Art Exchange

Many people who know me well are also aware that my studio is a veritable treasure trove of goodies and whatever you're looking for in the way of supplies it's a fair bet that somewhere I will have something that suits. The reason I have so much (quite apart from my magpie tendencies!) is that when I'm in the creative zone I don't want to stop in order to go somewhere and buy the supplies I need for that particular piece. Living in the country as we do that usually means a day excursion and I lose the flow! Instead I buy stuff that I love whenever I see it anywhere or alternatively buy during late night online shopping expeditions. But making sometimes very large quilts means that even my supplies occasionally do get depleted. One supply that I can never get enough of is that of small, white, vintage buttons and recently I even moaned on this blog about just how fast they seem to disappear into art.

One of my regular blog readers, Jewels, contacted me by e-mail to tell me that she has a large stash of them and offered to swap some of them for a piece of my art. And here is the piece in question. It's called the Bird Inchie quiltie for obvious reasons! The imagery on this little quiltie comes from Alphastamps and the inchies were made using my fabric paper collage method. If you are interested in how that is done, just click on the fabric paper collage label below and the oldest post there will explain it step by step.

In exchange I received a gorgeous package from Jewels filled with beautiful vintage buttons and other goodies. Yummy! Only problem is they are so lovely that I will be saving them for that extra special project I'll make one of these days! You can read more about this and see more pictures on Jewels' blog post here.

Journey Quiltie and Memory ATC for Gauche Alchemy

Here are the first items I made with the wonderful Bare Nekkid kit, that I was send as their guest Designer for November, by Gauche Alchemy. The most important thing you need to know right from the start is that you can buy this kit yourself by going to this link here. You can read about it too on the Gauche Alchemy blogpost but I'm also going to give you the full instructions here on this blog about how to make both this quiltie and the ATC shown below.

Journey Quiltie
10.5” square

Start with one fabric, slightly larger than you want your finished size to be. I used a vintage linen napkin which had been tea-dyed. Layer it up with batting and iron the two together. On such a small piece there is no need to tack. The ironing alone will keep the layers together.
Sew materials randomly to the surface using your sewing machine and a thread of your choice (I used a metallic one). I added fabrics, laces but also sequin waste (kit) as well as corrugated cardstock (kit) and other papers from the kit.
When I added the embroidered green silk piece, it suddenly looked to me like a tree and that determined the direction I took my quiltie in. Always be on the lookout for where your art wants to go.
I started adding subsequent materials in a more planned way such as the Time text (kit). When happy with the layout, cut the piece to your desired size (mine was 10.1/2” square).
Cut out the paper bird from the paper (kit) and glue it onto the background where you want it, using either Wonder-Under, fabric glue or a Xyron Creatopia with the fabric glue cartridge (as I did). Stitch along the entire outline of the bird by machine using a thread of your choice.
Stamp your chosen word (I used Journey) onto one of the papers of your kit using a vintage colour such as Versafine Vintage Sepia and also distress the edges of the paper by rubbing it with the inkpad. Stitch into position as shown.
Cut out the backing fabric approx. 3/8” wider than the quiltie on all sides and iron on Wonder-Under to the wrong side of this fabric following the manufacturers’ instructions. Remove the paper from the Wonder-Under and iron the backing fabric to the batting, making sure there is 3/8” sticking out on all sides. Fold this ¾” over to the front of the quiltie on all sides; iron into position and then zigzag stitch it down along its edges.
Finally it’s time to add embellishments (always my favourite part!). I added hand stitching in the shape of running stitch to the red Indian fabric to slightly reduce the shininess and I also added cross stitching on the visible areas of the napkin. I used gold size 11 seed beads to decorate the tree, copper beads around the Journey word and finally green ones (echoing the colour of the tree) around the entire perimeter of the piece.
Don’t forget to add a label on the back with your name and a hanging sleeve and enjoy!



