Patchwork, Poppies and Painting

OK so I have not been well and been pretty miserable with some rubbish weeks, which is an excuse but a valid one, and the other problem that I have is that I am trying to finish off the "wedding makes" blog post and although I am really proud of everything we made, the wedding seems like such a long time ago and so the enthusiasm just isn't quite there.

In the mean time, I am carrying on with other projects and the blog is missing out on them, so, I will leave the wedding post to simmer and in the mean time try and keep you updated.

A lot of work has been going into my patchwork kit that I got from a friend as a wedding gift. The top is finished. I have bought the wadding and found an old bed sheet in a charity shop to use as the backing and I am currently trying to line all three up without any creases so that I can quilt it. This is really not easy, in fact it is ridiculously difficult and I am panicking about the quilting so I think I will be getting some advice and reading some instructions before I attempt it. Here is the quilt so far:



My first patchwork


Outside of this I have been continuing with my C&G work. I have completed my basic two-piece dress:




Basic two-piece dress

 and, am looking forward to making it into my own style. I dug out some fabric today but it didn't look how I thought it did so I may be heading back to the fabric shop!

I have also been working on my bodice, shirt and one piece dress too so watch this space.

On a design front I found a few blogs today that showed people's sketchbooks from their C&G and it really inspired me to get going again. Here are a couple that really impressed me:
http://lizbenjeddi.blogspot.co.uk/
http://madebymelanie-cityandguilds.blogspot.co.uk/

I created my mood board the other day and it is full of poppies and polka dots. I started with Mr Jones' fantastic poppy picture:



Poppies in Norfolk


Then drew out a poppy onto some solufleece, attached it to some denim and embroidered over it:



Embroidered poppy

 I am really pleased with the results. Then the rain came so instead of going out I decided to do a bit of painting. I started with the end of a pencil (the rubber end) and moved onto some bubble wrap to produce these prints:




Using the end of a pencil




Printing using bubble wrap




Still bubble wrap but adding centres for the look of poppies

 Hopefully there will be more to follow shortly although I am off Norfolk for the weekend (which is where the poppy picture was taken!).

Love,

Mrs Jones