The Finished Needle Cases

 

Do you remember my blog about felt?  And the blog about working on needle cases? The first one is from April, the other one from August. Today I can proudly announce, that all of the needle cases I started in July and August are finished!

 

Both parts, the outer one (I call it „a panel“) and the inner one, are made from the beautiful woollen felt. The panels are embellished with scraps of my beloved fabrics, quilted, embroidered, embellished with small beads. Everyone is different, everyone is just beautiful, and I like them all very much. Inside you can find a small pocket for threads and buttons, a bigger pocket for scissors and the middle sheets for needles and pins. The romantic charm is stressed by satin ribbon, which plays the role both of a closure and embellishment as well. 

No.1 - The picture is a part of a panel from J. Wecker Frisch, appliqued by machine and hand embroidered.

 

 

 

No.2 - An amazing cat button from Lynette Anderson, the inner pockets are from her fabric as well.

 

 No.3 - a composition from an old silk collar and a fabric with Parisian motifs, embelished  with my hand dyed thread buttons

 

No.4 - a part of fabric picture by J. Wecker Frisch (the black background with text)  in combination with pink parts of my former jacket. The jacket was so lovely that I just couldn´t throw it away, part by part, I use  every piece of it.  

 

No.5 - a collage made from scraps I got from my friend Iveta Nedomová - a great fashion designer

 

No.6 - Here I used scraps of fabrics from Tim Holtz and (in the very backgroud) scraps from a shirt of my former boss (thank you Miloš, I really love your old shirts!)

  

No.7 - The linen scraps from Iveta again

 

No.8 - A beautiful old piece of lace, made by an old lady who was a great  master of crocheting, here in combination with wooden buttons by Lynettte Anderson.

 

No.9 - Some scraps from Iveta (hand dyed brown scraps in the background) and Tim Holtz (the rulers)

 

 

No.10 - Scraps from Iveta again!

 

No.11 - Scarps of very fine silk from Iveta and an other old master piece of crocheting in the center

 

Happy stitching!

Michaela 

 

 

 

Czech Kanafas

 

Like many other people I´m in home office, in my case not permanently but every other week. It’s not a holiday of course, the work has to be done. But working from home brings some advantages, for example, the delivery of online orders is much easier because you are mostly at home.  I used the chance fully,  four diverse orders were made: a big order of spices (Koření od Antonína), a new cutting mat and an inch-ruler, a big order of bird feed and last but not least, many meters of Czech kanafas.

KANAFAS is a Czech product, a very nice and sturdy cotton fabric. It is a double sided fabric made of beforehand coloured yarns, woven into smaller or larger stripes or squares. I just love working with this material, I use it for making linings in my bags. For this purpose I order mostly two patterns – small white and red and white and black stripes. This time I ordered also ecru. They are all just beautiful.

 

I order from Český kanafas, a small family business, they have a nice choice for a reasonable price. But there are also smaller producers with very interesting small collections like Atelier Terej. The price is higher but the patterns are unique and very amazing.

I just love this one by Atelier Terej. I´m thinking about sewing a dress for my self. Next home office week, next order may be?

Happy stitching!

Michaela  

 

English Paper Piecing with William Morris

 

I love sewing small zippered pockets for putting necessities into them. Just as bags they are meant for daily use, a small piece of every day pleasure – they are so fluffy and squashy! As much as I enjoy sewing and quilting on the fabric panels, I dislike the final assembling of the purses and bags, which I call the „technical sewing“. That´s why I don´t use any complicated patterns and forms, just basic ones.

When preparing the panels, I mostly start with a picture, followed by choosing fitting scraps and arranging them around the picture.   Even when I originally planned something without a picture, I mostly cannot resist and add some appliqued picture anyway:)

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to make a bigger zippered purse for her. She liked the William Morris fabrics very much but she didn´t want any picture on it. As my Janome machine has to be brought „to the doctor“ (the sewing machine works still very well but makes horrible sounds in the last few days), there is an ideal period for hand sewing and making the desired purse.  

Janome packed and prepared for transport.

The small Pfaff is ready to help out.

Not all of William Morris designs are my favourites ones but especially the small patterns are just amazing. From the palette I have got I chose this combination, English paper piecing is going to be the sewing technique. 

 

The paper templates are covered with fabric by now, I´m going to play with the combinations later. 

 

The fabric edges were so lovely that I couldn´t resist sewing them together. A next purse comes to the world:)

Happy stitching! 

Michaela