Memory ATC


Cut an ATC sized (2.5 x 3.5”) piece from one of the papers (kit) and layer with a similar sized piece of black craft felt. Stitch together along all the edges.
Stamp the eye (Eye & Brow no. 2182 stamp by Hampton Art Stamps) onto another one of the papers (kit), cut out and glue onto one of the brown tags (kit). Distress the edges of the tag using black stamp pad.
Glue onto brown torn wrapping paper. Glue all this onto the ATC as shown and stitch around the eye through all the layers.
Tear Memory text from one of the papers (kit) and glue underneath the eye. Cover with the wire ribbon (kit) and sew this on over the saying.
Cover the entire ATC with a transparent leaf fabric and sew around all the edges.
Layer the ATC with a black ATC sized piece of cardstock and using satin stitch sew around the entrie perimeter of the card using metallic thread.

Gauche Alchemy Blog Interview

I'm really very proud and pleased to announce that I have been interviewed on the Gauche Alchemy blog by Maggi. She has done a great job, asking really good questions which made me think and reflect on the way I make art as well as why I do so. Thanks a million, Maggi!

And to celebrate and in keeping with the interview a picture of one of my mixed-media collages or you could call them mixed-media quilties (as there are 3 layers, one of which is wadding (batting) called Life is a Journey.

A Thing of Beauty Quiltie

Finally time for the very last project I made in my capacity as Design Team member for Alpha Stamps and I'm showing it today to make up for the endless, non-stop rain which is lashing down. The flowers outside are all looking very sad and bedraggled as a result and hopefully this quiltie will provide you (and me) with a riot of colour to make up for it. I made it back in May and used a wide variety of flower fabrics for the background. They were cut into strips and ironed onto Fast2Fuse. A decorative machine stitch of leaves was stitched over the edges of the strips using a variegated thread.

Images from Alpha Stamps Women & Flowers, Pink Roses and Tallulah's Flowers collage sheets were added by either using stitch or my Xyron Creatopia, that makes items including fabric into stickers by adding a glue layer to the back. The green leaves ribbon is also available from Alpha Stamps. A fabric was ironed to the other side of the Fast2Fuse and the edges were finished with ribbon in 2 different colours (also from Alpha Stamps).

I finished by adding the vintage quotation that reads:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Love makes the world go round!

It's a gloriously sunny day despite the fact that we have clouds of volcanic ash swirling about in the higher areas of the sky. We are sometimes (depending on the wind direction) under the flight path for Edinburgh Airport and although it's not very busy I realized how quiet it was while walking the dogs this morning.

Troi seems to be back to her usual boisterous self which can only be good news and I have also managed to make a small quiltie (size 12" square) despite it dropping off my to-do list somewhere along the way. No idea how that happened, I must have overlooked it while transferring the To-Do list from one week to the next! Must try harder!!!

I was reminded of it again by the Loch Lomond visit some days ago as this quiltie is for a joint project of all Quilters' Guild members located in Scotland.

We're all meant to make a 12" block finished in black binding for a Wall of Friendship that will be on display during the Loch Lomond Quilt Show in May. After that all the blocks will be put together to form larger quilts which will be donated to various good causes yet to be determined.

My quiltie was made using a background from a long ago discarded quilt top, which I layered with wadding (batting) and backing fabric (featuring butterflies in my case) and machine quilted. As you can see some of the seams are on the outside and have been quilted in different directions. I added a vintage fabric of a loving couple (from VintageImageMadness) that I printed out onto self-adhesive cotten sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper). This was layered with a batik heart fabric and sewn down as shown. I then used Bondaweb (or Wonder-Under) to cut out separate hearts from the heart fabric and sewed these on in a diagonal direction leading to the text: Love makes the world go round! that was printed directly onto calico (muslin) using my Epson printer.

I added size 11 seed beads around the image, the text, the hearts and also around the black binding. as you can see on this detailed picture above.

Fun Skull Quiltie

I love the whole concept of the Mexican Dia de los muertos, or Day of the Dead. There are several great visually stimulating books on this subject and this one is my favourite. The bright colours, the cheerful thought that the dead return for the day to have a bit of a party with all kinds of gorgeous treats, it's so uplifting compared to the way we treat death here in Europe. I particularly love the bright, in your face colours of the sugar skulls made for this occasion, so it was only a small step to make such a skull in my own medium fabric.

