Deer oh Deer

Since before the end of term, I have been absolutely dying to have a go at making some interesting dolls. For some reason I got stuck on the idea of making a Deer, because even though cat dolls are always incredibly cute, they are very popular and I like to break the mold because I am arrogant.

I cut the fabric above out, and toyed with the idea of using fabric for the arms and legs, but decided that I would try a new wire technique (described below). I originally wanted to make a mother and daughter deer, but the mother took all evening so the daughter may have to wait!

I sewed each top to each bottom, then sewed them together. Obviously I made a complete cack of it and ended up sewing the right side to the wrong side on BOTH pieces, so each doll will have an inside out back end. I told myself it gave it an air of "rustic".

To make the arms, legs, and antlers, first I took a small piece of thick wire and bent it double. I then threaded brown embroidery floss through the hole and tied two knots securely to the wire. Then I wrapped the floss around and around, as tightly as possible, sometimes tying knots or threading it through the wires to further cement it.

I used a fair amount of floss, but I think it gave a really nice look. I knocked up a few bits of clothes and after attaching everything in place with yet more surreptitious use of embroidery floss, and she was done.

Posing with the daises.

I drew on her eyes but used a button for her nose. I think that sometimes a doll needs the eyes to be a bit more characterful than a simple button, but sometimes they suit it.

Without any clothes on; her undergarments.

I haven't given her a name yet, but she was very fun to make. Have a go at the wire technique because it is so simple yet gives really nice results; the limbs can move and be bent into positions! 

If you would like to purchase this doll or any of the art pieces on this site please email me at c.erinharris@gmail.com. I have no idea what I would charge for any of it and it's all badly made but hey, some people like that!

Small Bear - Simple Sewing!

Had a hankering to try something new the other day, so I decided to experiment with ways to make small toys. It keeps me off the street-corners.

I put TWO layers of fabric through my embroidery hoop, thinking that it would cut out all that fiddly turn-stitching later on. After cutting it out, I realized my mistake; I had no way of putting the stuffing in. So I attacked my poor little bear with a needle in the stomach.

Having artfully stuffed him with wadding, I stitched him back up with some bright yellow thread; bright yellow because I thought Hey, Might as well make it look like I meant to do this. I like to pretend he's had surgery or maybe it's a girl who has had a Cesarean section. It's all a bit gruesome for a two inch tall linen bear.

Small dog paw for scale (Molly the Model)

Made a very simple folded cotton dress; a square folded in two, cut into a T shape with a hole for the head before sewing up and turning right side out. The cotton I bought off amazon, it was dirt cheap and I knew it would be thinner than cheap gravy which is perfect for making small clothes (thin cotton, not thin gravy).

So all in all not a difficult bear to make, will certainly take less than an hour and could be made by children or in different designs/scales for effects. Have a go!

Heffle Quilt Festival

This weekend I drove mum over to Heathfield to visit the bi-annual Heffle Quilt show. It was so inspiring, and because everyone in the quilt community is like a giant family it's a bit like a renuion!

Mum and Sarah Brown outside the village hall.

The first quilt that really took my eye, a beautiful blue and white Orphan Block. "Orphan Block" means that someone has made a lot of different individual quilt block designs (sometimes out of the same fabric, sometimes out of scraps) and joins them all together at the end as an exhibition of their experiments. There are also a lot of quilt designs that mirror these folk quilts,

The next that I particularly enjoyed was this blue and cream one-patch and embroidery piece. Something about the simplicity of the one patch design meant you could appreciate the hand stitching on the birds much more!

Also I find it's a lovely way to show off a few beautiful fabrics in all their glory.

This quilt was the show stunner. About fifteen feet square, it was a real breathtaking piece with gorgeous colours and impeccable needlework.

I spoke to the artist and she said that the designer of the pattern had picked out the colours for her to use whilst visiting a warehouse in Australia, and she made up the applique flowers with her own scraps.

Another one patch, this time with large squares beautifully embroidered with hand stitched floral designs.

It's amazing what some people can do with a needle and thread!

One of my absolute favourite pieces in the whole show, this was quite a small (relatively) quilt that used intricate piecing of the green textured backgrounds overlaid with hand and machine embroidery
of a verdant scene. (Verdant scene...I've been watching Poirot again!)

This picture is sideways because I am an idiot. It was called "City Skyline" or "Cityscape" I think, and I loved loved LOVED the use of colours, so minimalist and a joy to look at.

The prints she used here were liberty for the greys and blues, and batiks for the pops of orange. Really does remind me of a skyscraper.

Love this gorgeous butterfly quilt, such bright colours and lovely applique work.

This quilt was actually designed by a member of Heffle (the pattern is for sale,... I'll try and find a link) so there were a few renditions of it at the fair. I found it really interesting how the same pattern, especially such a specific pattern, can lead to such strikingly different finished quilts!

This is a close up of the detail of my friend Annaleens quilt. I chose this as my favourite for many reasons; I love the whimsy and naivety of the design, and the colours she chose were just beautiful. Her hand stitching was really well done, and it really inspired me to go home and start on my own!!

Another Lynette Anderson quilt. She is one of my favourite designers, and very "vogue" right now in the world of quilting. Her patterns are simplistic but not simple; a beginner could start working on the individual blocks, but I think it takes foresight to plan the colour combinations and really pull of the intricacies of this beautiful piece.

