strawberry

This is a small, however cute bit of embroidery!

I made this for my mum because it was her birthday and at the time a strawberry was pretty appropriate for the occasion because Wimbledon was on ( whoo Murray! ) 

In order to make this strawberry it was pretty stress-free and would be great for a beginner in embroidery or for someone who doesn't have a lot of spare time as it was a simple and small design so was reasonable quick (bearing in mind that it was hand embroidery after all.)

And if you would prefer machine embroidery instead of hand embroidery that is always an option, plus it would be quicker! 

Mermaid

on holiday stitching!

final piece

 

I did this hand embroidered mermaid around this time last year. (Hence the photo of me sewing in front of the caravan on a summer holiday.) It was for my Bronze Art Award, which is an equivalent to the Duke of Edinburgh, D of E,  in the art world, consisting of four clauses I had to do with one of them being a new skill (mine: hand embroidery).
 

The way I got the idea of sewing a mermaid was, after doing some thumbnails, looking at my old picture books including my particular favourite “Can you catch a mermaid”. And so by using the front cover of the book I got inspiration for the position of the mermaid and the style of hair.

This mermaid is the first major hand embroidered piece I have done and ever since I have felt that I have improved in hand embroidery. In fact now I even sometimes choose hand embroidery over machine embroidery! I guess I love hand embroidery so much because it is a lot more relaxing. I often stitch in front of the TV, happy and content; but don't get me wrong I love machine embroidery after all it was my first "textiles love".

Now you may be questioning who Maggie is and why I was inspired by her so I will try and sum her up as best as I can in a paragraph, instead of a 8 page essay, which is easy to do bearing in mind just how incredible she was...

Maggie was my wonderful friend who sadly passed away. She introduced me to this wonderful world of textiles and without her I wouldn't be the person I am today let alone be writing this blog. She was my teacher as well as my best friend. So I dedicated my mermaid to her because not only do I owe everything I know about textiles to her but hand embroidery was her very favourite type of textiles.

Earrings!

 

 

Earrings

Other a small workshop at school once this pair of silver hooped earrings is the first (proper) jewellery I  have made and infact I am pretty proud of them.

Jewellery making all came about around a month or two ago when my mum and I decided to do a jewellery class every other week. This Is because I want to explore different crafts and art.

The process in order to make these involved some new techniques and media for example needle files, ------saws (and some other stuff I could describe but can't name). However some of they stuff we used I was familiar with because I had either seen or used them before in resistant materials at school.

The idea of doing the little silver flower and leaves was a pretty simple process I suppose. I did my usual research for inspiration as well as jotting down some designs. And I knew I wanted something along the lines of flowers (or birds etc) to make them unique because otherwise what is the point of making them?!

I've already decided that my next jewellery challenge will be an elephant brooch.

And finally I would like to thank Catherine for helping me and my mum with our jewellery making! X