once upon a time

I've been doing a wee bit of sewing lately and trying to brush up on my hand embroidery skills. I have just finished a piece for an exhibition, the title of my work is "Once Upon A Time." Sorry photos aren't great, it was a grey day when they were taken.

 

 

The text and image were printed using a paper backed fabric which I inserted into my inkjet printer. The text comes from a fairy tale - "The Princess Who Stood on her Own Two Feet". This story is part of a book "Don't Bet on the Prince" edited by Jack Zipes. The stories differ from traditional fairy tales as they portray female characters in strong leading roles.

The background was machine pieced using a crazy log cabin block. I then tacked a piece of wadding to the back to add stability for the embroidery. I really wanted to practice my hand embroidery and used the seams for lines of different stitches. Here's a few detailed photos of my attempts......

 

 

 

 



I then added a backing fabric, my hand quilting method, to hold the three layers of the quilt together was quilt in the ditch so the stitches would be unobtrusive.

Definitely more practice is required with the hand stitching, particularly the French Knots which tend to be a rather hit and miss affair!
Bysie Bye, Ali.