Collaged Easter Cards

Something different for Easter: hand made, collaged cards...
[Please click on the link below to the picture to go to the listing for sale.]

"9 Eggs" - handmade Easter card

 "12 Eggs + 4" - handmade Easter card

 "16 Eggs #2" - handmade Easter card

"Happy Easter!" - handmade Easter card

"Happy Easter #2" - handmade Easter card

These cards, and many others, are listed in my Etsy and Folksy shops.

Work in Progress: 'Growing' Rag Rug

I have just started working on a new rag rug wall hanging, called 'Growing'. This one is based on drawings of Tansy plants from our garden, which I have turned into an almost abstract pattern. Below is an acrylic painting (now sold) that I painted on the same subject:-

The rag rug is made from strips of recycled t-shirts, hand hooked through a backing fabric.

The design is drawn onto the backing fabric with a black Sharpie pen. The t-shirt strips are cut with dressmaking scissors, and the ends are snipped to height with the napping scissors. (This pair were a birthday present from my husband from Ernest Wright & Son Ltd. They are very sharp and a pleasure to use.) The background will be a mixture of mid to dark blue and black, and the flower heads will be pale to bright yellow to yellowish green.

Vintage-Style, Stripy Scrap Patchwork Quilt

This colourful lap quilt or throw is made from 1090 individual pieces of fabric. I aimed to achieve a 'scrappy' vintage look with the eclectic mix of fabrics used.

Included are precious snippets of 1970s Summer dresses, vegetable-dyed fabrics, fabrics dyed by me, repurposed clothing, right up to modern day batiks and Kaffe Fasset shot cottons and colourful flower fabrics.

 The colour scheme goes from light to dark in the columns and from red to orange/yellow, green, brown, blue, purples/lilacs to pinks across the rows.

 The quilt is made in a freely adapted rail fence pattern, with stripes of differing widths, (each stripe may be made from one to three different fabrics), and these are made into 144 five inch squares, and finished off with a yellow and mint binding, inspired by an antique quilt.

 The quilting is machine sewn at 2.5 inch intervals using a cream to beige shaded thread. The wadding is 80% cotton/20% polyester and gives a good combination of warmth and drape to the piece.

 The finished size is approximately:-
5 feet square
(60 inches square)
(152.5 cm square)

 The quilt has been pre-laundered to give it the softness and puckering cherished in vintage quilts.

This quilt is currently for sale in my Fire Horse Textiles on Folksy shop, priced at £300.

Flowers in a Vase - Punch Needle Wall Hanging

Here is my latest wall hanging: 'Flowers in a Vase'.

This wall hanging, is made using a punch needle technique, where each loop is hand punched through the monks cloth backing fabric. It is like painting with fabric and yarn! The fabrics used include re-purposed tweedy wool skirt lengths, and blanket fabric, together with some modern, multi-coloured yarns.

The piece measures approximately 16 1/2 inches in width by 15 3/4 inches high (42 cm in width by 40 cm high).

There is a hanging sleeve on the reverse, together with a hanging dowel.

This piece is available from my Folksy Shop, priced at £100, plus shipping.

Work in Progress: Stripy Scrap Quilt

I started on this lap quilt a few months back, and had to stop for a while to complete a couple of commissions, but I have finally finished piecing the top.

This is how it started out: a pile of little scraps, including fabrics dating back to the 1970s (summer dresses, shirts, off cuts from other projects etc):-

These were sorted into dark, medium and pale tones, then cut into strips, pieced into squares of about 5 3/4". Then trimmed to 5 1/2" squares. Because of the scraps I was working with, there was just about every colour and tone possible, so I tried to make each square work with the contrasts and colours within itself.

Here is a collage of some of the squares I came up with (randomly arranged).

When I had 144 squares, I started to work out a pattern with the random blocks. I decided to go for bands of colour in the columns, going from light to dark in the rows.

Here is the finished top, being basted to the wadding and backing (with help from Brock!):-

Just the quilting and binding to do!

Rag Rug, Recycled Denim Cushion

Here is one of my latest handmade items. It is a large, highly textured, one of a kind rag rug cushion.

It is made from recycled, laundered denim jeans, with some mustard yellow cotton fabric and multi-coloured yarn.

The techniques used for making the cushion are hooking, prodding, couching and punch needle, worked on a hessian base. This is finished on the inside with a fine layer of latex.

The lines of colour differ in width and height. The varying tones of worn denim give a mottled effect to some areas. The reverse is made from another pair of jeans, and is an envelope style with press studs, finished with vintage buttons and a Fire Horse Textiles label.

The cushion measures approx 18.5" (47 cm) square, when stuffed (measuring to the extremities). A hollow fiber pad is included.

This unique cushion costs £75 from Fire Horse Textiles on Etsy.

Posted by Julia of Fire Horse Textiles.