Charity Shop Shopping!

I love having a good rummage round my local charity shops and today I discovered some great vintage buys!

Small dishes with great graphic images of vintage cars on 

Some vintage dressmaking patterns

Vintage blue clutch with detachable strap and scarf with paisley print

Blue scarf with cat print

The Sketchbook Project

I have just sent off my entry for the Sketchbook Project. It was a real rush in the end but I got it posted off just in time. The theme for my sketchbook was Stitches and Folds. After a lot of contemplation of how to translate this theme I decided I would create a series of floral patterns by stitching, folding and cutting paper. The designs are quite simple and I was restricted by the size of the sketchbook as it was rather small but I am pleased with the results and feel it has given me some good ideas that I could develop further and translate into fabric. Take a look and see what you think.

Salisbury Cathedral

A couple of weekends ago I went to Salisbury for the day and visited the cathedral. It was extremely beautiful and very inspiring. I definitely recommend a visit.

Jane Lemon’s series of original embroideries - Prisoner of Conscience

Beautiful tiled flooring

Amazing old flags - I could create a whole project around these aged flags, the colours and textures were amazing. I just love aged textiles.

Antony Gormley Sculpture Flare 2

Angel sculptures 

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year. I have been rather hopeless with blogging over the last month or so as I have started a teaching job. I'm teaching a bit of textiles, graphics, resistant materials and Food in a local secondary school. It has been hard work so I haven't had much chance to do any of my own work but I am determined to find time in my evenings and weekends to dedicate to my textiles! I am currently working on my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project, the deadline is the end of this month so I better get a move on! I will post some images of my progress here soon.

Here's to a happy, healthy and creative New Year!

Buttons in the Christmas Tree

Stitch in the Christmas Tree

'Swindon View Point'

Back in September when I was taking part in Swindon Open Studios I was filmed for a website called Swindon View Point. I had forgotten all about it until a friend found the video today! Take a look to hear me talking about my Textile Designs. http://www.swindonviewpoint.com/video/art-emma-clease

Swindon View Point

Christmas Bunting

As we are nearing the festive season I decided to make some Christmas bunting. As I started making it I thought it would be nice to create a step by step guide for others to follow, so here we go... (I apologize about the quality of the photos - I was using my phone!)

Choose some festive fabrics - I decided to use a red and white theme.

Cut out 34 triangles – this is enough for 17 flags with front and back fabric with the letters

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S and a flag at the beginning, end and middle. I made mine 15 cm wide by 15 cm long.   

To get templates for your letters you can either print them off the computer or you can draw them yourself. If you draw them yourself draw them inside a uniform box so that all your letters are the same size. You also need to draw a shape that will go on the first, last and middle flag - I chose to use a star shape.

Cut out your letters and shapes and use them as a template to draw on to the paper side of some bondaweb.  You need to draw your letters back to front on to the bondaweb so they will be the right way round once ironed on to your fabric.

Cut roughly round your letters on the bondaweb and iron on them on to the back of your fabric. Remember to iron the fabric rather than directly on to the bondaweb. When choosing your fabrics for your letters think about your colours - my choice of fabrics had either a red base or a white base so I made sure that my letters alternated i.e red M, white E, red R, white R, red Y etc

Cut out your letters.

Iron your bondaweb letters on to the centre of your flags. Again think about your choice of colour I placed my white letters on to red flags and red letters on to white flags to create a nice contrast. 

Sew round the edges of your letters with a small zig zag stitch.

Pin the back triangles on to your flags.

Sew round the edges of your flags you can do this with a zig zag stitch, a straight stitch, an over locker or you could do blanket stitch by hand.

Finally sew your flags on to a length of ribbon!

Happy sewing!

Avebury Manor

The National Trust is currently renovating Avebury Manor in Avebury, Wiltshire, so that it can be open to the public. The BBC are filming the transfomation and making a television series about it called 'To the Manor Reborn'. I was recently asked to go along to the Manor to help sew some drapes for a four poster bed. It was really interesting to see the many rooms being done up and to watch a telvision programme being made. Here are some photos of me and the other ladies hard at work sewing the drapes!

That is me in the middle sat next to Katie Griffin on the right a wonderful Textiles teacher from St John's School in Marlborough and a lovely sixth form student on the left!