FAF April Techniques

The FAF group had decided the technique for April was to do stuff with metals, foils, and fabric. With April almost over, I still haven’t done anything new with this.

So instead, I will show a few things I have done in the past.

First up is a piece of colored metal shim that I embossed using a copyright free image. I didn’t have a particular project in mind when I did this, but I realize now that I probably should have left a little more metal around the design in order to incorporate it into a future piece.

After I did this I realized that I embossed the design from the wrong side, as I liked the design better from the back.

This one is a piece of copper metal shim embossed with a design from the Stef Francis kit “Indian Sunflower” which I purchased a few years ago, started on and then set it aside. I do intend to finish this piece someday.

The copper is painted over with two different colors of glass paint. Actually looking at it again, I wish I had used several colors instead of just the two.

The next two pieces have appeared on here before. This first one is a piece I did last October using small pieces of the colored metal.

I texturized the metal and I cut back the shine by painting over it.

This last piece is one of the pieces I did for my Mixed Media Sampler Wall hanging.

Sorry for the poor picture. This piece really looks so much better in real. This is a piece of copper shim that I embossed, heated with an igniter and then painted with the glass paint. I then stitched it to the background.

I remembered I had these beads also.

I cut strips and ran them through a paper crimper and then rolled them up.

Award-what???

The very sweet Elaine (Seamrippstress) has nominated me for the “thinking blogger” award. I am totally surprised and honored, as I don’t particularly blog much about anything that makes people really stop and think. Thank you Elaine.

I am supposed to nominate 5 people/blogs that I feel deserve this award. The thing is everybody I know who deserves this has already been honored and it is well deserved. There are far too many blogs out there and not enough time in the world.

I have chosen 5 people whose work I admire and are an inspiration to me and I don’t think they have already received this award.

1. Baumcat—Cathy does some of the loveliest small pieces of crazy quilting.

2. The Lone Beader—Diana is a self taught beader who not only does some amazing work, but writes some thought provoking pieces and/or provides some interesting facts.

3. Vicky Taylor-Hood—She is a very accomplished art quilter and has some wonderful tutorials on her blog.

4. Rachel Louise Reynolds—I discovered her work awhile ago on Flickr and love it.

5. Molly Jean Henson—I discovered her work recently on Flickr also. She is a very talented person. I love the work she is doing.

I am not a big fan of these types of things and don’t particularly feel comfortable doing them. There are so many others out there who are deserving of this, please do not feel slighted.

April birthday postcards

Since I don’t have anything else I can show right now, I thought I would go ahead and post the other three April birthday postcards I sent out. I know two of the three have been received.

This one is Carols’.
















This one is Emmys’.















This one is Kims'.

Since there were four for April, I took the easy way out and used the tissue paper sample I made back in January for the background. Each flower was free-motion stitched and then machine appliquéd to the background. I did a little bit of hand embroidery on Emmys’ flower before it was appliquéd down.

*note* Terri asked if I applied a wax over the paper surface. I applied a very thin coat of Dorlands Wax on the surface and let it sit for several days before stitching these cards.

TAST weeks 13 and 14

I am slowly working towards getting caught up with the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. I have finished two more, leaving just one more to do before the next stitch is announced Tuesday.

The stitch for week 13 was the knotted cretan stitch. The stitch itself is not that hard to do. However, I found it hard to keep it even from one side to the other.

I’m afraid I didn’t get inventive with this stitch.

The stitch for week 14 was the bonnet stitch. I am not especially fond of this one. As you can see I just stitched it out. I’m sure it would be easier to keep this one even if it had been done on aida cloth. Anyway this is my bonnet stitched ATC.

1 Down, 3 to Go...

I am very slowly trying to get caught up with the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. I finally got around to making my ATC using the couching stitch for week 12. I created a needle felted background and used some DMC floss to couch down a piece of variegated yarn. Not very original or inspiring I’m afraid, but at least I have a sample. Now I am only three behind counting this week.

There are four FAF ladies in the birthday swap for April. Terri is one of them and I know she has received hers, so I can post it here now.

When the other three have gotten theirs I will post them.

Thank You and pictures

I am falling behind in a number of things, so first off I want to thank everyone who has left comments over the past several days. They are very much appreciated and I thank you for visiting.

Now that I know that they have been received I can show these to you.

I made this last month for one of the FAF birthday members. It took forever for it to reach its destination but it finally arrived at seamrippstress’ house.
















In my last post I mentioned I used one of the tyvek samples for something. I used it on the ATC I made for Deb over at Cold Feet Quilter. Here it is:



















I am way behind on the TAST stitches. I hope to catch up but we’ll just have to see how that goes.

Right now I am working on April’s FAF birthday postcards (there are 4 this time).