Here's how:

I used a sugar skull stamp from Alpha Stamps. Stamp the skull onto a white piece of cardstock and enlarge it to the desired size (mine is 5" high) by either using the Enlarge settings on a copying machine or by scanning the stamped image into your computer and enlarging your image size. Print out a copy of the enlarged version on white paper. Once you have done this, adhere a piece of fabric (I used a bright hand-dyed one) over the skull image and tape it down securely. Then feed this paper back through the printer in the same way as before and your skull will be printed onto the fabric.

Layer the fabric with batting (wadding in UK) and muslin (calico in UK) and machine stitch along the black outline of the skull. Then it's time for hand stitching and embellishing. I used a variegated embroidery thread and a combination of straight and back stitching. If you're unsure of how to do these simple stitches consult a stitch book (check out the second hand book stores as stitches haven't changed over the years!). Add sequins, bugle and seed beads as shown. To attach these I used a beading thread (Silamide).

When you're happy with your decorated skull, cut away the batting (wadding) and muslin (calico) from the machine stitched line and leave a small amount (approx. 1/8" of the hand-dyed fabric.

Now make the background. Cut a piece of fabric (6 x 8"), layer with batting (wadding) and backing fabric and machine quilt. I followed the lines in my chosen fabric and used a toning variegated machine thread. When finished, add a binding of pink transparent ribbon.

Place the skull on top of the background, pin, and hand sew into place using buttonhole stitch. I used the same variegated thread as I used to decorate the skull. Also sew size 11 seed beads around the skull as shown. Add the text which reads: Just because you're dead does not mean you can't have fun. This was done on self-adhesive tape and a Dymo writer, and machine stitch in place, going around it several times. Add the pewter party hat (from Alpha Stamps) by sewing down with a seed bead and also glueing down using Diamond Glaze, so that it does not move. Add further embellishments (skull charms, flower beads and orange pearls) with beading thread. Finally sew on sequins around the border using a size 11 seed bead

Stars in your Soul Quiltie

This is the one of the projects that I made with my latest Alphastamps Design Kit. I haven't shown it here before as it was a special tutorial on the Alphastamps Yahoo group some weeks ago. But now that another Alphastamps Design Kit is apparently on its way I suddenly remembered I had yet to show you this one. It was a paper doll kit which is not really my thing but by putting the doll on a quiltie I suddenly liked her a whole lot more!

Here are the instructions:

Stars in your Soul Quiltie (7.1/4" square)

Stamp a commercially available batik fabric with the quotation (Search within for stars lie hidden in your soul) and small star stamps using a blue Versacraft inkpad. Set the ink by ironing.

Using a girl chipboard shape (available from Alphastamps), cover the gril with a flesh coloured fabric by using WonderUnder (or Bondaweb in U.K.). Glue on a face shape (Alphastamps Doll Parts) and pink dress (Alphastamps Get Dressed collage sheet), making sure to tuck in the dress behind the doll's arms.

Cover the chipboards wings (available from Alphastamps) with blue fabric as above. Stamp the wings with small star shapes and foil with silver.

Make a hole through the doll shape, use the hole already in the wings and through the background fabric and batting (wadding in U.K.) and with a large pink brad, attach the doll and wings to the quiltie.

Glue on the pink hair (Alphastamps Doll Parts), the blue hands (Alphastamps Doll Parts) and the black boots (Alphastamps Get Dressed).

Sew on the exposed parts of the doll to the quiltie, using invisible thread and a jeans needle. Sew slowly and wear safely glasses, just in case a needle breaks. Add beads to the hands and boots as shown. Stamp small blue stars to the pink dress.

Glue and sew on the pink hat (Alphastamps Get Dressed) and add a pink flower bead with a blue seed bead. Sew on the pink butterfly (both embellishments from Alphastamps).

Add backing fabric (using WonderUnder or Bondaweb) and finish the edges with pink transparent ribbon. Finally sew on the blue Dresden scrap (from Alphastamps) at the bottom.

