Pronk your home

I read the Dutch word " pronk" on a blog a few months ago and it really struck a chord. Pronk as quoted on that blog means " to display one's best" or " to show off".
This year I have decided to pronk in my home by using one's best rather than having is on a high shelf to protect it from marauding boys! Hence this little jug, which is " too small to be practical" ( to quote some in our house) now being used to store pens and pencils next to the phone.
I bought it at this art show a couple of years ago.

PS, I see other definitions of pronk on the web, such as "jumping straight up like a kangaroo" - hope this isn't what happens to my jug.

What to do with a tangle of threads?

I found a huge tangle of threads in the back of my car after the most recent Region 1 Regional day. As these are my favourite colours I didn't want to throw them away.

Here they are on a Little Gem, called " The Big Tangle" . The hearts are an experiment with water-soluble stabiliser, sewn straight on to the stabiliser using a sprung embroidery hoop and then sewn on to this piece with invisible thread. The little hands were made with polymer clay and a push-out mould - a bit fiddly but good fun.

Pastel houses

Pastel houses this time, very summery. I think I'm getting addicted to these.

Stitching with my son

My son went to the Wetlands Centre with school this week and had to write, make or draw something inspired by the visit. As I wanted to do something with fabric, I persuaded him that we could adapt the logo for the centre into a fabric picture.

We used bondaweb, (and failed miserably at the mirror image, copy it backwards, and reverse it again thing that you have to do with bondaweb, particularly when you want to use both sides of the fabric).

He did very well at the cutting out and ironing on. We did a bit of a 3D effect by leaving the tops of the grasses free from the backing fabric. He then stitched round the edge with a metallic thread. the backing fabric is a lovely piece I got at the Region 1 bring and buy last weekend. I love the ripply effect on this.

Houses, thanks to Janet

I went to a great workshop with Janet Clare in January this year to learn how to do free motion pictures, without any marking. It was a lovely day and has led to several hours stitching away at little houses.

In March, I bought one of these fab pictures, and wondered if I could do something similar with the houses. These are my first two attempts. I'm not sure which colourway I prefer, and inevitably I now have lots more ideas brewing!

Hmmm, no pictures - here they are

Don't know what happened with that last post, but here are the pictures that are supposed to be there.

Stunned: I've won something from a blog give away

I added a comment to the blog of Patricia Zapata, who designs the most beautiful objects in paper and card,....... and I won this a lovely way to use some scraps of my all tme favourite fabrics. Thanks Patricia.

I was also practising some techniques with washaway stabiliser that one of my friends had told me about - it was great fun and led to some hearts and a rather ungainly figure, but good on cards. The bird was a test of a 3D piece using the leaves technique from one of the projects in " Simple Gifts to Stitch" at the weekend.