Sue R. made the most stunning small Moroccan gold and blue wall hanger. The detail was just exquisite, and I could almost picture it hanging in the bed chamber of some marvellous sheik in a desert temple. (Detail)

Another Lynette Anderson design, this time paired with log cabins in soft greys and blues. Really nicely done!

This was a detail of some hand embroidery of a larger floral design. I loved the 3D aspects, the way it was so tactile.

A gorgeous detail on a pretty floral patterned embroidery piece.

One of the most visually striking pieces in the festival; this beautiful red, white and grey piece really stood out.

The amount of work that goes into making a quilt that can look, from afar, relatively simple. Just stunning!

This is the work for sale by Sue at Daisy Chain (www.daisychaindesigns.co.uk) who also sells fabric and buttons at shows like this across Kent.

Very whimsical :)

Sue herself in front of some gorgeous quilts (the patterns/kits for which she also stocks).

The lovely ladies at PuddleDucks, our local quilt store in Sevenoaks. Just looking at those rows of fabric makes you want to go and paw through them! Oh it's not right is it, it's not normal.

We had such an amazing time, everyone did so well on their quilt entries. I hope next time to have an entry myself, but it will take a miracle to get my work up to this standard!
Hope this was as inspiring for you as it was for me.

Sushi Cat - Simple Sewing!

A good friend of mine at University was showing me her new obsession "Sushi Cats" on a train journey last week. They are little (handmade?) cats shaped like blocks of rice, with colourful "fish" toppings made of cotton. So I gave it a go!

His name is EbiNeko ("Sushi Cat") and I can't wait to give him to my friend!

This is so simple, even a child could make one. Two pieces of felt for the body, with a rectangular outline sewn together, two pieces of white felt for the head, sewn in a square with two triangles, and two small circles of a piece of colourful fabric sewn together. So simple!

Look at real sushi for inspiration!

Bootfair Finds - Alice in Wonderland

If you're like me, you get a childish glee out of bootfairs and charity shops. The trick, I find, is to see the possibilities in the objects there; as they are, they might be useless, or grubby or ugly, but what would they look like if you added a little paint? Some fabric? Took that painting out and created a collage?

With that in mind, I took out a selection of old glass bottles I had bought (for £3 the set) and looked at them, waiting for inspiration to strike. I especially liked the flatter, clear rectangle bottle; I could almost picture someone trapped inside. Following this whim, I traced around the bottle and sketched a little figure reaching as if trying to escape.

The figure quickly became Alice in Wonderland, because that would explain why she was so small (if she had drank the shrinking potion) and also because it is an easily recognizable character with a striking design.

Once I'd drawn her, coloured her in, and outlined her in black pen, I cut her out (carefully). I left a little rectangle below her feet; when bent at a 90 degree angle, for those of you who played with paper dolls will recognise, is a stand.

Because she was made of paper, it was easy enough to roll her slightly to fit her through the neck of the bottle. I had to finagle around a little bit with a chopstick because she was facing the wrong way, but I was really pleased with how the size turned out.

This label was a piece of card I cut out into a pentagon and wrote "Drink Me" on, like the potion in the story. If you are looking for interesting fonts to copy, go to www.dafont.com and explore their selection for inspiration.

So go ahead, see what fun finds you can dig up at secondhand stores and give new life to! It's great if you can make something completely different and unexpected, and even if it goes wrong you've not broken the bank on an expensive piece of art material!

Free-Motion Quilting

Free motion quilting differs from embroidery because you are stitching on a quilt sandwich rather than a single sheet of fabric. This can be done after creating a quilt top or patchwork piece, but I started here with two blank white rectangles because I wanted to experiment with paint.

When quilting, one of the key things to remember is that your wadding must be BIGGER than your fabric. This is because the quilting will make the wadding shrink and pinch in odd ways, and you don't want to be left with a corner of your finished quilt without wadding.

I sketched a design by pencil onto the top of my quilt sandwich (fabric-wadding-fabric) before I lowered the feed dogs on my machine and began to sew following the lines I had sketched. I think it is a good idea to sketch an idea first to get a feel for how to move the machine to follow lines and circles, especially when you're new to free-motion.

I wanted to experiment with using stitches to create stencil-like effects when painted over. By sewing the same area over and over, parts of the fabric will bunch up around the stitches to form interesting raised areas.

I especially like the way the circles worked out; by sewing around the circles again and again I got the fabric to raise up in quite prominent bumps. This is great because when working with paint (fabric paint or otherwise) you can use these prominent bumps to create marks, similar to Batik resist methods.

I chose to use Inks rather than paints, because I have run out of paints and so there wasn't really much of a choice. I do really like, however, how the inks have mixed and blended on the fabric. Inks don't give quite the same affect as paint, because paint is less porous and thicker, meaning it sits on the fabric where you put it, whereas ink will run off and bleed quite far. This did sort of ruin the intended effect of having crisp white lines of sewing between the coloured fabric lumps, but instead the lines are more akin to tie-dye.

You can see here how the cotton thread took the ink differently to the fabric; I liked how with one ink on these two materials you could get a whole range of different colours. Maybe using hand stitching would create a different effect?

My favourite bit of this little experiment was the back cover surprisingly. Where I had layered the stitching heavier in one area than others, the ink bled through easier to the back. By doing this, you were able to get a reverse stencil effect, where the shapes are seen much more clearly but the predominant colour is the white of the original backing fabric.

Maybe you could try and experiment with creating free-motion quilted pictures where the picture is revealed on the back side after painting or dyeing?