Memories Quiltie

It's about time we had some art on this blog instead of garden views, however beautiful, specially as today, the May Day Bank Holiday, it is of course raining.

I only finished this quiltie recently as I left the back uncovered so that the participants on my Quiltie classes could see what I had been up to.

This quiltie too was made with the yummy embellishments I was sent as a Design Team Member for Alphastamps and I combined them with an equally delectable package of charm squares from the Aviary range of fabrics which I had ordered from the Fat Quarter Shop.

Here are the instructions as well as a detailed view of the bird.

Memories Quiltie

10.5” square

Add fabric to die-cut chipboard bird (available from Alphastamps) using the foundation stitching method. All fabrics used in this quiltie are from Moda’s Aviary range. Decorative stitch over the seam lines and add seed beads and embellishments (from Alphastamps). Add buttonhole stitch around the edges of the bird with variegated thread.

Make a nine-patch fabric background and layer with wadding (batting). Machine quilt in the ditch following the seam lines.

Stitch on the decorated bird carefully by machine. Add the top two figures (from Alphastamps Moon and Stars fabric collage sheet) and the lady at the bottom (from Alphastamps Paris Showgirls #2 collage sheet) with invisible thread.

Add the green bird + branch image ( from one of the Aviary fabrics) using Bondaweb (Wonder-Under) and add lazy daisies by hand stitching as well as beaded embellishments (Alphastamps). Add the text (from Alphastamps Pretty Maid fabric collage sheet) by hand using buttonhole stitch and variegated thread.

Sew on the rose ribbon embellishments (Alphastamps) by hand as well and couch down the fancy gold yarn as shown.
Add some hand quilting following the patterns in the fabrics used.

Layer with pink backing fabric, cut ¼” wides on all sides than the quiltie. Fold over the extra ¼” to the front and stitch down.

Lastly add the Memories ribbon by machine as shown.

Finally don't forget that the Collage Mania event starts tomorrow. There is a nifty gadget on the homepage of this event that tells you exactly when it starts so you don't have to do complicated time comparisons, wherever you find yourself on this earth!

Stay and Die Quiltie

I'm slowly uploading all the samples I made with the wonderful selection of beads, charms and other embellishments that I received as a Design Team Member for Alphastamps and as I have also finished my quiltie classes another quiltie can be revealed. It's a more subdued one that the one uploaded some posts ago but it does show off the beads, and specially the leaves very well.

Of course there are instructions and here they are:

Stay and Die Quiltie

Finished size: 9.5”


Cut a 10” square from green vine fabric (all fabrics are from Country Manor for Timeless Treasures fabric collection) and layer up with batting (wadding). Hand quilt in running stitch using the lines in the fabric as a guide line. Couch on crinkly green yarn, as shown, using a machine zig-zag stitch.
Add the fabric image (Alphastamps Ophelia #1) with zig zag stitching.
Using WonderUnder (Bondaweb), iron an area from another Country Manor fabric with blue flowers (the same fabric as I used for the binding) . Cut out the blue flowers, remove the paper backing of the Wonder-Under (or Bondaweb in UK) , and position the flowers along the green couched yarn as you like. Iron (with steam!) to attach the flowers permanently.
Hand stitch the lines in the centre of each flower, and add french knots in a yellow thread as well as one size 11 seed bead in the center of the flowers.

Again using Wonder-Under (Bondaweb) as described above, cut out 3 large leaf shapes and iron into position around the image as shown. Also stitch them down by machine using gold thread.
Add the fabric text (from Alphastamps Juliet collage sheet) by zigzag stitching by machine.
Using Silamide or another strong beading thread add the dragonfly beads, and the green and copper butterflies.
Sew on the leaf beads with a green size 11 seed bead. If you don’t want to leave the position of the leaves to chance, also glue them in place with Diamond Glaze.
Add the pink, blue and mauve flowers as shown using a larger green bead to hold them in place. Sew these on individually, tying the thread at the back. Add more green beads as shown, using the fabric as your guide.
When finished, trim the piece to finished 9.5” square size. Cut a backing fabric 1” larger on all sides (11.5”square) and iron to the back using Wonder-Under (Bondaweb) and the wrong sides of the fabrics together.
Fold the 1” border in helf and then fold over to the front and stitch down with a transparent thread on all 4 sides.

