Collections

I enjoyed making this piece enormously. The 3 parts consist of the same number of small pieces from the same pool of 11 plain fabrics. I made the squares seperately from each other, not looking at the ones I made previously, so they came out quite differently. I even made them all in different countries, as holiday projects, so they connect places and moments in time.

Back home, I brought them all together in this wall hanging. To add something special to the piece, I attached flat pieces of rock on 2 of the 3 rectangles, which looks great!

  

My widened blouse

There was this blouse in my closet too narrow to be comfortable, but I liked the fabric, the pattern, colours and length, so I decided to try to widen it using the good parts of a worn shirt of my husband, which had a nice colour. I  thought the two fabrics would match well.
First I loosened the side hems of the blouse. Then I cut two pieces of fabric off the shirt : right and left with the side hem and a piece of the sleeve. These pieces of fabric I sewed between the opened sides.
Now the blouse is much more comfortable and I got a lovely combination of fabrics.

Charms

These charms are my contribution to the TextileArtist.org workshop hosted by Jodi Colella. They are made from scraps of lace, lots of beads, lots of thread, pieces of old clothes, wool and wire.

They have a really nice feel to them. Perhaps I created some nice Christmas decorations here, or brooches? Although they don't have a funcion (yet) I like them and one day, I'm sure, they will come in very handy!

Here I used pieces of lace and a piece of William Morris fabric and lots of beads:

Made with wool, wire, beads and old fabric:

Mittens, upcycling galore!

I wanted to do a real upcycling/recycling project, using the sweaters we don’t wear anymore. Mainly to improve my sewing machine skills. I used the free pattern "Simple felted wool mittens" from Purl Soho.

I learned a lot from this and had fun looking for good colour and fabric combinations. But the most fun was decorating them with beads, embroidery, appliqué and all kinds of flowers. 

I ended up with 10 pairs of mittens, all rather quirky and fun, definitely unique!

2 more abstract pieces

These are 2 more abstract textile pieces made using paint, crayons, pencil, a seashell, a pebble and stitching. 

The atmosphere of the first one is calm, with muted colours and fainter lines.

The second is more vibrant, because of the contrasting colours and clearer lines. 

Kitchen Story

This collage piece is a stitched story about the kitchen in my childhood home. It took rather longer to plan than usual, because I first made a mind map to set free my thoughts and associations.

The technique of mind mapping is something I learned from Ali Ferguson. I found it to be very useful and insightful. 

Starting from this mind map, I selected meaningful materials, words and motifs. 

For the materials, I chose a piece of an actual cushion cover from that time, some jeans fabric (we wore jeans all the time back then), fabric scraps from a pair of slippers I had, some pieces of kitchen textiles and random fabrics that remind me of the atmosphere of this eighties kitchen.

As the motif I picked a whisk, which my mum often used, among many other things for making mayonnaise. This was a job that required a lot of attention and we often chatted as I watched her.

By stitching together the words and this image I’ve tried to capture a cherished memory of peaceful, secure and happy times.

Doll make-over

Like many other people, we used the lockdown period to clean out our attic. I came across this doll that a dear, old relative gave to me as a present in the seventies.  I was a little girl back than and not very fond of the doll, but I’ve held on to it because of the person who gave it to me. I still think it is rather ugly and even a bit scary... But I’m also still not able to get rid of her, so I decided to give her a make-over, using fabric scraps from old clothes and a beaded necklace. Now she looks nice and happy and keeps me company in my workspace.

Projects like this I find the nicest and most rewarding. You get to be creative, look for creative solutions, use your stash to make something you are attached to beautiful again. 

 (And I hate throwing stuff in the bin 😊)

 

                                         Poor old dolly before, not very well loved I'm afraid...

much happier now!

Robin in the woods

In a second online workshop led by Mandy Patullo I made this robin. It is a textile collage with scraps of fabric and stitching onto a background of printed fabric. I used a twig from our garden to make it a bit more playful. It has something of a Christmassy feel to it, but not too much, so it doesn’t clash at any other time.

Sweater becomes mittens and cowls

I had a sweater that was still in reasonably good condition but had become too small. I loved its fabric and colour so decided to walk the recycling path here.

I should have taken a photo of the original sweater, but I cut it up before I even thought of that.

From the sleeves I made long fingerless gloves. I cut them from the main body, picked up the stitches with my circular knitting needle and cast off neatly, cutting an opening for the thumb and sewing round it. Really happy with them!

The shawl neckline of the sweater was kind of special so I cut it off in its entirety and made it into a cowl. By sewing round the edge with a nice yarn (Manos del Uruguay Serena alpaca cotton blend) I managed a ruffled edge. With the same yarn, I embroidered some flowers. I added an invisible press stud so it stays well in place. Not completely my style, but I still think it is a successful project and hopefully will make someone else happy.

