Books - Catch Up

The Silk Vendetta by Victoria Holt. Another great novel from one of my favorite authors.

Lenore and her Grandmother live at Silk House owned by the Sallonger Family.  Following a scandal and the death of Lenore's mother in France the pair were transferred to England.

The Sallonger family is in the silk business and get their silk from France produced by the St. Allengeres family.

Weddings, funerals, coming of age traditions, reunions and grudges all play a part in the story. 

The divide between the upper and lower house in England is blurred with Lenore marries the son of the house and becomes the Lady. Her husband is murdered, but why?

Lenore and her grandmother start up a good business in London then expand to Paris. Silk is in good demand with a friend who becomes the business manager.

A great read!

Ines of my Soul by Isabel Allende.  Another favorite author.

This is a story of the conquest of Chile by the Spaniards.  What a brutal story. The goal was to annihilate the natives and steal their land and gold.

There are love stories with Inez Suarez having 3 husbands in the time of the story.  Great travels by sea and over land which are arduous and dangerous.

I love a strong female character and this has it in spades.

Another great story less the violence.

The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox. I was 

intrigued with the story of twins who switch places.

The city girl and the country girl try manage the other's life.  There are challenges when this switch was done in a couple of days. You know your sister but what is her favorite coffee shop, how does the family bakery work, how to grow sourdough starter are a few of the issues that arise.

Of course, there are love interests which come the switch and eventually the truth has to come out.

Success and growth for both girls is the result.

Slow Stitching - No. 034 - Mola Inspired - Reverse Applique

Week 34 in the K3N Cloth Tales Slow Stitching Challenge - prompt - Mola Inspired Reverse Applique. This is practiced by the Guna people of Panama.

I designed my own geometric pattern and I used 4 layers of fabric.  True blue, then lime green, then royal blue and finally tangerine orange.

This was quite stiff - the top & bottom layers were poly cotton, the lime is silky and the blue is for sure polyester.

The shapes are a square, a triangle, a rectangle and a circle.

I used sewing thread to based around the edge. Found embroidery thread to match each color and outlined the shapes with running stitches.   Debated about adding additional stitches and decided against it.

Slow Stitching - No. 033 - Nature of Cloth

This week's prompt in the K3N Cloth Tale's Slow Stitching challenge is "Nature of Cloth".  

Kathryn explored her bundle of fabric.  How does it feel? Does it pass the needle test? Does it ravel? Does it have texture?

Once we had selected our fabrics then we were to make a fabric collage.

I chose a corduroy, wool plaid, orange cotton, yellow cotton and a small triangle of mustard colored silk. 

I placed a circle of stitching around the intersection of these fabric pieces.  Then random running stitching, seed stitching, with a sprinkling of French Knots.  This was a lot of fun to make.

Slow Stitching - No. 006 - Listen to the Cloth

This is my piece for week 6 of the slow stitch challenge hosted by Kathryn at K3NClothTales.  

The prompt for this week is: Listen to the Cloth.  Basically, cloth will have certain properties and work with them. 

I acquired a few more fabric scraps this week at the ReUse center and I am happy with my coordinated color scheme. 

The top left piece may be silk. I doubled it so I would have more to work with. The circle wreath is a piece of cheesecloth fabric which is very loosely woven and had to be confined to work.  I couched the circle and left the tails to speak about the original properties of the cloth.

The dark pink on the bottom was quite heavy so I just used a running stitch in the same color. There was a color gap in the floral piece so I added the light pink piece in bottom left corner which is satiny and just added a piece of narrow lace for fun. I made French Knots!  The olive green piece got double seed stitches.  The floral piece has tiny stitches in green following the green in the cloth.

2BGreen - Recycled Cards - 4

 Another set of 2BGreen cards made from recycling/reusing elements from cards received from others.  This is a gift for a friend with a birthday.  The card on the left I trimmed then added a Stampin Up Decorative Label punchie from the same card so it matches perfectly. Added a Word Window greeting.







The one to the right is a great image of a tea cup.  I just brushed it's edges with an ink pad and left it blank to be used for any occasion.

Roses are always a favorite.  The dark accents are gold so I punched a SU Decorative Label punchie in gold and added a word window greeting. Mounted to a pink card.

The card front was trimmed to leave a small border and adhered to a golden yellow card.  I added a white and then golden yellow silk flower in the top right hand corner held in place with a tiny black brad.

This great watercolored violets image was trimmed and layered onto a purple card.  I created a band with the same card stock then added an oval greeting mounted with 3D foam tape.

Challenge - C&S - FLT 243

I created this card for Clean and Simple Cards - FLT243 which is a sketch.  I chose a medium blue card and added my own large greeting onto white layer.  This was layered onto red leaving a tiny border.  I added a scallop border die cut in silver paper with the Die-namics thin dies.  It was adhered leaving enough room for the layered red velvet hydrangeas along with a white silk flower all held in place with a tiny white brad.

Card Club - Handmade Paper Flowers

I started with the handmade paper.  Black with purple, plum & copper.  Taupe with white, gold & silver.  I embossed the 1.5" inch on the right hand side with the Stampin Up! Finial Press embossing folder.  I placed the ribbon right next to the edge of the embossing and taped the ends to the inside of the card.  I cut the flowers with the Sizzix Flower Layers #2 die.  One in moss green and the other in the handmade paper.  I chose a silk flower in coordinating colors. All this is held in place with a jumbo brad in a matching color.

Top: I chose a gray card stock for the bottom card. Then I placed silver ribbon along the edge. The ivory silk flower worked well with the warmed toned handmade paper. I selected a silver brad.
Bottom: I chose a plum cardstock for the top card. Then I placed copper ribbon along the edge. The purple silk flower worked well and then the copper brad matched the ribbon.

R2G Card Kit - Prima Flower

I created these card kits with Prima Flowers.  Some were the paper ones in the white, peach, pink colors and these metallic ones.  I started with a pink card and added this great polka dots designer paper.   I decided to make the stem and the brad in the centre of the flowers black to provide some connection between elements. This would allow me to change the rest of the elements (card and flowers) as I needed to. I created the stem with my Cricut and the Straight from the Nest cartridge. I glued the stem before I added 2 more layers of silk flowers and held everything in place with a regular brad.  Makes great cards for little girls.