing - I meant to do some grass tufts in green embroidery thread but realised I forgot and I've already photographed it etc so it will have to be missed!

So thank you so much for dropping by and I love your comments it is always great reading them and visiting all the other inchie makers works so please click on the EIM link to view them.  Have a great week, and enjoy the summer if you can - it's tipping down here and I was just going to hang out the washing!!!

Every Inchie Monday - Camel

Do you ever have days when you feel bolshie and you don't know what to do, have loads to do and don't want to do any of it???  Well if you don't then lucky you - but I do and did ... yesterday! The house is still a mess with stuff from the moving of bedrooms around and I spent most of the day rounding up bits and bobs and packing them - but none of them were mine!!  I do have one nice room though now and painted an old (and I mean old I had it when I was 8!) wicker bedside cabinet that had been painted white once and was looking a shade more old than it needed to!!  So I bought some dark blue/green chalk paint and painted it and I must say it looks rejuvenated! So am going to do the little wicker ottoman that matches it and recover it some time this week.  I did the bedside unit on Saturday and was feeling pretty good and got my inchie prepared but was too tired to do it Saturday night!  So back to Sunday, having wandered through the house looking at the mess in despair and putting the odd bit away I found an old silk painting kit which had lost two of the paints and should be thrown away but having never done silk painting I ended up trying it out.  So I sat for an hour playing with three colours - made a right old mess of it but thoroughly enjoyed myself doing it and promptly put it in the bin when I'd finished feeling guilty about time wasted!!  So non productive again except for the throwing away which is what I need to do more of!  So finally I gave up did some tea and sat down and then remembered I hadn't finished my camel and I am determined to try and keep to Monday for blogging!  So, having put my special magnifying light away - I couldn't be bothered to get it out so with my dwindling eyesight and best pair of specs I embroidered my camel inchie and to be honest - I couldn't have cared less!  It's the first one I haven't worried over what the outcome will be.. and what will be will be - I try to give myself a challenge every time I do these little bits of art but you do really need to be in a creative and relaxed mood and I guess I just wasn't yesterday.  I am hoping this week will be more positive ... so here is camel - not my best his legs look like the feet were cut off or sunk in the sand!

Anyway hope you all have a wonderful week and thanks for calling by - love the comments you leave - some make me laugh out loud (Wendy!) and most make me smile so that is an up time of the day for me. To view other camel inchies please click here

Every Inchie Monday - Buffalo

And Good morning to everyone on this fine Monday!!  Yes can you believe it?  I have my inchie finished in time to post today!  Wonders will never cease  ... and ... I am nearly finished on next week's inchie too!!  Let's hope I have time to finish it by next Monday!  So this week's theme word for EIM is buffalo - but I didn't want to go the American buffalo route as that is really known as a bison, I wanted to do a cape buffalo with those lovely big curly horns!  I was trying to think of a way to 3D them and thought about pipe cleaners!  In fact this little inchie went really well for me, I didn't have any grey fabric so I coloured an odd bit I had left over with a number 4 warm grey promarker and hey presto!!  Shall use that idea again when I don't have the right colour!!!  So toyed with the idea of using beads for eyes but they didn't look right so opted for small bullion knots in black and did the nostrils similarly in grey, just a 5 twist did it!  So here is my Cape Buffalo:

The weather here is being very kind to us although we did watch Wimbledon with her beautiful blue skies and sun with our own skies very grey and oppressive!!  My husband gets so jealous when he sees other people having better weather than us - but that's nearly all the time!!!  However today is glorious - and he's in watching the cricket on the TV!!!  You can never win!!  I will be out after I've posted this to enjoy some gardening in the sun!!! Hope your days are as lovely as today - Ha Ha - I have just gone on to EIM to get the link and notice so far everyone has done the same as me!!!  Oh well - we can't always be different!!  Thanks for calling in and for any comments you leave - I really enjoy reading them, take care.

Every Inchie Monday - Fly plus Tiger, Lion and Hippo

Where do the days go to - it has been scorching hot and in between trying to get the garden done, driving to various places for Barry to work - up to London and back, Guildford and back and Leeds and back and with trying to reorganise all the bedrooms for Rosie's fiancé - (yes she's got engaged hooray!) to move in with us there has been little time to sit and sew and when there has it has been too hot to even venture into the attic in order to view my materials for selection!  At night when it's cooler the lighting is so bad I cannot distinguish the colours so I give up and the attic retains the heat so it's still hot up there!  Rather annoying really - too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer - otherwise it's a delightful space!  Anyway the fiancé is now ensconced with Rosie a very happy girl at last - the landing is still full of boxes and rubbish to be sorted and the spare rooms still need organising but I've taken a weekend off to sit and sew whilst my husband watches the cricket- I love sewing to the sound of cricket - I find it very relaxing and at last I have caught up.  It was too late to put my hippo on as I finished it Sunday so I will put it on with my fly and other catch ups today.  Firstly fly - I pondered this one as I hate the little devils and it's always those little tiny black ones that sometimes bite that annoy me and I feel they look just like this so here is my fly for this week.

 

I missed the last three weeks inchies - I think in my head what I wanted to do was going to take too long so I put it off but I really enjoyed doing tiger in the end and what really helped was my magnifying light that my dear husband bought me for my birthday.  I could actually see where to put the stitches and was very pleased with the outcome.  Here is Tiger:

Then the next inchie I missed was Lion - unfortunately this didn't come out as well as I would have liked - I think the felt I used for the face was a bit too light, it is beige but looks white in the photo, but I only had dark brown as an alternative!  Maybe I should have tried to colour it darker with inks or promarkers - I didn't think!!  So here is Lion:

And last week's was hippo which again I really enjoyed doing more than I thought especially when I did manage to get her mouth to open and give her teeth!!

Well thanks for dropping by, nice to be back and sorry I didn't even have time to go on your blogs to leave comments but I will try and rectify that this week.  I love being part of Every Inchie Monday and I was sad to not be involved over the last three weeks so will try and rectify that also.  Have a lovely week and thanks for any comments you leave.