#100dayproject 202i - the scrappy one - Day 1

 This year's 100 day project started today (31-Jan), a lot earlier than when it's usually been in April. This year my theme is making things from scraps. I have two small boxes of fabric scraps.

I also have two boxes of scraps of lace and braid etc.

I can also use a piece of linen/cotton for a base and add buttons and/or beads as decoration.

Day 1

Today I made a collage of blue scraps of fabric kantha stitched  onto a piece of linen fabric.

I'm going to make a lavender sachet out of this.

I'll be doing one post a week on the items I make for the 100 day project.

TTFN

Louise

Week 4 #52tagshannemade - fly-stitch

 The theme for week 4 was fly-stitch. It's a reasonably easy stitch, a bit like an open chain stitch. 

It's a good stitch for doing interesting stems for flowers so that's what I decided to do for my tag.

i used a scrap of vintage napkin as my base, not exactly a wise choice as it was hard doing the small stitches on the more openweave section! I used buttons as the 'flowers' and did larger fly-stitches for the stems and groups of smaller ones for the leaves. I mounted this one on a Happiness in Crafting tag.

TTFN

Louise

The first two birthday cards for 2021

 I was asked to  make two birthday cards for this month. 

This first one was for a man. I used a V&A wrapping paper with irises for the background. For the detail I fussy cut out some blue tits on plants from an illustration in the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. I also added some die-cut butterflies. I also decorated the envelope to match.

This card was for a woman and I made this one using printable papers from Antique Paperie on Etsy. I used a one printable as the background piece and I stitched a piece of tracing paper on top of this. I then fussy cut the flowers and butterflies from another printable. I also decorated the envelope to match.

Please contact me if you would like any cards made at elsiemayandbertha@virginmedia.com.

TTFN

Louise

Week 3 of #52taghannemade and black and white postcards

The theme for the third week of the 52 week tag challenge #52tagshannemade was scraps. Anne Brook's example was made using folded strips of fabric that was stitched onto the backing along the channel of the fold (you can see Anne's tag here).

I followed the same basic method, but I had different lengths of strips and I also stitched some vertically as well as horizontally. To fill in the spaces between the strips, I folded small squares of fabric into quarters and stitched them to the backing at the point of the folds. The overall effect reminded me of a rag rug.

Anne said that week 4's tag will feature an embroidery stitch, so I'm looking forward to finding out which one she picks.

I belong to a group on Facebook called Hooray for Happy Mail and the group usually does a couple of swaps a month. For the first swap in January we had to make two black and white postcards for your partner. I made my two for my partner and forgot to take a photo of them before I sent them, but I loved the theme so much I made eight more.

 These postcards will probably end up in my shop and/or happy mail.

TTFN

Louise

A New Year and doing more craft challenges.

Hopefully, now that 2020, the year of covid, is over and with the vaccine being slowly rolled out, we may have some semblance of normality at some stage this year. That being said, we're now in out third lockdown. Not that things actually change that much to me. The only real difference is that I' not going out with my Dad to Liverpool every thursday. As he's part of our bubble he can come down to ours as  normal, that's the main difference between this lockdown and the first one last year, we didn't have support bubbles then so Father was on his own apart from when I did his shopping once a week. Basically lockdown means I have another day of crafting! Not a hardship for me.

I've decided that in 2021, I'm going to do more challenges like the 100 day project, to broaden my stitching, art and papercrafting skills.

This year's 100 day project is starting earlier this year on the 31st January (previously it's been an April start). I'll talk about that in a future post. The first challenge that I have started this year is Anne Brooke's 52 week tag challenge. This challenge involves stitching a tag following the theme for that  week and you can see people's work with the hashtag #52tagshannemade

For week one, the theme was white.

To make this tag I had a base of vintage linen napkin that I decorated with lace, a ruffle of net, suffolk puffs, beads and lots of french knots. I stitched the piece onto a Tracie Fox tag.

Week two's theme was heart.

For this tag I kantha stitched scraps of Victorian silk and floral cotton fabrics onto a piece of cotton. I added a blue silk heart and a heart charm and a strip of pink and gold trim. I stitched it onto another Tracie Fox tag and I added a tab made from a scrap of broderie anglais.

I'm looking forward to seeing what week three's theme is.

There's at least one more year long challenge that I'm going to do and I'll talk abut that in my next post.

TTFN

Louise