wild marathon

I was in time !
I know it's now already July
but two days before the end of the challenge
I finished it :
Yara's  BIBABO Wild Marathon.

June was a special month (again)
because there was not only a letter
"V"
but it had to be something of the floral part of life :
a flower, a tree, lichen or even a fungus !
And, like always,
executed in any creative way you come up with !
(though I love to make something with wet felting)

Venusschoentje
(Lady's slipper, Cypripedium calceolus)

Orchids are very rare in temperate regions
and ask specific circumstances to grow.
I remember that I saw one of these flowers as a child
on holiday in the Alps, it was stunning.
And I always remembered !!!

It took some serious thinking how to make it.

The way we made stems in a "VKG" workshop by Saar Snoek
was just what I needed for this.
I also used some pre-felt for the dark leaves

It's always fun, when everything comes together just fine !

This was "June"
on to number three for July
. . . . .

summer solstice (?)

Oh my, I can hardly believe it :
SUMMER ???
Cold and wet, that's all we can say about it.
(though there are other places in the world
that have a heatwave, right now !!!)

Our garden is GREEN,
though we have some other colours too :
the little rose bush, the foxgloves, many geraniums,
and now also the early phloxes.


I'm not really into this week's Stitch Club workshop
with whites, grays and browns, so I started
on a new background for some flower piece.
(30 x 40 cm)

The reds for the poppies aren't in place yet . . . but collected already.

The first step is stitching all of this,
mostly with some threads from a braid
that I made from a big thread-nest !

un-perfect 10

On June 12 the little group of felters
that challenge each other to make something fun
out of 10 grams of wool met per "zoom"
to show the results of that time.
Petra, one of the members loves to make "zentangles"
and one of those was the inspiration for all of us.

I studied that particular drawing a long time
but couldn't get around the "construction" of it.

Well : inspiration doesn't mean you have to follow exactly . . . so
I chose "woven" as my theme.

Though it was said to be 2D, I thought it was fun to make it 3D !

With this one, I was very early
though I thought I was awfully late !
(hmmm, wrong date, because I scribbled something
on the note that had the right date, so the "1" disappeared   :-D !!!)

That meant time enough to give it another go
Again with "woven"
and, I wanted a more open structure.

A Celtic knot was just what I was looking for !
BUT in the end I didn't like that all of it
felted together . . .

So these two were what I had for the show and tell

But today
number three was born !
Another Celtic knot, though I used other colours.
(limited by the things in my stash !)

More to my liking !

The blue knot is as big as the first attempt I made
The red one is bigger but thinner.

a new bird, dogs and a guest

I've made a lot of birds
since the first little robin
after the workshop of Mandy Pattullo in Stitch Club.
And then along came Ann Smith of Persimmon Stdio Art
(during the fun week of "Making ZEN")
she had this mini workshop making a zipper pouch
with a blackbird on it.
No pouch for me, but the blackbird was a good idea
for the 20 x 20 cm background
that was lying around for a while, with nothing on it.

I loved Ann's idea of nót only using black.

I made a template for a blackbird,
found some snippets to add and the stitching fun could begin !

After the bird was attached I stitched the background
(after adding a bit of my "magic thread")

This time I attached the piece to a canvas
that I painted on the edges with matching colours

Painting the edges of a canvas
was something I also did earlier this week for daughter's work.
She made some fabulous pieces for
the handfasting ceremony of some friends.

She made the little dog portraits the way Susie Vickery taught us in SC !

Don't have to tell you that these presents were a SUCCESS !!!

And while daughter and kids were away to the handfasting party
WE
had a sweet guest to look after for those few days !

This beautiful boy isn't what you would call a daredevil
so a chair under the table was the preferred spot,
but that lasted only the first day.

He's home again now
(but he can come gladly some other time !) 

bling ? bling !

 For the workshop by Bridget Steel-Yessop
I made a second piece
but now I left the design attached to the background.
(I might have done it otherwise . . .
but then I had to add wire too)

I started with a "sky" background on tarlatan in a hoop.

First the outlines and the lines dividing the section
were couched on, after that the lace stitching could begin.

I used cotton and silk sewing thread.

For the lace stitching I removed the work from the hoop
I liked that better, working small the stitches
with the fine thread !
Two cobalt blue sequins instead of the tiny circle lace.

To finish the edges I cut off the extra tarlatan
and folded the seam with neat corners
before stitching it to the tarlatan back.

Next step was painting a little canvas, so the edges
would match the colouts of the sky-fabric.

*

MORE  BLING :
a really bling workshop by Chloe Patience
was next and a fun in-between for the other things I'm working on.

On a leftover piece of gray linen
I made some "flowers" from stacked sequins.
There was my old stash and some new cheap ones, enough to play with.
I had some very bright hologram pinks (Gütermann)
that I NEVER used because before because they are just too bright :
I now used a lot of them in those stacks !

(back to other work)

needle lace

 The Stitch Club workshop that I started again with
was by Bridget Steel-Yessop
(it was in fact the second one, but I didn't do the first)
Needle lace has a variety of different stitches
but she taught us one, and stuck to that.

We should first make a square, to learn and try the stitches
then do a more complicated work : an insect with wings !

 
Adding beads into the work was my own choice
and was really fun to do.

After the lace was completed it was taken
off the temporary background
et voilá : lace !

(my next piece is finished, but needs to be stitched on a canvas 
and then photographed)

*

For May I still had a task to do for the
BIBABO WILD MARATHON

Because I was late again I was looking for a way out :

no felting this time !!!

I took my wonderful Karisma colour pencils
and did the task for May :

an animal starting with the letter "H"

AND
extra . . . it hád to be in only black and white

This is an ENORMOUS  Hercules beetle,

the biggest, plus the "horn" that only males have
(which speaks for itself !)

is about 17 cm !!!!!
NO WAY I would pick that one up
. . . . .

But luckily I was just in time yesterday !!!