Valentine ATCs

Terri Stegmiller posted some ATC's for trade on her blog, and I really liked them, so I told her I wanted to trade for one. This meant I had to make one for her, of course. So while I was making one, I made eight. I made them with my embellisher - I love that machine! I haven't used it in awhile, so it was a great excuse to use it again. Here is the one I'm sending to Terri:



I've saved out three for some friends:



And here are the other four:



If anyone would like to trade for one of the last four, please leave me a comment with a way to contact you. I'd love to trade!

Padfolio

Now that it's after Christmas, I can show this padfolio that I made for my mom. I used my needle punch machine for the background and the flower, then free motion stitched in the background and around the flower with my sewing machine. The pattern for the padfolio is by Sue Bleiweiss, and can be found at Two Creative Studios; the flower is my own design. I modified the pattern to use velcro for a closure rather than a cord.

Embellished ATCs

I took the felt I did earlier with foil (here) and added more fibers on top. I used some yarn I bought from Terri Stegmiller (her Etsy shop is here) and made the hearts. Then I fused the felt to pelmet vilene with muslin on the back and satin stitched the edges. When I completed all of that, I thought they still needed something, so I stamped the words on a paper towel I had used when I painted some fabric paper and fused them on with Misty Fuse.

More Embellishing

I finally broke down and ordered some chiffon scarves from Joggles, which I needed for my embellishing class. They came a couple of days ago. We're talking the old fashioned kind of scarf that women used to wear in the 50's or 60's to keep their hair in place! But they are really sheer, which is what I needed. So I took the felt that I embellished the other day (scroll down to the second picture here), added some snips of yarn, covered it with a light blue chiffon scarf, and embellished some more. Then I used my circle attachment for my Bernina for the first time and stitched circles all over. Finally, I cut it into 2 postcards. I love my embellisher!

Embellishing

I played some more with my embellisher the past couple of days - trying to catch up on my class work from Embellish Stitch and Enrich by Dale Rollerson. For this first piece, I started with black felt, fused some Wonder Under onto it, then fused foil to the Wonder Under. After that, I added bits and pieces of yarn, soy silk, mulberry bark, and wool roving. I didn't have any chiffon scarves, so I put some tulle on top to help keep it all in place and then punched away. When I was done, I pulled the tulle off and this is what I got:



For this next one, I painted some Wonder Under and fused it to white felt. Then I added some soy silk, silk throwsters waste, and cheesecloth over top. I had read about painting Wonder Under, but I'd never done it before. It makes a really pretty background surface.



For this postcard, I again started with painted Wonder Under on felt, added wool roving, soy silk, and yarns, and punched. I cut it into strips and wove the strips, then punched some more. I had a big enough piece for 2 postcards, but I punched about 1/3 of it from the back before I looked at the front and I didn't like how it looked. Since I was doing all of this on white felt, the white was coming through to the front and making it look washed out. So I ended up only making one postcard from it - I will save the other piece and may make something else from it, but now there isn't a big enough piece for another postcard because of the way I cut it. Maybe a bookmark or something . . . we'll see. I added 3 silk flowers and balled up some yellow yarn for the flower centers. Then I fused this to some Pelmet Vilene (thinner than Timtex, but with 2 layers of felt, all I needed was a bit of stiffening, no added thickness), fused some muslin to the back, and satin stitched the edges. I'm happy with how it turned out - it's for a postcard swap on the Machine Needle Felting group on stitchin fingers.

New Embellishing Machine

I bought a Husqvarna Viking Embellishing machine a few weeks ago. It is so much fun!! You can see it here.

I already have a needle punch accessory kit for my Bernina, but it isn't working exactly right at the moment. I think that something is out of alignment, because every time I use it, I break needles. That didn't happen when the kit was new. I know how to move the fabric slowly to avoid needle breakage; but when I look at the needles, they don't look centered over the hole. My dealer is about 70 miles away, so I always try to make an appointment to take the machine in first thing in the morning, do other shopping, and pick it up late in the afternoon. The technician has been too busy to make that same-day appointment. I was signed up for Dale Rollerson's Embellish Stitch and Enrich class (here) that started August 12th, and I'd been thinking about a stand alone machine for awhile, so when I learned that my dealer couldn't repair my needle punch accessory before the 12th, I took the plunge.

One of the advantages to a stand alone machine is that this technique generates a LOT of lint; and I do mean a LOT!! The attachment requires changing a lot of things on the machine, and of course cleaning it very thoroughly after I'm done. With the embellisher machine, I can leave it set up all the time, and cleaning it is so much easier. There just isn't much to the machine - no bobbin case or bobbin area to brush out or oil.

Eventually I'll get the attachment repaired, and then I might try to sell it. But in the meantime, I'm having fun with my Embellisher.

I've just been playing with it a lot, making up samples to put in a book. Here are some of the things I've done:





Both of these show various fibers punched into felt.



These are tulle and organza punched into felt.



This has cheesecloth, batik, and soy silk punched into felt.



And this one has felt punched into felt; the top flower is from the front, and the bottom one is from the back.