IACW - Fabric decorations

Here's my post for It's A Creative World today:

You may remember my Resolutions that I posted on New Years Eve. One of them was to use my textile inspiration kits to make some Christmas decorations and I'm pleased to say I've made a start already!

I started by tracing the shape I wanted on to silk. I then sewed on beads:

I then cut a co-ordinating piece of cotton to use on the back and sewed them together using a metallic embroidery thread leaving a small gap to put the stuffing in. (I found an old cushion and used the kapok from that). I then sewed around the remainder after adding a length of ribbon.

For my next one I again traced the shape on to silk and then used free machine stitching to randomly stitch over the design with a metallic thread. I then sewed on sequins and beads before cutting the shape out .

For this decoration I chose a piece of co-ordinating felt for the backing before following the same steps as previously described.

Both of these will work well with our Christmas theme of blue, silver and purple. Alternatively they'll make great little decorations for any time of year!

I wanted to make another and for this one changed to use a yellow-gold silk that I have and some Indian bindi embellishments. I used alcohol ink to change the colour of the metal before sewing them to the silk along with some beads. The machine embroidery was done using a variegated metallic thread and after adding a felt backing this thread was used along the edges.

I really enjoyed making these and can see myself making a few more in the future!