Autumn bliss swap

I showed you pictures of the brooch I made for this swap in my last post, these are the other things that I sent to my swap partner. Everything is autumn themed in some way.

Buttons and ribbon.

Fabric

 I mounted the brooch onto a card depicting an old London Underground poster.

Napkins and placemats.

Pincushion and candles.

I also included some ephemera, including adverts, leaves etc with an autumn theme that I forgot to take a picture of.

This is what my parcel, from my partner Kathryn, contained.

A lovely selection of goodies, I'm sure you'll agree? I wouldn't normally buy a book like the one that Kathryn sent, but one of the delights of swapping is that you can receive something that you wouldn't normally buy/have/choose for yourself, so you can end up trying something new!

TTFN
Louise

A couple of brooches for swaps.

I made this brooch for a halloween themed swap.

I made this from scrim, lace, muslin and a piece of cotton for the back. It's been decorated with a small piece of fme (free motion embroidery) fabric, french knits and pearl buttons.

The second one was for an autumn themed swap.

This one is made from tweed fabric, feathers, a crochet heart and a couple of beads.

TTFN
Louise

Printed fabric swap

A while ago Marilla Walker hosted a fabric swap with a difference. The fabric was to be printed by the swappers and had to be 1m in length! 

I did some sampling before deciding what my eventual design would be. The cage, love and flower prints on these first samples were made with stamps using normal stamping ink. Unfortunately, these weren't colourfast, so weren't suitable for this project and I didn't want to have to buy fabric paint, which I may never use again. So I decided to try fabric ink pens and used these for the various line designs on the remainder of this sample.

 
I decided that the more graphic style was for me. As a bit of a cheat I decided to used some checked fabric, which made the design process easier. These are my first samples. The pen I've used for this fabric isn't specifically for fabric, but it is a permanent ink, so it is washable, and it doesn't bleed on the fabric.

 
 This is my completed metre of fabric.

I also added a couple of little pressies with fabric, a pincushion, needlecase and lavender heart.

 
My partner was Bea and she printed flowers (she used her finger to do the flower centres!) onto green fabric for me. One of the things I love about this is that it's unique. Even if Bea did it again, it wouldn't be exactly the same. Also, no-one else has this fabric either. I've not finally decided what I'm going to use the fabric for yet, but I may try a simple skirt. I'll let you know. She enclosed a lemon and lime bracelet in my parcel too.

I really enjoyed the drawing onto fabric, so I'll be doing more in the future.

TTFN
Louise.