Adding to my Paris project

It is a long time since my last post but I have good reason for that.  As I mentioned in my last post, we have been doing major refurbishment of our home.  It just keeps snowballing and we have added many more things to do.  This has meant that we are still not finished yet - hopefully sometime in January.

I have still been managing some textile work and can post some of it today. 

On the underside of the Arc de triumph are wonderful carved squares.  They look similar to those on the underside of a Roman ruin arch in Rome.

I used one of these squares -

for the next few pieces.

I loaded the image into Photoshop and played with the colours until I had one that I liked.  This was printed onto teeshirt printer paper for black/dark fabrics.  It was ironed onto pelmet vilene and then I used a fine line black pen to outline some of the detail.  I created a pocket book -

I added some gold machine stitching and some gold braid. 

On the inside I used the stamp I made of this square design.

and I made some bag tags -

I always use the text of the places of my projects and I have continued to do this using the text of Paris. It was distorted and made into a motif.  It is still obvious that it still says Paris.  This motif was then digitised in my machine software and stitched out onto black felt.

I make lots of serendipity paper when using up paint on my brushes and stamps.  It is better than washing it down the sink.  I use lots of different kinds of paper including hand-made paper.  I made this particular paper quite a long time ago.  It was time to use it.  I decided to use it for the front cover of a book.

This is a hard back book and I stitched the front to the spine with a left and right blanket stitch. The machined motif was stuck onto the front.

One incredible place I visited was Sainte Chapelle which is on the island in the middle of the Seine.  the same place as Notre Dame.  The windows of this church are spectacular.  I had to hand hold the camera but with its brilliant iso facility I was able to get pretty good images.  I used one of the windows as the basis for a long hanging.  I used sheer fabrics sandwiched between tulle.  I free machined all the black lines of the leaded window.

It is well over a metre long and although there is a definite best side, it is presentable on the back too.

That is it for this post.  I am attempting to keep them shorter than I usually do.

Cheers for now