Photo Friday : Elizabeth Peters

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Peacocks are fabulous birds, and this one, by Elizabeth Peters, is no exception. `It is a lovely example of how you can combine Evolon with other fabrics to produce a partially three dimensional image.

Elizabeth says of her Evolon creation:

I absolute love using Evelon in projects. It is such a versatile fabric. I first bought some about two years ago with another friend, at the Textiles show in Brisbane Australia. We had read about it in one of Isobel Hall's books & was interested to see how it worked. So we bought some.

I have painted it and dyed it. And it is absolutely amazing to stitch into.  The inspiration for the peacock came from the earring that I used for the tail. I saw the earrings on a stall in the shopping centre & thought that they would make a great peacock's tail. So I bought them. Along with quite a few other pairs of earrings that I will use to embellish other pieces of work.

I used the evelon as the base fabric, as I knew it would colour just the way I wanted it to do. It is great stuff for colouring, & feels so lovely in the hoop when stitching on it. I coloured the Evelon with water colour paints then hit it with the heat gun to dry it so that I could start stitching on it straight away.

I embroidered on the tree design & made the detached leaves first.

Then drew up a design for the body of the peacock. I made a padded body from felt. After which I then stitched over the top of in the colours of a peacock. There are about 7 different colours used in the body of the peacock. Then I secured on the earring for the tail. And hay presto the peacock was made.

After all the stitching was done, I took the piece out of the hoop, then machine stitched around the edges. Again Evelon is a wonderful fabric for sewing on the machine as well as in the hand. I mounted the whole piece behind a framed card & posted it off to my very dear friend, who lives in the UK, for her Birthday.

Sadly though. I completely forgot to take a photo of the completed card before posting it☹☹☹ I was running short on time to get it posted over to the UK on time, & it completely slipped my mind. The good thing is though I know if I ever have to, I can get my friend to take a photo of it & email it to me.


I am a great advocate of Evelon. It is such a versatile fabric to work with. It is great for painting on or dying. It is also wonderful to stitch on both hand & machine & is strong & sturdy for uses in book covers as well as backing embroideries.

If you have any questions, I'm sure Elizabeth will be delighted to answer them here.  Once again, many thanks to her for sharing this lovely piece of work with us.  Te see more of her work, check out her blog.

Try It Out Tuesday : Embellishing A Bag.

If you remember, I made some flower patterned cloth on Thursday, and said I would use it in a project this week.  My original intention was to use the flowers to embellish a tshirt, but I came across this bag in my stash, and decided to embellish it instead, as it was a good colour for the embellishments. 

I started by putting fusible on the flowers I wanted to use, and cutting three out.  I put one aside for later, in true Blue Peter fashion (!), and fused one on each side of the bag. 

I then put some firm interfacing on the back of each flower, a square big enough to support it, and stitched into the sandwich.  Though this interfacing was sold as fusible, it turned out not to be, so I simply held it into the right place, and anchored it with the machine foot.  You might like to pin it, but don't fuse; the next stage, after stitching, is to cut the excess away.  You could also use Stitch and Tear, if you prefer it.  Or, if you have neither, try one of the heavier weights of Lutradur (not XL; it's too heavy).  It will only use a very small scrap.

I stitched in my own style, which is not regular at all... I prefer it that way, because I think it defines the piece well.  You could, of course, use a decorative hand or machine stitch instead, if you wish, but I chose straight stitch so that you could still see the chunky drawn edges of the flowers.  Remember that florists wrapping, like Lutradur, doesn't fray, so there is no real need for stitch other than as support for the fusible, and to add a little visual interest and contrast. At this point, just trim the excess interfacing away (told you not to fuse!).

I then added some stitch in the same contrasting thread at the top of the bag, to pull it all together.

Hmm.  Not bad...but not finished, either.  I would have been happier with bigger flowers, or more flowers, but I have a Plan...  which you'll see on Thursday.  This method works just as well on anything textile... try it out!

Photo Friday : Dervish

We tend to think of lutradur as a fabric we use on its own, or with a different fabric below it.  Here, though, hand dyed cotton has been fused on as a top layer, to describe a dervish type figure blowing its way through the quilt.  I stitched this one first, as suggested by the marks below the lutradur, but felt that it needed more than that to have adequate visual impact. 

I'd really love to feature YOUR work here... if you have something suitable, please do send me an image and a short artists statement, telling us about the thinking behind the piece, and the techniques you used.  I'll link it to your blog or website.

Tip Of The Week

We temd to think of the spun bonded fabrics as 'art' fabrics; but they make wonderful materials for practical usage.  Evolon was made specifically to be made into clothing, for instance.  Why not try it out to make an applique for a tired tshirt?