WOYWW....

Hello all.  Here we are at another Wednesday catch up with our creative friends around the world and what they are exposing this week.....on their desks of course!

Mine has been a hive of industry again this week....I've been dumfing [check out the link in the side bar if you want to know more]. 

I coloured a strip of white felt with dye sticks and wool rovings then dumfed yarns and fabrics in to make a batch of embellished card toppers.

I then machine embroidered details on each and mounted them onto cards.....each one is different and I love all the bright cheerful colours amongst them.

I have made 4 little Tic tac toe travel games using up some of my big buttons.....thought they might sell on the craft table but if not I know some little people who would enjoy playing with them.

The other thing I'm sharing today is something that made me smile.  It might not be so exciting to everyone but when you have to change an open ended zip in a quilted man's coat it's always exciting to me when it goes in without a hitch and all the seams line up to perfection.....I'm easily pleased 😀

So there you go, that's what's on my desk today.  How about yours?  If you leave me a little comment to let me know you've dropped in I will do my best to pay you a return visit.  I always read the blogs but there are a few I am unable to comment on [usually google+ blogs] so I'm sorry about that.  Hope you have a great week.

Hugs,

Annie x

WOYWW....

I'm sure many of you are here to see my desk so I'd best show you what's been going on in my sewing room this week.....[sorry but it is a bit picture heavy today]

That much older sister of mine came over Saturday for some dumfing fun [embellishing for those that don't know what I mean....and if you want to know more please click on the link in the right side bar].

I wanted to use my new hall blind as my inspiration to dumf a picture to go on the hall wall....pretty isn't it?

I found some linen in just the right colour for the background in my fabric stash and made a start with dumfing some green wool rovings as a background.

Next I found some threads/yarns and some dumfable fabrics to add some details for leaves and flowers.

Since then I have had a couple of sessions on it to machine embroider some finer details for the stems/flowers.

Here's a closer look to show you a bit of the machine embroidered details.

It's been a long time since I've really enjoyed some dumfing fun and to be honest I'd forgotten just how much I really enjoyed it.  I have lots more detail to work onto the pic before it's finished and may even do some hand embroidery and add some beading.

The other thing I'm quickly sharing with your today is my now finished dust cover I made for one of my sewing machines.....after all I do have 6 machines and can't use them all at the same time and we do have rather a lot of dust here lol.

I hope you've enjoyed your visit today and will leave me a little hello comment to let me know you've called in and I will do my best to pop over to yours so see what you've been up to this week as soon as I can.

Hugs,

Annie x

WOYWW....

Wahooooooo I have proper desks to show you today and I've been sewing on them too  :-)

To the left as you come in the room is my long work desk with my Janome and Bernina computerised machines on and my embellishing machine....or dumfer :-)  My darling hubby has also put me up shelves for my ribbon jars....don't they look fab?

To the right is my industrial sewing machine down the far end behind my cutting station....this is on casters so it can be moved to where ever it's needed.  :-)

Turn around and on the left as you go out the door is another work desk with my blind hemmer and over locker on.

There are more shelves to go up yet and more finishing touches but I love it.  The boxes you can see in the Ikea Expedit cupboard under my over locker will be filled with my fabrics [well some of it at least] so I can't wait to have time to sort it all......feel free to pop over to give a hand if you're free :-)

Thanks for calling by to see my work desk.  If you leave me a little message so I know you've called in I will pop over to yours to see what you've been up to this week.....Oh and if you can please try to snap a happy pic and link up to my Friday smiles cos we can never have too many smiles.
Hugs,
Annie x

WOYWW....

Happy Wednesday to one and all.  It's another of those 'I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours' days for the WOYWW gang.
.

It's been a week of dumfing for me in between my sewing jobs....I've started a new large poppy picture  :-)

This is where I've been creating.....sat at my craft table dumfing with all my yummy wools, threads and fabrics around me.

This is who was sat across the table from me on Monday!.....me, with my dumfer, and Jo with her sewing machine this week.

This is the chaos organised work space across the other side of my room with all a few of my machines.  My 'to do' rail filled on Monday while we were having fun  and, as I had the twins yesterday, there will be steam coming out of the top of these machines while I plough my way through my sewing mountain today.  The frame on the floor is the one I hope to be filling with my new poppy picture.

This is the stage I have got to with my poppy picture.....  A wet felted background mounted onto a pre felt base with more wool rovings and threads dumfed into it.  I will be machine embroidering details and will probably add hand embroidery and a few beads to it too.....watch this space!

If only you could smell this you would all be round for tea tonight.  :-)  It's a sign of autumn and colder days I guess when we get out the slow cookers but I do love the aromas in the house while they are cooking.....beef casserole in here today......yum yum







Well folks that's it from me today.  If you'd like to leave me a little hello message I will do my best to pay you a return visit in between my jobs.  Thanks for calling by.  Have a great week.
Hugs,
Annie x

p.s. for those wondering how the little wounded soldier is now....I don't think he even notices the plaster on his leg now thankfully.  We had a great day of fun and giggles on Tuesday.  :-)

Dumfing....

