Today I worked on getting the bead book ready for binding, painted backings for the applique book, got another shadow applique almost ready to stitch and taught Paula how to put photos on to Flickr and then on to the forum. Paula and I also stopped by the college to check out the lab room for future felting classes.

 Here’s the bead book all ready for binding. I had planned on beading the binding all along but I ran out of the beads I was planning to use. So I went to buy more and guess what? They don’t have them anymore. I got some that I thought were the right color but they aren’t. But I am going to just have to use them as they are close enough.

 Here’s the shadow applique. I haven’t gotten the organza attached in any way at this point. I’ll have to do some basting. I took this photo at an angle to show the colors better. I found that the organza doesn’t show well from straight above as you’ll see in the following photos.

 Here is the piece without the organza.

 This was when I was sampling different pieces of organza. This is the same organza as in the top photo but you can see it just kind of disappeared.

 I tried another piece but it seemed to look too “spotty”.

 Then I turned the background around and liked it better from this angle.

I tried the other piece of organza again but still doesn’t work for me. Now I’ve got to decide what color thread to use. I did make a small sample piece to try out some different thread colors as this piece will have more stitching on the background. Did you do something fun today?

Today I worked on my applique projects. I finished one and almost completed the second one.

 This is the geometric stacked applique I showed you yesterday. It’s all stitched now. I can see that the placement was a bit off on some of the pieces but it will have to do.

This is the shadow applique. It’s made with black and white felt and then covered with a layer of organza and then stitched to hold the felt pieces in place. You can’t really see the stitching well but if you click on the photo you should be able to see it better. I used black thread so it would give the “shadow” effect. I just need to finish the edges and turn the organza under to finish the edge. I hope to get my bead book ready to bind tomorrow. I have to find something that will hold it fairly straight while I stitch. Hopefully, I’ll be showing you a finished bead book soon!

I started working on binding the bead book today. I completed all the edges and hopefully they are even enough.

 Here’s the back with the fused organza and the edge marked ready to stitch.

 Here are all the pages with their stitching.

It has been really slow at the store for the last few days so I got quite a bit of stitching completed. I’m working on my applique samples since I still haven’t gotten the backs on my bead book pages. I did get a few of those fused down this morning and I plan on fusing the rest tonight. Then I can start on binding the edges.

 I finished the stitching on the cover for my applique book. I am undecided on whether I will add anything else to this or not. I don’t like that the cut pieces have the shape of a face. I didn’t see that when I first cut it out but now that someone mentioned it, I can’t unsee the face. I’m not sure what I can do to change it at this point though.

Here is the second applique piece I started stitching today. If you’ve been following along, this is the piece that I designed by playing with black and white shapes in this post. I used wool felt that Jan gave me – Thanks Jan! Normally we are to use our own hand dyed felt for homework so hopefully this will be OK even though it is commercial felt. I thought since it was such a traditional type of design that the commercial felt looked good. Plus I really liked the colors and the heathery appearance. I guess I’ll find out when I go back in February. Thanks for stopping by!

I’ve managed to blog for 14 days in a row and have gotten quite a bit done in the first two weeks of January. Today I worked on stitch class homework (what else do I do?). We are to choose a folk art design and make an applique sample in that style. I have chosen the Kyrgyzstan culture and the shyrdak rug designs in felt.

 I am interested in these rugs/designs as these are the types of rugs that were used in traditional yurts.

 They are made with bright colors and intricate cut designs and I thought they would work well for applique.

 The plan at the moment is to use hand made felt to make the applique. I already have some prefelts that I thought I could use. I have to check and see what color they are.

 I actually like the ones that are made with natural colored wool the best but I think I’ll use brighter colors for my design.

 Here is a cut out I made of the planned design. This may be a bit tough to cut out in felt. I didn’t glue this in my notebook yet as I thought the colors were a bit much. I made add a bit of paint to make them more like the colors used in the photos above.

I also did some stitching for the cover of my applique book. You can see that the bottom piece has been stitched and the top piece still needs to be done.