Then there was the body of the sweater, which I cut into broad strips, sewing them together into one loop cowl that wraps around the neck twice. Again I picked up the stitches, and added a small knitted edge in a colourful yarn (Mayflower Egyptian organic cotton Print). The colourful edge makes this a really pretty cowl, I think!

 

So instead of an unused sweater, I now have 3 nice accessories 😊 

Paper glove

This glove is the result of an assignment set by Jennifer Collier, via TextileArtist.org. At first I was not that thrilled about making a paper glove, because it didn’t seem to make much sense to me. However, the process was very enjoyable because I love paper and finding the colour combination was fun. Besides, I found yet again that stitching through paper is great. 

I used a wallpaper sampler, a bit of decorative paper from my stash, a soap wrapper, a bit of plastic waste, three small buttons and some ribbon, and of course some thread and wool yarn.

This made me think about how I can use more paper in my work. There are so many more possibilities than you might think at first sight!

Woollen handbag

In 2018 (you can read the blogpost here) I dyed some yarn with onion peel. 4 of the skeins, all of a different shade of yellow, I knit into a piece with wide stripes. 

This piece I washed on a high temperature and high spin cycle, to get it felted. It worked : the fabric is firmer, smaller and thicker now. 

And this week I decided to make it into a handbag of my own design.

I chose a nice fabric for the inner lining. It’s all hand-sewn, because I wanted to do some slow, meditative stitching. The wooden handles fit perfectly, in my opinion. 

This project is is a good example of slow crafting: hand-spun and naturally dyed yarn, hand-knit and hand-sewn into a bag. It reminds me that the journey is so much more important than the goal. That it turned out to be a nice handbag is a bonus 😊

the knitted fabric, before felting :

working on the bag, with the lining fabric and the handles:

the inside of the finished handbag:

Diptych still life

This piece came about through a workshop led by Stewart Kelly. 

First I made a still life drawing. Then I used a view finder to look for two interesting parts I could use. It was like looking at the still life from different perspectives!

These two views I tried to capture in textile, for one of them using only embroidery and for the other adding appliqué as well.

They look quite interesting together, so I sewed them onto one background. 

I very much enjoyed the thinking and exploring that came with this work! 

the embroidered piece:

Abstract Mountains

I love Sabine Kaner's work and was delighted to hear she was hosting a workshop on TextileArtist.org.

She designed this great and simple technique to create an abstract composition, using a crumpled piece of paper. You base your design on the lines that arise on the paper and transfer this onto fabric. With appliqué and emroidery you can then create a unique composition.

This is what I made of it, not a totally abstract piece, since I never quite can suppress my love for a narrative of some kind. My abstract became a mountain scenery. I chose muted colours, with one lively exception, a green segment on the bottom.

The piece is framed with a loosely cut piece of corduroy from an old shirt.

The memory of a picnic

We often visit Cambridge in the UK because our son lives there. It is such a friendly and beautiful city! We love to picnic and one of our favourite spots is Jesus Green. 

This folded book depicts a memory of one of these precious moments where everything felt wonderful and everyone and everything seemed to be smiling. 

It is a fabric and paper collaged piece, with hand stitching and embellishment. I also used some watercolour paint.

The technique used here, I learned from the textile artist Anne Kelly. A PVA glue solution gets used to attach paper onto fabric. At first I was a bit hesitant about it, but I found myself loving it: the technique makes a "fabric" that is really great to stitch through! And I get to use some of my lovely paper pieces I have been collecting for years!

The cover of the book is a piece of a kitchen towel and it has a button and beaded cord to close it.

I hope to have the time and energy to make many more of these memory-books!

I made a little video where you can see me opening the book, which you can watch it if you click here.

Bookbinding

I went to an online bookbinding workshop with Ali Ferguson and I am SO excited by this new skill!

We learned how to make (stitch) a small sketchbook consisting of several sections (signatures), with an open spine and fabric taps and a fabric cover.

It’s a time-consuming process but very rewarding. I love paper and have been collecting all kinds of paper and wrappers for such a long time. It’s wonderful to put these to good use!

So far I’ve made 5 sketchbooks. I’ve used paper from the Flow book for paper lovers, notepaper, food wrappers and other assorted leaves and scraps. I embroidered onto the pages, decorated them with washi tape, little envelopes, some fabric, postcards, images and quotes. This way the sketchbooks became quite personal gifts and I hope they encourage people to continue to decorate and fill up of the pages.

Bookbinding is defenitely a craft I hope to explore more in the future!

            

some of the pages are decorated, others are still blank :