I know a lot of you already know what Dumfing is but we have had lots of enquiries lately so I thought I would do a proper blog to attach to the link on the side bar.

Dumfing is our word for embellishing.


Back last October Twiglet and I bought ourselves a Huskystar ER10 Embellisher each and we both agree that this has been our best 'toy' ever purchased.







Up til then we had used single embellishing needles or hand held embellishers with several needles in as shown here with the Brush to work on [I always keep a piece of felt on the top while working on it].





Embellishing needles are barbed needles that push fibres from one material into the other so locking them together. The barbs only face one way so that the fibres are pushed down but the needle then pulls back out clean, leaving the fibres behind. Hand held ones work perfectly for small hand held items like the bears I make but it takes time and lots of patience [and, in my case, fingers that end up like pincushions!]. For larger items the embellisher takes over beautifully. We have made covers for books, brooches and larger pictures to name but a few of the items and you can find some of these over in our blog shop.

We are able to combine threads, wool rovings, fabrics and all sorts of embellishments and produce really yummy things.

Now, I can hear you saying why dumfing? Our machine makes a noise when it works. It goes....dumf dumf dumf :-) From this has come a whole new vocabulary......
To dumf...to embellish
Dumfable....a yummy fabric that will easily embellish [not all fabrics will embellish]
Dumflings....little works of art made using embellishing
Dumfers....The crafty sisters of course :-) ....the list goes on :-)

If you google dumfing you will find our blogs come up top of the list and my son has even tried to get it put in a dictionary :-) I would advise anyone to get themselves an embellisher but beware it will take over your life...in just the best of ways. Here are just some of the ways it has taken over mine and some of the gorgeous things Twiglet and I have made with it.




My box full to overflowing with dumfable wool rovings. What gorgeous colours you can get. I try to keep them sorted into colours and, yes, they really do all squash down so the lid shuts :-)






Yummy dumfable fabrics. Natural fabrics such as wool, silk and linens work best but we have found lots of man made ones work well too so well worth trying anything.






A hand dumfed bear. I have spent many a relaxing night dumfing whilst watching the telly.








Dumfed Poppy picture. I have made, and now sold, very many pictures and really love the 3D effect you can get with fabrics to make beautiful flowers.











A brooch made from dumfling loveliness. Twiglet has made some really gorgeous brooches of all colours and happily takes orders it colours have to be specific.











A beautifully dumfed picture frame. Twiglet has made several frames and each one is so touchy feelie. It's just a shame we don't have touchy Internet :-)




There are so many other really fab cards, books etc over in the shop it's well worth making a coffee, pulling up a chair and having a browse.

My 20 Minuters for this week...

It's been another really busy week for me with all the sewing I do for my business but I am still really enjoying my 20 minuters [I must admit I have just sat down with crafting in mind but fell asleep ....hehe I guess my body was telling me something so my 20 minutes wasn't wasted]. I have made 3 more packs of dumfed cards this week and will pop them over in the shop on Monday when Twiglet comes down. It will be an exciting Monday for us cos it's the shop draw day so there will be one lucky winner finding out they have won. If your name isn't already in the draw then you have just a couple of days to join in.
These are the 3 sets of cards I have made in my 20 minutes each day. I'm sorry to say the lighting is very poor today so I will set up our backdrop and lighting to snap them for the shop but I thought you might like a sneak preview. Each card is different in some way to the next. I rarely make two the same unless I have to.

A plate spinning WOYWW

I seem to be juggling my day to day sewing with restocking the shop this week. As I'm putting new things in the shop they are flying off the shelves :-) Twiglet and I are really excited and maybe just a little amazed at the response we are getting [I guess none of us really see ourselves and what we make as others see them]. We have had lots of really lovely comments and oodles of encouragement.
I seem to spend each day extending my table to do my dumfing then folding it down to be able to accommodate customers needing fittings. I'm not complaining....I really love being kept busy and buzz with every new challenge.


What you see is just how it is this week....No tidying or organising done to do my show and tell and yes, the mess really is mine....that's how I work.



My floor gets covered in threads and snippets of materials and ribbons etc. I will hoover this up as soon as I go from here because I am expecting more customers this morning.



On my table you will see several things I am working on at the mo. Julia [she of the WOYWW fame] ordered a couple of packs of my dumfed cards so I am trying to restock the card shelf by making a few more toppers for cards. Along side those on the front of the table are some really super magnetic clips that I am embellishing [these will be appearing in the shop soon :-)].



Also this is the latest picture I am working on. It is one to be mounted on an artists canvas and I am now beading the middle of the sunflowers.









I have a pile of curtains here...some are done and some are waiting for Twiglet to come and do the grovelling on the floor for me to cut them. [My replacement knee doesn't allow me to kneel so I need big sister's help to do curtains as the floor is the best place for doing the measuring and cutting.] Under my curtain pile is the Really Useful set of boxes that I keep all my card making supplies in.








