Wildflower embroidered hapa zome fabric heart

 

Hello sweet friends,

Did I ever show you this embroidered heart I made years ago? I know I shared a glimpse once with a note telling you to go find the how-to-hapa-zome diy on another blog of mine. But that blog is set on private, so the link is no longer working. Time to share the diy and the heart itself here.

In my explorations in textile art I came across natural dyeing. One of the easiest ways to dye your fabrics in a natural way is to hammer the colours in the cloth. Literally.

Renowned master in eco dyeing India Flint calls this "hapa zome". It's Japanese for "leaf-dye".

More on hapa zome later in this post, but first I'd like to share some of the embroidery I did on my hapa zome heart.

Feather stitches, outline stitches, and French knots are some of the stitches I used. I'm not the neatest of embroiders, but I don't mind imperfect lines and stitches, because to me it seems to give my work more of the "wild" look of nature.

I added a tiny bit of paint on some spots of the heart for a little bit of contrast when I thought it needed it. 

So, what do you need to make your own hapa zome fabric? Gather some flowers and/or leaves. Just experiment which will give you the effect and colours you want. I used flowers of the Petunia and the Geranium.

Get yourself a hammer. Use a sturdy and flat surface to work on. Put some thick paper or (flat) card(board) on your surface. (I put first cardboard and then water colour paper.)

Put the fabric on the paper/cardboard. Put the flowers and leaves on top of that. Place them as you like. You will find your own designs and ways while experimenting.

On top of that you place another piece of thick paper (to protect your work from the hammer) or first another piece of fabric and then the paper. Now carefully beat with the hammer.

Check now and then to see if you get the result that you want. And adjust the pressure of your beats when needed.

 

 

When finished you can peel the remnants of the flowers and leaves off your cloth and paper.

After that I didn't wash the fabric. If you're going to use the fabric for clothes or other use for which the fabric needs to be washed, there are more steps. But since I use this fabric as a base layer for my art, I'm not going to wash it and have not tried these techniques. So I'm not sharing those here.

Instead of washing, I left it to dry and then I heat set it with an iron, so hopefully the colours will last longer.

Here's my result on the fabric: 

 

 

(A piece of old bed sheet by the way, great for experiments!)

And my paper:

The paper I didn't heat set of course! I don't know yet where I will use the paper for. But I do love the result. This was the paper that was lying under the fabric.

Let me know if you give it a try! Wishing you a joyful and colourful day,

xx Wen

Simply Neutrals #39 - Signs of Early Spring

Hello dears, welcome to Simply Neutrals!

For dear Suzy of suziqusthreadworks I created an embroidered fabric heart, inspired by the hints of colour of the Crocuses in the winter garden.

For the background (only the top) I used a stencil I hand-created earlier and which you can see in a post HERE. I then added some fabrics, laces and netting (don't know how else to call it), tea dyed fabric leaves, a piece of handwritten paper on which I put some bee wax, a piece of brown netting that Suzy had gifted to me earlier, and then I embroidered by hand.

I also created a tag for her, with the intention to write on the back, which I then forgot to do before closing and sealing the envelope... oh well.

For the background of the tag I used a piece of a digital scrapbook paper I created earlier and which you can find HERE. I added some netting and laces, inked the edges, and added dried and pressed Hydrangea petals. I had shown these earlier on my blog. They still had such gorgeous colours, even after a year. But when I added acrylic medium to secure them to the tag... poof, gone were the colours...





The original petals above, and the glued ones below.

On top of the petals I added a piece of plastic wrapping, to protect the petals, plus I thought the shiny effect was nice too.

Next project to be finished is the embroidered little birdie journal that you see a part of in the photo below (and that I also shared earlier here on AppleApricot). But you never know how things go with WIPs... High on my to do list however are the promised giveaways and artist interview! I haven't forgotten them ;)

Oh, and I'm also going through my own blog posts (here and the freebies one) to see if there might be copyright material in it that's not owned by me. I already saw there is, so I hided those posts or deleted the copyright image.

I really want to be careful in this and will do my best to avoid copyright material in the future. After reading some articles on this, I'm convinced we all do well to avoid using copyright material or images, photos and text that we are not sure if it has copyright or not.

***

FEATURE OF LAST WEEK

I was completely in love with the beautiful studio photos dear Nancy of Sugar Lump Studios showed us, with the lovely boxes and suitcase, the birdhouse and cage, her gorgeous art work, and so many more beautiful things to look at and be inspired by.

Simply Neutrals #33 - Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day dear friends!!

May your hearts be filled with love, peace, and joy!

And welcome again to another Simply Neutrals!

When this post goes online it's not yet Valentine's day but this week we will celebrate this day of love. So of course SNT this week had to be about hearts. (Of course you're free to share whatever you want to. It doesn't have to be about hearts or love at all.) There are lots of beautiful hearts arts and crafts being created every year and also many beautiful heart shapes being photographed to share online with each other.

I'm sharing this week some of the hearts from my archives. I had hoped to share a new creation, but severe back aches leave me incapable of crafting for a while I'm afraid. Every move I make hurts and it does for almost two weeks now. So I'm taking some rest.

If you're in need of some heart crafts inspiration,

please have a look at my Pinterest board Hearts Arts and Crafts.

Here are some of the beauties you will find there, some of them created by you my friends! Of course I only share the neutral coloured ones here at Simply Neutrals, but there are many colourful hearts on my Pinterest board as well.

Feature of last week

Thank you again so much for your wonderful shares last week! I really enjoy the gathering and love to read and see every entry. They tell something precious about who we are, what is dear to our hearts or what is on our minds, and they all mean a lot to me. Thank you for sharing and gathering here, dear friends!

