I’m off to the West Midlands for my Great Auntie’s 80th birthday party this weekend. I’m pretty sure that the last time I saw her was my Nan’s 80th over seven years ago so I’m looking forward to seeing her and the rest of the family.
The card that I’ve made her is another one based on the designs of Stitchingcards.com. Hope she likes it!
I’ve made three of these this evening so I just have six to go. They’re for my Year 13s and will accompany the owls, which I still have four to make. I quite like the effect of the mathematical background and allowing the front square to overlap the edges of the card. Now I just have to decide what I’m going to make for my form. It’s just over four weeks until they leave now :¬(
On Saturday morning I made this card for Caroline and Rob, whose housewarming party I was supposed to be going to in the evening. I hadn’t been well all week, but, as usual, I kept going and ended up making myself worse and had to miss the party :¬(
I stitched the design and then painted onto the card. This is really effective from a distance although a little less so up close but here it is…
I’ve made my first batch of good luck cards for my departing classes today. These ones are for my seventeen year 11s who have worked their socks off and deserve a lot of success this summer (at least in Maths!). I’m very proud of them.
I’ve stitched the four-leaf clover onto each the card and each one is slightly different. I now have two more sets of cards to make in a few weeks time so watch out for more good luck posts soon!
I just had to share this fantastic website set up by a very good friend of mine. Her stuff is gorgeous and she’s selling at very reasonable prices. Have a look…
This is always an odd time of year for me. I usually make things as one-offs but as the exam season approaches I always make a few pieces in bulk. This year I have a small Year 13 group so I’ve been more adventurous than usual. I have another four owls to make but I’ve now finished the first five. They don’t actually go on study leave until the end of May so I have plenty of time. Actually, my Year 11s go first so I’d better crack on with some good luck cards for them pretty soon.
Anyway, here are the good luck owls (with the bunny from yesterday’s post)…
I’ve been working hard making soft owls on Mum’s sewing machine this week. They’re for my A-level Further Maths group when they leave in a few weeks and I will post them later in the week when I’ve finished the trims. Anyway, upon seeing these sat on the mantelpiece, Katryn asked if I could make a bunny for her. I enthusiastically agreed and set to it immediately. My first attempt (designed by us on paper) was not very successful so I decided to get on the internet to find a real pattern. I used a tutorial on sew4home, which was relatively straightforward to follow until I got to stitching the face and neck together. I found that I had to stitch the pieces together in a different order and my rabbit’s face does not look exactly as it should. I also avoided too much hand stitching by machining the head onto the body before stuffing the bunny from the bottom. As usual, it’s not a perfect piece of work and it has taken me hours and hours but I think Katryn will love her…
David and I got married in Cley Windmill where we could only have 20 guests so I decided that I’d bring the windmill to the reception by making a windmill wedding cake. I made two round fruit cakes and a third in a pudding basin. I marzipanned and iced them successfully and even spent hours creating a wooden sail and balcony from headless matches (the sail even turned). It wasn’t perfect but I was proud of it…
However, I did all this at home in London without properly thinking the whole thing through. I had no way to transport it to Norfolk. For two and a half hours I held it on the floor between my feet but the car was too warm and the icing slowly began to melt and sag. By the time we got it to Norfolk I wasn’t prepared to have it used. I demolished it and cut it up for the guests to eat but they were never to see it and this is the only photograph I have of the creation.
Fortunately, David does not like fruit cake so we had ordered a couple of sponge cake bars from M&S so there was another option… One of our readings at the ceremony was The Owl and the Pussycat so I had asked Ruth to make us an owl and a pussycat from polymer modelling clay for the windmill cake. I constructed a card windmill and made a pea-green boat to go alongside a cake bar painted with food colouring. It was tiny but you’ll never see another wedding cake like ours!
Yesterday, Steve and Gill Bland hosted a fantastic event to celebrate their 30th birthdays this month. I loved their facebook image for the event so much that I shamelessly stole it and made it into a stitched card…