© Frieda Oxenham 20.3.09

How does your Garden grow Quiltie

Time for another of my Alphastamps projects. Leslie, the owner of Alphastamps, asked if I wanted to do something with her new range of beads and embellishments and as you can imagine I did not have to think long!

When the envelope arrived it was marvelous to see it all come rolling out, what a horn of plenty! I made lots of things all of which you will get to see on this blog eventually but as I was also working on samples for my workshops on quilties (now all done!) the very first thing I produced was this quiltie.

Here are the instructions:

Cut a 4” square from 9 different flower fabrics. Sew 3 x 3 squares together in rows and sew the rows together.
Layer with wadding (batting) and backing fabric and free machine quilt using a variegated thread.
When finished cut to a 10” square.

Sew on the images (from Alphastamps Quite Contrary #2 fabric sheet), using the same variegated thread and a mixture of straight and zig-zag stitching.
Also sew on the 3 flower postage stamps as shown and the Mistress Mary text (from Alphastamps Quite Contrary #1 fabric sheet).

Before adding the embellishments, sew on the binding which is a ½” transparent green ribbon on 3 sides and a slightly larger green transparent ribbon with leaf pattern for the bottom side.

Sew on the leaf ribbon (Alphastamps) by hand as shown.

Now add the embellishments (all available at Alphastamps) as shown, also by hand and using a strong beading thread such as Silamide.

Finally add the 3 green leaf pins (Alphastamps) by sticking them through the fabric.

© 5.4.09 Frieda Oxenham

Back home

I've returned home after a very enjoyable weekend teaching in Aberdeen. Really it does seem that after my decision to stop teaching for at least a year from this summer onwards, all the classes I've done since then are determined to make me regret that decision! I had a lovely time with the North Aberdeen branch of the Embroiderer's Guild.

I was teaching in a deeply dangerous place, as far as my spending was concerned. The workshop was in the same building as The Papeterie house in an actual paper mill, where they were selling a wealth of stamps, rub-offs, beautiful paper and all kinds of other paraphenalia, for which I felt a sudden and urgent need and quite a few came back with me!

The quiltie class produced some wonderful ones and here you can see the class hard at work with my quilties in the foreground.

Finally I promised you a glimpse of the sea in my previous post. There was a lot of fog during my journey up so no views but on the return journey when I stopped in a layby to let John know when I expected to be back, I made a point of chosing one with a sea view to catch a quick picture!

Tea Quiltie

I was giving a talk at the Glasgow Embroiderers' Guild on Saturday where it was also my pleasure to meet some of my regular blog readers (you'll know who you are!!). I had not posted much last week at all and it dawned on me that people actually notice and in fact miss it. What a responsibility!! Normally it means that I'm either not here (away teaching etc) or I'm quilting a large quilt as then there is not really much to say or show you! But I will try harder, promise!!

It did spur me on to finish this quiltie which is double-sided and is a sample to be displayed in the Purely Patchwork shop in Linlithgow where I will be giving a class on quilties on the 19th April next year. It has to be with them before the end of this month as their next newsletter advertising the class will be out shortly afterwards.

I had made a good start but as there was still plenty of time I prevaricated and just added things as and when inspiration came, but yesterday and today I managed to pull the whole thing together and finish it. I'll probably indulge in a visit to Linlithgow to deliver it, a daring undertaking as Linlithgow has a quilting shop( Purely Patchwork), an embroidery shop (also selling knitting wool) as well as a beading/stamping shop and another fabric shop. Too, too much of very good things!!

