Friday, 6 May 2016

Sew Special at A Vintage Journey

Wow, it's the first Friday in May and we are gathering at A Vintage Journey for Jenny's 'Sew Special' challenge. I so enjoyed designing and making for this theme, it's one that's been off my radar for a very long time yet used to be one of my favourites and as I had a canvas with tissue wrap on it ready to be used, I went for it. Gathering all my sewing elements and stamps together I began to get ideas in my head and had to start making choices and decide what would go together.


Background
This started it's life whilst teaching my 'Collection of 3' workshop recently and is made from a piece of canvas from a canvas pad. I began by dipping it into broken china and dried marigold distress inks and spritzing it with water to move the paints around and then heat dried it.


 Later I used a stencil and white crackle paste to create a textured design and when it was dry I sprayed on some broken china and tea dye distress stains, spritzed a little with water, let them drip and merge a bit and dried it, then used the stencil and ground espresso distress crayon to create some darker patches of the pattern.


Dress Form
Although the Hot Picks sewing/haberdashery stamps have been out a long time they remain my most favourite images for this theme. I used HP1215EZ for the dress form and cut it out after stamping on card. I took Wendy Vecchi's cornflower blue EP and covered the whole shape, the a layer of thick, clear EP before using Wendy's tea Rose EP but localising it to the body form only. Next I stamped over it with ground espresso DI and covered it with walnut stain distress powder and heated it so that the powder created a mottled outline, then I edged with coffee archival ink, heated it, covered with versamark and the clear EP again before stamping into it with the coffee archival ink. It created somewhat smudged look but it's grungy and distressed which was what I was aiming for.

    

Sewing Machine
This was a chipboard piece I found in my 'sewing' box, I covered it with versamark and walnut stain distress EP and when cool I blended hickory smoke Di all over, then sanded the edges and blended them with ground espresso. Next I used the clear, thick EP, flicking a lot of it off before heat drying and then blended over black soot when it was cool. To finish off I stamped a design in versamark and used gold EP and did the edges the same.


Thread winder and coat hanger
More chipboard pieces covered in picket fence DI, stamped text with black soot then covered with fine, clear EP. Edges sanded and blended with ground espresso before winding thread onto the card.


Ruler border
For this embellishment I used a piece of off white card (Marianne Designs stamping card) and followed Sheena's faux leather technique but mixed it up to make it fit my project. Once I got to the stage where the softened and flexible card had been put through Tim's embossing folder I then carried on in my way.


When it was fully dry I dipped and spritzed (with water) using dried marigold DI, dried it, repeated with just a little vintage photo and again when dry I rubbed over both broken china and ground espresso ink pads to get my aged look.


Spools
These were simply scratched with a prima distressing tool, blended with vintage photo and ground espresso DIs and thread, hessian and lace added to them.


I put the smallest, which was cut in half to provide a flat back, on the canvas frame, you can also see the finished thread card with needle embellishment given a rusted look.


The Butterfly
This was also a demo/teaching left over  and made using Tim's layered butterfly die and embossing folder, distress embossing powder, distress inks and gloss varnish. You will see on the finished canvas that I added lots more ground espresso DI round the edges.


Here's the body when it was finished with a small dress form shaped stamped with cotton reel tops and a rusty scissors embellishment added.


The canvas
This was given a layer of music score tissue wrap before being dipped in watery dried marigold and picket fence distress paints and edged with vintage photo and ground espresso.


So there we are - my contribution towards the 'sew special' challenge. I hope you will be able to join us where there is a prize this month from Calico Craft parts. Have fun.



With much warmer this week here in the UK we have been attacking the back garden and getting it sorted out for the summer - new turf has been laid, fence painted and shrubs and tubs to be finished. We're getting there.

Enjoy your weekend with whatever you have planned.

hugs Brenda xxx