This is a really lovely floaty evening dress I will be altering today. It is beaded so it's yet another dress that I have to remove the beads to alter and then will have to re bead it after. A tricky job but I will do this first as soon as day light improves sufficiently. :-)

Well, that's what my day will be full of. How about you? Go over to Julia's blog and join in the show and tell fun for our 'What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday'

Don't forget the Gift Draw is still open in the shop so pop over to be in with a chance to win the goodies.

Happy Friday and my 20 Minuters...

Happy Friday to one and all. The snow here is slowly going. There is water dripping everywhere you look so I guess it will be floods next in the weather warnings. I have been good this week and have done my 20 minutes of crafting every day so thought I would share the results with you. I am aiming to show and tell my 20 Minuters every Friday because I am guessing once the snow goes I will be busy with customers and blogging every day wont be possible for me.

I started off with a strip of white felt and dumfed wool rovings and threads across it's full width then cut each one into 4 and embellished each one differently...I aim never to make 2 cards exactly the same.
Each card was finished off with hand embroidery, beads or buttons. I'm really pleased with the results. 20 minutes every day [and more] has been very productive this week. Do leave me a comments to tell me what you think.



For anyone who's interested I give lots of my cards as gifts but also sell some to my customers who call in for other sewing jobs. If anyone is wanting to buy some I am more than happy to sell via my blog too and have a paypal account I use to make purchases easy. Just let me know if you're insterested.

WOYWW and beyond...

Hello again. Yes, it's come round to another Wednesday when a lot of friends get together on Julia's blog to show and tell their workdesks. Please feel free to pop along there and join in the fun.
There is still an awful lot of the white stuff going on outside here so I have had very few customers braving the weather and that allows me time for fun.

As you can see my crafting table is opened out to it's full size to spread out my inspirational materials.....









........ and under the table sits this box full of yet more materials. I'm happy just to sit and sort through the lovely threads, beads and fabrics. How can you not be inspired to put them together to produce something special?

Yesterday I sat dumfing [see previous blog for explanation if needed :-)] and this is my latest creation. In the middle of my table you can see a stacking pot of beads. This is one of my latest purchases and the reason it was needed was a few years back I very foolishly tipped most of my seeded beads together into one section in my bead box. This makes it really difficult when you are looking for something particular so I am now sorting these beads into my new pots....Yes, I'm very patient and some would say rather mad to even consider doing this but it is making using them an awful lot easier. If you look back at my table you will notice a white triangular paper construction at the front. This is my home made bead sorter. I have used something similar when sorting tablets while nursing and just folded this one together out of a piece of A4 paper. Being white this makes the bead colours show up and it is really helping my labour of love of sorting out my seeding beads.

Beyond my crafting room is a cold and very unwelcoming world outside but even this is coming with really special moments for me. [My cup is always half full :-)] I take great pleasure watching my birds and this really cold weather has brought many different birds to my bird tables to feed. I have feeding stations just a couple of feet from my sewing room window at the front of the house and my kitchen window at the back of the house so where ever I am in the house I am able to watch my feathered visitors. I have been taking note of what birds have been feeding and at the moment my count is up to 17 different ones....Black cap, Redwing, Bull finch, Nuthatch, Robins [I've seen 5 so far!] Mistle Thrush, Blackbirds, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Blue tit, Coal tit, Great tit, Collared dove, Pigeons, Dunnock, Jackdaws and Sparrows. How about you? Do you have any really unusual birds visiting you with all this snow around?

This is my Mistle Thrush...he is huge and really aggressive and chases all the black birds away but he is so entertaining.


This little bird feeding under the feeding tray is a little Blackcap...he's learned it's somewhere the Mistle Thrush can't reach him :-)




I hope you are all able to find something positive to come from the cold weather and are able to stay safe and warm. Thanks for dropping in.

Embellished Poppies ...

I started making a large embellished picture here way back at the beginning of December and as you can imagine with Christmas and the New Year in the middle it had to be put to one side to finish at a later date. With all this wonderful snow around this week, although I have had quite a lot of sewing from my customers, I have also been able to fit in some dumfing. I'm completely hooked ...I love the ease that threads and fabrics bond together and love the way the applied colours 'paint' a picture. The 3D effect of the flowers has to be seen in real life to be truly appreciated but I thought I would share a few pictures of the process.

This is a copy of the first stage photo. At this stage I had embellished the background with wool rovings and used textured threads for stems in the foreground.

Here you can see I have added more threads and fabric strips to the stalks and stems in the foreground to build up textures and added various red fabrics for the poppies.

I have now added the beads and final details to the poppies and really love the 3D effect of the flowers. It's all ready for framing now.

I have now fixed the picture in it's mount and thought I'd snap it before I put it behind the glass because I know photos will be difficult then.

Ta da! all finished and ready for hanging up now. It's finished measurement is 52cm so it looks pretty impressive in it's Ikea frame. I'm thrilled with the result and hope you like it too.

If anyone is interested I would be more than happy to do commissioned pictures using this method. Just let me know what you'd like. [Prices would obviously depend on the work/materials required.]