The Heirloom Artisan Market 2016

I'm late in sharing this, but this is where I was on Saturday!

Stitch Therapy

Amazing how a few stitches of colored thread make my heart feel all bright and cheery. Simple things matter. Small...

Posted by Azra Momin on Monday, January 25, 2016

Please Share Your Thoughts!

This takes a bit longer than you might think, but it's so worth the effort.

I've stitched rows of lace and trimmimgs on to paper using metallic threads, and then embellished them with sequins and cord. I made one all golden, and one all silvery white, and I can't decide which one I like better!
The last piece was crazy-quilted on to paper using whatever my hand reached first, and then also embellished with sequins and a big hand-swen mirror.

The pieces have come out gorgeous, and I love how mounting them on canvas and then mounting that canvas on to a bigger canvas presents them in an eye-catching but understated way.
They look far better in person and are wonderful accessories for any room, as well as being amazing, unique gift items!

Gold on gold on gold - fit for a princess!

My favorite colors - all shades of white - there are six different whites in there.  This would look fabulous in an all-white room.

A more abstract, free-stitched piece, with white and gold and silver all together.  So there, that was all the stitching I spoke about yesterday.  Please share your thoughts!

Fused plastic fantastic

Fused plastic? When I first heard that term I thought it must be some long drawn out funky process that I wouldn't be able to do. Surprise! It's only a matter of using a hot iron on the plastic (under something stick-proof, like wax-paper, of course). So a few weeks ago I played around with used plastic bags that we end up accumulating even though we use cloth bags for grocery. These are thin, thin bags, with some writing on them in black. They are the ones on big rolls under the fruit and vegetable counters.

So anyway, I fused a bunch of bags, making an 8-ply fold for each bag and ironing them together. The result was a delicate, translucent, pliable plastic. I made a bowl out of some ( maybe I can take some pictures of that when our camera feels up to the job) but from the left over pieces I made these:

I wish I had better pictures, but here goes:

OK, this picture is REALLY grainy...


Can you see the cut out plastic house? There's some of the writing showing through, which looks pretty cool.


I embellished the house by stitching all around it as well as stiching a door shape on the front, drew some tree branches, and sewed on a random, connected ovals crochet piece I had previously made. It's now a cloud!

And here's the second one I did. Here the fused plastic is the cloud, which I made by simply cutting little circles and then sewing them on to the paper in an overlapping pattern.


With more mehndi-like embellishments:


These were so much fun to make. And I liked the fact that I used up some of that plastic! Do you have a recyling story to share?