Freestyle embroidery

I took some cotton fabric, needles and embroidery floss with me to Mexico to practice handwork. I didn't use a pattern, just played with colors and shapes. I started with the palm tree, then waves and sun. I was inspired by the colors I was seeing and also the shapes of fruit in the market so I began stitching some freeform circles and oval shapes. I call it "doodling with thread".  This was a great project for airplanes and the beach. It doesn't take up much room and the whole deal fits easily in a purse or beach bag. So fun! I want to continue now that I'm home.

More needle felting and knitting up on Etsy

Here are two new listings for my Etsy shop, Artnest. One is a needle felted pin in the shape of a house with embroidery and seed beads. The other is a hand knit scarf with fabulous colors which are good for chasing away the winter blues.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/artnestbydiane

Needle felted pin with hand dyed silk and beads

Hand knit ribbed scarf

Needle Felting: Roving and Hand Dyed Silk

It's been really cold and foggy in Seattle for the last five days. I've been battling the dreariness with color! Coral and Turquoise have been the basis of my color palette and roving, hand dyed silk and beads have been my materials.

I wanted to experiment with dyeing very lightweight silk and used ColorHue dyes which are used in cold water and don't require heat setting. Very simple but you can get some great results.

The roving was already dyed and has great subtleties of color in each bunch.
Here are the results of my experiments.

Coral Roving with silk and embroidered french knots

Turquoise Roving with stitched orange line

Turquoise roving with silk and stitched lines.

Needle felted turquoise roving, hand dyed silk and beads.

Exploring cloth

embroidery sample squares

Butterfly embroidery

Lately I've felt drawn to sewing and have had the desire to dye fabric. I was a little intimidated but finally took the plunge and dyed some linen fabric from my stash with a navy Procion dye. I've also been embroidering small squares of fabric and here are some of the results. The inspiration for these is the Spirit Cloth Diaries class I am taking online with Jude Hill.

Butterfly Shibori

Inspiration: Mixed Media Artist Christine Sauer

I'm planning to attend Confluence, a conference put on the the Surface Design Association. I was looking through their member gallery and came across the work of Christine Sauer. It's wonderful. She uses crochet, freehand stitching, embroidery and machine stitching. Visit her website to see more of her great work. www.christinesauer.com

Mixed Media Contstruction by Christine Sauer

Amor Embroidery project

This is a piece I did about ten years ago...I was experimenting with embroidery and sheer fabrics. I need to do more of these. I used metallic thread. The subject was love....