The quiltie is 8" square and double-sided, and inspired by the marvelous new collage sheets Tea #1 and #2 from Alphastamps. On one side it features a vintage lacy glove (thanks, mum!!) which I cut to size to fit into the corner and adorned with a couched pearl string and flower trim. The background for this side is a batik fabric with goldy bits. I added a bit of chocolate themed ribbon (also Alphastamps), a fabric tea cup image (Alphastamps Tea #1) which I adorned with turquoise beads and texts about tea (Alphastamps Tea #2). I added lots of echo quilting with a silk embroidery thread as well as beading around the main text with size 11 seed beads.

For the other side I started with a hand-dyed fabric, stamped with images from Alphastamps Teaspoons Clear Stamp Set, in a variety of colours and using Versacraft inkpads. I added an image from Alphastamps Tea #2 fabric collage sheet, which was layered with the batik used on the other side of the quiltie, and a teacup image (also fabric and from Tea #1 Alphastamps collage sheet).

I added buttonhole stitch with a silk embroidery thread to the image as well as running stitches elsewhere on the quiltie. At the top a piece of vintage lace trim was stitched down and adorned with size 11 seed beads by hand. Flower trims were also added as shown.

Alice Tea Party Quiltie

Still not finished with the Alice in Wonderland art as the collage sheets from Alphastamps are too tempting for words and I just can't stop thinking of new things to do with them.

This quiltie celebrates Alice's teaparty and you can see her hurrying towards it at the top right, led by the rabbit and at the side and bottom are images from the tea party itself.

The background for this quiltie (size 10" square) was formed by piecing 9 squares of patterned batik fabric together. I used 4" squares for the piecing and afterwards cut the quiltie to size. The pieced squares were layered with wadding (batting in US) and green backing fabric and machine quilted in the ditch. I then added the images as shown. They come from the Alphastamps sheets Alice Herself (for the large one at top right) and Mad Hatter's Tea Party #2. The text Curiouser etc. came from Alphastamps I wonder sheet. All images and text are from fabric sheets and are attached to the quiltie with a small zig-zag stitch, alternating between green and orange thread for the stitching. I then added beads, also alternating the colour and using size 11 seed beads, opaque green and clear orange. I also beaded sections of the background, using the patterns in the fabric as my guide. Hand seed stitching in orange and green was added around the text.

The edges of the quiltie were finished with zig-zag stitching and then with machine couched fancy yarns. In the four corners little green buttons were sewn on with orange thread.

Little White Horse in Classic Stitches

Issue 87 of Classic Stitches magazine was in my mailbox today and also in our newsagent shop in West Linton. And this issue has my article about my quiltie Little White Horse which will look familiar to regular readers of my blog as a detail of the quiltie features in the banner above. I love the layout they have provided for it in the magazine as seen above and I even like the picture of me they've used.

It has some basic instructions about how the quiltie was made but also describes how I came to make it. For those of you in the US I believe Classic Stitches is available there but you can also buy it online.

The Little White Horse, a children's book by Elizabeth Goudge, published in 1946, was my favourite childhood book. I had it in paperback version and of course in Dutch. When I moved abroad it was left with my parents and had been virtually read to bits. When they in their turn moved, it somehow got thrown out and when I wanted to retrieve it neither my mother nor I could remember either the title or the author, which made it virtually impossible to find. We naturally assumed it was a Dutch book and visited many second hand shops in The Netherlands over the years trying to locate it. All I could remember very clearly was that it concerned a unicorn and also that a governess which regularly sucked peppermint played an important role.

I could recite most of the first chapter too but this did not help to locate a copy.

I had sort of given up hope of ever finding it! So you can imagine my surprise one day when I opened my Amazon homepage and as always read My Recommendations. How it happened I have no idea but there it was: MY BOOK and it had originally been published in English and in the U.K. As soon as I read the contents I just knew I had found it again. It was re-published in paperback as there are thoughts of making it into a film. Why Amazon had added it to my recommendations will forever remain a mystery. It was synchronicity at its most beautiful! Or maybe I asked and the universe offered?!

Only thing is that I now feel that Amazon knows best and whatever they recommend I should probably get it!! So far they haven't disappointed but I'm spending a fortune on books!!!