Never say 'Never' ...

On February 12th I wrote 'There are these sort of heraldic ones, which I don't think I will be trying to reproduce'.


OK - I was wrong. I have been re-reading Campbell-Harding and Grey's 'Celtic Inspiration for Machine Embroiderers', which seems oddly relevant to my non-Celtic tiles. They use animal motifs - and I like this insouciant griffin [?] - so I had a go.

This is the stamp, carved in some of that stuff for carving stamps, whose name escapes me. [It is 10 cm square and I don't think you can get erasers that big.]

And here is the result. Nominally this is gold ink, but I think I need a new gold ink pad.

I have also been working on my Stitched Textile Design group challenge, 'Hearts'. You may remember the quilted poly satin. Well, now it has transfer dyed hearts on it.

I cut the hearts out of the painted paper and stuck them on a blank sheet of paper, before ironing them onto the satin. If you try this, be very careful where you get the Pritt stick. Fortunately it came out with a little water on a cotton bud...

The ironing also flattens the quilting. Funny I didn't think of that before I tried this. Luckily I didn't melt the wadding.

I used polyester thread to quilt the piece and as I expected the dye transferred to the thread as well.

I think I am going to outline the hearts in stem stitch or couching - but I'm still pondering on the thread. Yes, that is an orange metallic. I'm feeling experimental.

While I had the iron out I used up the dye left on the paper on a poly sheer. I put a piece of Vilene under it becks I knew the colour would go through and I didn't want it on the ironing board.

Moving the sheer slightly gave this ghosting. I tried the sheer over the poly satin [right way up and upside down] but decided not to add it this time.

I realise that my 200th post has come and gone without me noticing it. I definitely talk too much ...