New Purses for January 2014

I have had a wonderful week creating a purse each day and posting them in my Etsy shop 
All of these purses are cross-body style and are approximately 7" - 8" square.
 

 I absolutely love this piece of fabric that was given to me by my friend, Angela.  It has an incredibly wonderful design and I love Queen Anne's Lace so much that I couldn't resist free motion stitching an extra one to the back of the purse (sorry, you'll have to check the listing in my Etsy shop to see the additional photos).

 This one was created from a gorgeous piece of hand-dyed fabric and the rusty colour has been carried into the free motion quilting and the funky embroidery stitches that drift from back to front.

The beads that are part of the blanket stitch on the lower edge of the flap are a favourite of mine.

Such beautiful simplicity with neutral shades of beige, grey, taupe and a touch of black and white.

I really do love working with circles, so here is another one. The background of this purse was part of a quilt started by my friend, Denise, but I cut it up and pieced it again and then used the circles for the quilting.

Gorgeous purples in this purse include the new Radiant Orchid, colour of the year for 2014 ... I just like the way it all fits together in an asymmetrical way.  I created some yo-yos for the front flap for an added bit of whimsy.

I could not resist this batik butterfly on a black background. The purse has been densely quilted in an echo design. The lining is a Laurel Burch design of colourful butterflies on a black background, so it is very coordinated :)

This is one of my screen-printed trees on a piece of hand-dyed fabric.  The lining is commercial cotton that has trees on it so ... once again, it is nicely coordinated without being matchy-matchy.



This last purse has just been finished tonight ... you can see that it has the same tree screen-printed on it (the same tree that you saw on my last posting with the prayer/inspiration flags).  This one is printed on a piece of my hand dyed fabric that has swaths of copper metallic paint on it ... there is hand seed stitching as well as some delightful beads on the flap.

Side two of the Prayer / Inspirational Flags

Because I created these flags with a back side to camouflage some of my stitching, I decided to also add more design elements to the reverse side ... think of them hanging on a clothes line in the garden or from the ceiling in your office, where they can be seen from both sides.

The first flag is "dream" and I have added two little patches of the fabric stitched with primitive hand stitches and a few little beads.  The drift of seed stitches comes through from the front of the flag where it was also a design element.

The centre flag is "love" and some of the words from 1Corinthians are written on this flag. I have also used the screen-printed tree with a few little hearts added as leaves on the tree.

The third flag is "smile" and I stencilled this word into the centre of the stitched heart (which is also part of the design on the other side of the flag). I added a few French knots, a little beaded patch and a ribbon of frayed silk fibre that hangs over the primitive stitching that comes through from the front.

This has been a delightful project to work on and it really has been inspirational, soothing, and thought-provoking as I worked through my choice of text and stitch.

Registration is now open for this workshop at Sorrento Centre (www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca) or phone (250) 675-2421 or toll free 1-866-694-2409.

Prayer Flags ... Inspiration Flags

I have been having such fun creating a small set of prayer flags as a class sample for my upcoming workshop at Sorrento Centre!  I just know that it will be an enjoyable class for the participants as they work on a theme that suits them using techniques that I will teach during the workshop.

This is a set of three contemporary prayer flags that are double sided, but have no batting between the layers. Some of the stitching has gone through both layers, but each side is unique.  I will show you the second side of this set next week, but for now I'd like to share side one of the three flags. They are approximately seven inches square.

These flags have been created on a piece of my hand-painted fabric that has been awaiting inspiration for a couple of years.  I wish I had taken a photo of the piece of fabric before I tore it up, but you will notice the variations in colour throughout the flags, including little bits of white showing where I had not painted the entire piece of fabric. 

The hues of watermelon and chartreuse have been continued in the threads I chose for the stitching as I really wanted these to be peaceful and harmonious flags.

I chose "hope" for the first flag and the images of hearts.

The next flag will hang as the centre of the three and I chose "peace" for the theme and included a peace symbol that I created in pointillist style.

The tiny buttons (about 1/4" in size)  that cascade down the flag are symbols of something that holds us all together.

The third flag is "believe" and it is represented by a screen-printed tree that is anchored in the earthy part of the flag.

A sprinkling of seed stitches in a variegated thread drift across the flag and in the lower left corner there are three little patches with beads and hand embroidery.

Here is the link to the workshop where I will be teaching inspirational flags and buntings at Sorrento Centre