Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

With my sewing machine threaded up with black thread and the feed dogs down, prepared for free machine stitching for another project, it was not a hard decision to stitch a couple of "faces " for Tag Tuesday  where one of the team's designers, Michele   has chosen "Faces" as the current theme.  These are free stitched  on a Bernina sewing machine - nothing fancy, just lower the feed dogs and add the spring loaded darning foot... I don't design before hand and just use the machine to sketch, hence these faces are in no way symmetrical or beautiful. I like the spontaneity of these and they take me only about 15 minutes to complete. I then cut out the embroidery and adhere it to a prepared cardboard tag. 

One of the textile things I love doing is making fabric out of scraps... I think this is often called pizza fabric because all sorts of bits and pieces are thrown down onto a base. This was one of the activities at last Sunday's Crafternoon Tea. For those not familiar with a 'crafternoon tea', it is a lazy Summer Sunday afternoon  when a few like minded people get together and "create" and indulge in a scrumptious afternoon tea.  Prior to the Fabric Fun day, we've had a felting afternoon, and a clay play day , with another clay play day planned for next month. Last Sunday, we had demonstrations of felt embellishment with angelina fibres, glitter and organza and paper collaged fabric as well as some experimenting with the embellishing machine and making the "pizza" fabric with free form machine embroidery. The days are lots of fun as well as being inspirational, so when Autumn and Winter arrive, we will change to Souper Skills Sundays - learning new c...