Little Pleasures

I know I've been rubbish at keeping up my blog but I'm making a promise to myself to start being more consistent even if it just means posting photos of bits and bobs and unfinished pieces that I'm playing around with. It's been bust old month with family commitments but no excuse! I got all my vintage fabrics out of storage last week and I've been having a wonderful time going through them all, I really do love them, colours and patterns just do it or me what can I say!

This led me an intense urge to make lots of pretty little things, like brooches and ACEO cards. I've always had a creative fetish for the small and miniature, no idea for that where that comes from but I love it. I made some of these little ACEO, or ATC cards. I came across the whole ACEO thing accidentally on ebay of all places. It stands for Artists Collectibles, Editions and Originals, a kind of step on from Artists Trading Cards because ether tend to get sold instead of traded. Well what ever, it's an excuse of remaking lovely little things with my bits and pieces, so here are some of my experiments below, soon to be all in my Etsy shop:

Freehand Machine Embroidery

I started trying freehand machine embroidery ages ago but hadn't gone back to it for a little while but then these last couple of weeks I'd felt a growing urge to try it again. I think I was feeling inspired after going through bags of my vintage textiles and the simultaneous need to draw. Once I'd given it a go again, only this time with a more ordered process I realised that I'm a bit in love with it!

My process involves lining a nice piece of fabric with interfacing, to make it more stable, and then sewing appliqué pieces from another piece of fabric, usually flowers on to the fabric for added colour and interest. Once that was done I used a pencil sketch, either of my own drawing or of a photo onto thin tracing paper and then with a freehand machine foot and the right stitch setting would 'draw' around the outline of the sketch. I'd then take the paper off, ripping it carefully to remove it from the stitches, and would carry on filling in the details and the rest of the drawing so that most of it really is freehand.

Here are some photos of the results, I think they turned out well, better than expected. I've started setting some of them on embroidery hoops for frames and selling them on Etsy. I intend to do a lot more and experiment with all kinds of designs. I'm genuinely feeling excited about this whole new way of working. It allows me to work with beautfil textiles, patterns and colour AND drawing, it really couldn't get much better in my world! I would highly recommend people give it a go.