yippee ....!

It wasn't even as much work 

as I thought it would be

.....

The walls were stitched "invisibly"

(with the wire integrated in the seam)

A safety pin to hold the sides together while stitching.

(first stitching in bright sunlight,

half an hour later all was gray with splashing rain)

When the three walls were stitched together

I could add the last separate leaves

to hide the wires.

And here it is :

the Caterpillar House

another wall

And when caterpillars eat lots and lots

(and drive so many a gardener crazy)

they become a beautiful

butterfly

I'm very happy with the result for Sara's House Challenge !

water soluble

The "House Challenge" 

is coming to an end.

Last Monday Sara sent the last pdf

with instruction and suggestions.

The houses of everybody are far from finished

but that is okay,

we will have many more weeks to continue.

On the 20th of March

random couples will be picked by Sara

and we'll make some small item

for the house of the other person of the couple :

a small fun swap,

just like at the end of the other challenges !

These are the three walls of my house.

I incorporated the roof :

the green walls end in green leaf-like points.

I also found my coloured wire,

thick and thin.

The wings of the butterfly

have very thin blue wire attached to the front side

and now she has long antennae 

(with a bead at the end)

These are the walls since yesterday.

There are some more inhabitants now :

... a (sleeping) cocoon and the known "doorman"

... two new baby caterpillars ...

Making the butterfly wings with

water soluble

was sooooo much fun

that I had to do some more with that funny stuff today.

I have two varieties of the water soluble "fabric"

One is kind of plastic-like,

the other one is thicker and looks more like interfacing

only DON'T touch it with wet hands, or sneeze :

it will shrivel away !!!

First I have a piece of  water soluble

(big enough to fit in a plastic embroidery hoop

that one is thin, so it will easily go under the presser foot of the machine )

then I use some tulle or polyester sheer

with lots of threads and snippets underneath.

Then comes the "free stitching" :

you have to be sure that all the snippets are connected by stitch.

When you are satisfied with your end product

you can pin your work on a thick cellular polystyrene

and rinse out the water soluble !

(using little water leaves a lot of "glue" in your work and makes it stiff, 

using a lot (and rub some) leaves your work a lot softer !)

 A new idea taking shape

Held up against the light

you better see the waste threads I used for this one

*

Just have to show this gorgeous Amaryllis  :

two stems with four flowers each !!!

And last week we had another mandala evening

(Isis & Osiris)

another "challenge"

Once again I've subscribed

to a Sara Lechner Challenge !

(it is just like an on-line workshop with her ...

but I did a real-life workshop at HAWAR 

three and a half years ago)

I joined in the "booklet" challenge

(nót in the "paper theater")

and in the "hanging doll".

This time it's the "house" challenge.

We received two lessons already

but I waited a bit so I knew "where it was going"

So yesterday I looked through my stash

because then I had an idea

of what I would make.

A lot of green stuff.

I even coloured some thin white linen

with my "Inktense" pencils and also some lace in one go.

The next step (today) was making

and decorating the walls of my house :

I'm stubborn in making my own house and have

only three walls ... instead of four !

And round windows instead of rectangled ones  ;-) ...

(Oh yes, saw "The Hobbit" again the other day ... but ... noooo )

*

In the garden it shows that the winter wasn't very cold this year

In the house daughter surprised us with some lovely daffodils !

it's not easy being green

It's only logical :

when you like it when you do something

you do it again.

After the mermaid was finished
(I did sew on some more sequins and beads)

I started on a new doll right away !

I had some more ideas in my mind after I had noticed 

that other mermaid on the pinterest board ...

a green man or woman !

You could say, this one is not green of envy, but green of ivy

(that's because I came across this dried ivy leaf in a book ...)

Then I thought about that wonderful BBC programme

"It's not easy being green"

where Dick Strawbridge is focusing on how to live

an environmental friendly, low impact life !

And of course there were the faces ...

the ones I did during Jude Hill's Patchwork Beasts Class

Faces for beasts, for who or whatever ...

never used, untill now.

The leaf, the head and the face

but .... I wasn't happy with the way the leaf veins turned out ...

so I pulled out the light green merino !

(a lot to choose from)

This is more like the original colour.

She got arms and legs, I made a template for a backside

of brown wool, then stitched the two sides together

and filled it loosely up with more wool.

Mrs. Green 

Well isn't it a coincidence that I made this green lady

at this moment ?

Today and tomorrow are special "SAVE OUR SOILS" days !

or here

(hmmmm ... they say : coincidence does not exist)

a far away friend and a new challenge

It's not always important 

how close by or far away friends are,

more important is the feeling they give you !

Today arrived a little package from the US.

I was told it would be coming,

even knew a bit what was in it.

But to really hold it in your hands 

is special !

Nancy made something for me because of her blogaversary

(a year ago ! yes : she started when she knew 

who it would be for ...)

A real  s l o w  cloth piece 

(just like we learned from Jude Hill, right Nancy ?)

a tiny woven pouch

and a sweet card.

Such a gift really warms the heart !

Thank you so much Nancy !!!

*

While I was busy working on items 

we could take to the summer festival,

Sara Lechner started another "Challenge"

a hanging doll this time.

I was so busy doing other things, that I only had time

to look through the first two instructions

and glance at the pinterest board sometimes.

I didn't even have time for instruction number three

.......

But, last Monday I took the "Embellisher"

and the stuff I had collected during the first week

and made a start.

My plan was, not to make a doll exactly like Sara's,

but : a mermaid.

(hmmmmm ... I discovered someone else ended up

with a mermaid as well, but I decided to stick with my original plan)

Growing

Front and back of the same lady

(I could work a bit differently because I had seen lesson one ánd two !)

One side of the body fixed with the embellisher

the other side sewn together.

The face is embroidered on the wool itself, and a tiny blue extra cap

to fasten the hair on.

For now, "swimming" in the garden

A sideview with the tangle of seaweed-like hair

It was another fun "Challenge" Sara !

THANKS !

finished Challenge !

I think after almost eight weeks

after Sara started her Challenge for us,

I've finished the booklet.

"Along the Lines"

In fact it has become quite thick :

7 x 7 x 10 cm

That is because I made a lot of pages.

With the first instructions Sara gave us,

she suggested to think of a number of items

you could make for your chosen theme.

(so, I started thinking and made

about ten little sketches for possible pages

for my "lines" theme)

I ended up with 10 pages. 

In fact there are 11 but I sewed two together.

On top of the considerable number of pages, 

I backed every page with fabric,

so I didn't have be careful with the embroidery stitches.

On the backing fabric is machine-written what "line" it's about

The next step was to make buttonhole stitches on the spine-side

of all the pages.

Then, 

stitching every page to an extra piece of felt, and after that

attaching this piece to the cover spine

.....

front and back cover sewn to it, and :

FINITO !

Dear Sara,

it was a wonderful challenge that you initiated 

THANK YOU  for that.

It was a joy to work on it 

and encounter a lot of nice people

who participated in it