I have been having fun making some kitty ATC's using motifs from the same fabric that I used for my postcards a few posts back.
I decided to try and use up some of the cute kitty motifs that were at the very edge of the fabric piece that I had. Some of these had half an ear or no mouth but I just couldn't see them go to waste!
On Tuesday night I went and visited my old quilt class. I didn't sign up this year as things were really up in the air on the home front and I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I would be able to attend every class. It was great to see everyone again and one of these ATc's went to my old teacher Anne Chapman, as it reminds me of her own fur friend, Muffin.
As for the rest well I have been searching around on some of the groups that I belong to and have found an open theme ATC swap to join :) 
On a more depressing note my sewing machine has decided that it doesn't want to switch on anymore so I think it will have to go in for repair. I'm hoping to get my old machine set up over the weeked to keep me ticking over and to stop me getting too far behind with my swap commitments.
Inside there are lots of inspirational ideas and also some fabric, some lovely inspirational paper images and some of the wonderful clay beads that Alma makes. The one thing that immediately caught my attention though was an article about paper applique. I thought immediately that it would fit very well with the Fiber Art Friends January challenge of combining paper and fabric. I haven't had much of a chance to experiment yet and already the monthe is nearly gone. 
Here is a postcard I made using Alma's idea for a paper applique flower. I cut the petal shapes from pages in a magazine and stitched them down. Adding some free stitched flowers to the background. 
Having recently refound my passion for kitties I decided to go with a sleeping cat. You can't really see all the stitching detail properly from this scan but I think it turned out pretty good. Very time comsuming but I think the effects you can get from varying the direction you stitch in is well worth it and no doubt the more you do it the faster you would get.
Rather than go for a traditional blue or green I decided to Jazz things up by going with my favourite colour of the moment, orange. As I'm not really a doll maker she turned out to be trickier to put together than I thought and some of the joining stitching isn't great but hopefully that will mostly get covered up with beading anyway. 
I used my InkTense pencils to draw out a simple face, as you can see I'm no artist but I think she has a cute kinda charm none the less.
These are some wonderful coasters made my my Nan from plastic canvas. My Nan was always a great knitter and seamstress but when she had a stroke and lost the use of her right arm she couldn't carry on with those arts. She was able to do some stitching over canvas for a while as the wools are nice and thick and the canvas sturdy. When she passed away a few months ago my aunt gave me a bag of stuff and these were in there. I just love all the bright colours. I have about 8 altogether and hope to figure out a way of using them eventually but for now I have an idea to use them as inspiration for another project. Here is a close up so you can see what I mean about the wonderful colours.
I decided to combine some cute kitty motifs with some left over thread snippets that I had from making my hand embroidered postcards that you might remember from a few posts ago too.
Basically I used a plain colour background fabric and fused on some bondweb. Over that I layed the leftover fibers and a layer of sheer and free stitched across these to secure the layers.
One of these is heading on it's way to Anna in return for the lovely fairy postcard that I received last week. Not sure what will happen to the others yet but I'm sure I will be able to find them good homes some day soon.
I was looking through all my bits and pieces for some inspiration for this swap and came across some toppers that I bought in a bulk lot for card making a couple of years back. I hadn't got round to using them as when they arrived they were actually too busy for my liking but I dismantled a few and used the paper heart elements and also some paper roses for these cards. I like the way they turned out and the handmade paper was lovely to stitch on. I have loads of the toppers left so I might have a go at making a few postcards too.
Next month of course is B so far I have no idea what I will do for that. I want to try and stick with things that are slightly more unusual and therefore more of a challenge to translate into a postcard. Any suggestions gratefully received!
There are 6 people in the round robin so I have left the doll form pretty much naked so there is room for everyone to add to it. I didn't get time to go to the craft superstore so had to make do with a pack of felts designed for kids craft so the colours are a little bold, lol! It will be fun to see what the doll looks like when she comes back from here travels. This is the first time I have constructed a 3D form without the aid of a pattern and I know it's only a simple shape but I'm pleased with the way it came out for a first attempt!
Here are the results. I've made four hand stitched cards in the same way just using different coloured threads and yarns.
I stitched over a background of coarse hessian fabric. Lots of eyelets, some french knots and added a few beads here and there, you can't spot the beads in the pictures too well though.
As the eyelet stitching created quite a lot of bulk on the back as well as the front. I decided to mount them straight onto a card backing missing out the layer of Timtex that I usually add to the middle of my cards.
I had great fun making these and even though I was only covering a relatively small area each took several hours to stitch. It was a great excuse to sit in front of the TV and catch up with some of my favourite shows!
Originally I was going to bead in the centre of each of the herringbone diamonds but I think I may just leave it as it is. I used a variegated green embroidery floss to do the stitching and didn't worry too much about getting them particularly even as I thought that way it would look a bit more organic. I think I will bead her some sort of bra and maybe stitch round her body to give it a bit more definition.
I haven't decided what I am going to do with the pieces I create for this challenge yet but I may make them into some sort of fabric journal if I get time.
So here is is my cat fabric collection not the greatest picture as I just emptied it out on my (unmade, can't believe I'm showing that have I no shame!) bed to take a quick snap before the gang get here. I haven't counted them lately but I know I have over 100 different prints! Yes that is a real life cat butt in the background. Pip was peeking out of the window watching the rain. As I speak he's now happily rolling around in all the fabric ensure that it is now textured with cat hair so I have to wash anything now before I use it (groan!)
I treated myself to a set of watercolour pencils in the sale. They are called Inktense and made by Derwent. I thought I would have a play and see how they come out on fabric. They really do do what they say on the tin! Once these pencils are wet the colour becomes so much more intense I really like them, on paper they claim that once the colour is dry it's permanent I'm not sure that that will hold true for fabric also but I figure as long as I don't use them on anything that will need to be washed they will be ok.
This first one I am calling 'Burning Sun' I used a scrap of fabric that I dyed in the microwave a while back for the background and stitched down the sun print which is cut from commercial fabric. I then used the long stitch technique similar to what I did for the roofs on my scrappy houses to stitch out the middle of the sun. I used a variegated yellow thread for this. I was going to add some beads to the background but I had some thread left on the needle so decided to go with french knots instead.
This next one is called 'Sunburst'. For this one again I used the same microwave dyed fabric and stitched vermicelli style over that. I recently bought a couple of strings of beaded wire in the sale was originally meant to be some kind of Christmas table decoration, anyway I cut and coiled up some of this for the centre of the sun and then stitched some rectangular gold sequins (also bought in the sales, lol!) round this. Probably the cheapest ATC ever as the background fabric was originally an old sheet so probably cost less than a penny all told :) 
This last one is a bit different to the others. I've called it 'Wishing on a Star' As you can probably figure out I again randomly stitched the background and added some sequins beads and charms.
I might not be around much for the next couple of days as my Dad and sister have decided to come visit for the day on Saturday so I really must get to the housework I can't avoid it any longer.
For this first one I took a piece of autumn leaf print fabric and stitched down several layers of different coloured skeleton leaves. On top of this I added a couple of images which I stamped onto fabric scraps and then added some button embellishments. A while back I bought a heap of different yarns and haven't used any for a while so I decided to add some eyelash yarn round just 2 of the edges. Don't ask me why just 2 I don't really know other than I thought it might create a bit more interest than going round the whole page, anyway I think it worked out ok.