To stay true to this Valentine's hearts post of course for this week's feature I had to choose the gorgeous heart made by dearest Dorthe of Den Lille Lade. I love how the two girls together are carrying a beautiful heart, symbol of their love and friendship.

Sweetie, this button if for you:

Lace heart with fabric flower

Another thing from my swap: a lace heart.

The fabric heart itself I purchased some time ago,

and I intended to add more lace and embellishments to it for a while now.

So when Odetta asked me to do a swap, I thought it to be a perfect opportunity to do just so.

In my stash I have some gorgeous laces and doilies,

which I had received from my sweet blog friends over time.

Some of it I used on this heart, combined with a newly bought lace trim

and an old lace applique I purchased online.

Also I have some old blouses and buttons I bought in the thrift store,

one of which I made this fabric flower.

The word Paris I stamped on a piece of an old bed sheet.

Next week some more goodies from my swap.

Hugs to you!

xx Wen

Simply Neutrals #14

Happy new year my friends!

May 2016 for you be a year filled with blessings, love and peace.

From now on we'll have a two-monthly Simply Neutrals party schedule.

Every first and third Tuesday of the month there will be a Simply Neutral linky party.

The upcoming parties are listed on the sidebar of this blog.

Thank you so much for your sweet messages and well wishes!

I'm very grateful for the heart warming love and encouragement you sent me. My photos for this Simply Neutrals are therefore about love and gratitude.

Beautiful pieces of art adorned with vintage laces

and made by dear blog friends or purchased from a beautiful online shop,

which are hanging above my work table to be admired.

Features of last party

Shane of Roses, Lace and Brocante shared these beautiful gifts below,

which she received from a dear friend.

And I love the photo collage she made with them.

Mascha of Maschas Buch shared this beautiful photo of a stone work statue.

So beautifully serene and gorgeous.

Speaking of stone work,

Jesse of Lace Age Girl shared this gorgeous architectural stone work.

And she shared so much beauty in her blog post, that I was oohing and aahing many many times.

So I decided to share more of it with you here.

A beautiful photo of an old window which looks like it belongs to an old church.

And many photos of yummy textures,

of which I made a photo collage, to avoid a lengthy post here today :)

DIY petite fabric heart charm

When my blog was only a few days old I made a tutorial for a sweet fabric heart charm. I was all into pink at that time!

Now, three years later, I revisited this post after I noticed it got pinned to pinterest. I thought it was charming, but the photo editing needed a bit of an update. So I dug up the old original photos, edited them and updated the original post.

Then I got enthusiastic about this sweet charm.

With my current style and preferences in mind I created a new fabric heart charm and made a tutorial for you. And I made another charm :)

Materials needed

Fabric (leftovers are perfect for this!)

A small piece of lace or other applique / embellishment / piece of fabric

Needle and thread

Scissors

Small heart shape template

(there are plenty on pinterest but I just eyeballed mine by folding a piece of paper, cut a half heart, unfold, et voila)

Pins

Cotton stick

Cotton wool or other filling for your heart

Thin ribbon (optional)

Beads

How to make this charm

The Muse of Poetry - a fabric and lace heart

A Muse of romantic poetry and music, Erato is.

She charms, wearing a wreath of myrtle.

Her name means "the lovely" or "beloved".

Here she's portrayed by Sir Edward John Poynter (1836-1919).

A green thread, couched embroidery adorns her

on this new fabric and lace heart.

The colours of her portrait reminded me of coming Autumn.

Painted and vintage lace, music, leaves, buttons and a butterfly accompany her.

And my little white fabric Autumn garland.

Of which you find the tutorial HERE.
(Where you can also still add your link for Simply Neutrals Tuesday!)

Update: I saw that my heart fits perfectly in the Let's Get Arty challenge #67 so I'm linking this up to them. They have a wonderful inspiration photo for us to get inspired by. My heart has the colours of this photo plus the leaves and the garden feel. Ain't that a beautiful coincidence?

I'm also linking my fabric heart to Roses of Inspiration.

Wishing you a beautiful day.

xx Wen

Clutches, work in progress, flowers and a freebie

On my worktable are two of my (many) UFO's which are patiently waiting to be finished. I just can't work on one project, I have too many ideas that come at the same time. I don't have time to finish them, lol.

The first project is the fabric and lace book that I have posted photos of before HERE and HERE. I'm busy with the spine at the moment. Then I'm going to finish the front and back and then the last embellishments on the pages. I think.

Next is a fabric and lace heart that I'm making.

(Update: you can see the finished heart HERE.)

I will add a beautiful vintage tassel. It will hang from the bottom of the heart.

And then there are so many other UFO projects... Plus things I really ought to be doing :)

Another UFO is finally finished though!

Ages ago I started with this little clutchy like thingie below:

I didn't know what to do with it, so it ended up sleeping in the UFO box. After stitching it I tea dyed the little clutch which gave it a more aged look. Then I had fun making another one, which luckily didn't end up in the UFO box.

Some funny white fabric I bought and never used ended up being a flower.

For the base I used an old crocheted rectangle thingie. For embellishing I used old lace appliques and a piece of a doily, some vintage buttons and another of the beautiful tassels that came from the wonderful shop

La Croix Rosion from Liz

Make sure to check out her shop, she buys the most wonderful vintage pieces all the way from beautiful France where she has a cottage. I have a whole string of these tassels, so they'll pop up once in a while I'm sure.

I think the clutches are cute and I declare them finished.

Me was thinking that my blog lacks flowers lately. And I don't mean the fabric ones here. So here are some bright sunny flowers.

It's also been a while since I last posted a freebie.

So here you go, a freebie image taken from one of my antique French postcards. A sweet little girl with a basket of fresh flowers.

Wishing you a beautiful sunny day and many joyful moments!

xx Wen