Bits and Pieces

Bits and pieces to use in my art are found every where. My wonderful friend Emanda brings me treasures from her Antique shop. These are from a dead cuckoo clock. I am not sure what I'll include these in but they'll go into something. Any suggestions?

Sari Silk stuff

More on the sari silk - I am still using the first of 6 hanks of sari silk ribbon I bought from the Thread Studio.
My goal is to see how many items I can make from one hank.
I am now making book covers from it. Here are 3 that are still Works in progress.

This is a section of the first piece (I need a better scanner).

For this one the ribbon was ironed flat then woven on my ironing board. Next a piece of vliesofix was ironed on. That's as far as this I have gone on this one.

This is a smaller piece - I wove the ironed ribbon, vliesofixed a piece of thin cotton onto the back and then went crazy with my flower stitcher (from The Thread Studio). I hand embroidered the section on the right with button hole circles, cast on roses, fly stitch leaves, french knots and stem stitch

 

This piece has the woven ironed ribbon. I backed it with aquabond and then tacked a piece of solvy on  top with the pattern for the paisley drawn on top. I then freehand machine embroidered on to it with a variegated purple thread. 

I didn't need to use the aquabond I should have just attached a piece of thin cotton with vliesofix. As I couldn't see what was happening between the layer of solvy and aquabond I ende up with some holes I now need to cover and I have to attach something onto the back to stabilise it. I am going to add some more embellishment to this before it is made into a book.

More to come and there is still quite a lot of the hank left.

Sari Silk and Alpaca

I am inspired by my decision to see how far a skein of sari silk ribbon will go. I have finished the beret and scarf that I started a few months ago.
I bought the alpaca in Victoria when we were there last year. It is from a black alpaca and was already spun when I got it. I crocheted the beret and scarf without a pattern so I can't share those. Ravelry has a lot of patterns both free and available to purchase.
For the beret I crocheted a circle starting with a ring and working out in double crochet and then 5 rows of treble chain mesh. When it looked big enough I reduced down to a hole that fit easily over my head then without reducing crocheted a band. Next I threaded the sari silk through the mesh. For the scarf I crocheted a chain about 1 meter long. Then some rows of double crochet. Then the 1 treble 1 chain mesh for 5 rows, repeated some more rows of double crochet reducing over the length then some more rows of double crochet until the yarn ran out. More sari silk ribbon threaded through.
This is in no way meant to be a pattern.