Instagram Highlights

Delighted with my latest furniture restoration. This mid-century G Plan Astro table designed by Victor Bramwell Wilkins. I love how the teak sings when it has been cleaned and oiled. Turning back time for this stunning table.

The table changed somewhat from the original prototype drawings, scroll to see.

Wanted one of these since seeing the table in Wendy’s office in the TV programme Billions.

#teak #gplan #furniturerestoration #wendyrhoades #billions #table #victorwilkins

Design prototype sheet

See additional images at the Instagram post.

Poppy stages embroidery inspired by our morning walk.

Saw this pretty poppy on our walk yesterday morning so I decided that it would be my subject for an appliqué embroidery. It’s not quite finished, a little hand sewing to follow, please pop back to see the completed work.

Created at @dawnirelandtextileartist workshop at #stitchedupandfleeced

#poppy #remembrance #applique #sew #freemotionsewing #embroideryart #berninauk #fabric #craft #make #red

Sew in the sunshine. Completing the poppy embroidery. Now what to make with it☺️? #poppy #embroidery #textileart

#applique #appliqueart #garden #sewalfresco

Hydrangea embroidery. Added these beautiful hydrangeas to our garden a few days ago. Decided to embroider a flower, then created a design in @pixelmator.

#embroidery #pixelmator #surfacepatterndesigner #sew #hydrangea #handsew #alfrescosewing

After providing the tools and ingredients I was delighted when my niece used them to make beautiful cupcakes. Pretty and delicious.

#sweetmoments #cupcake #buns #baking #homebaking #stawberries #icing #inspirebykim

My appliqué embroidery poppy made into a design.

#poppy #pixelmator #flowers #pattern

I was support baker this evening for cheesecake. Never knew all what goes into a cheesecake until this evening.

#baking #cheesecake #homebaked

Playing with a forecast image to promote the tennis club event.

🎾Tennis forecast for Sunday when the gates will open to the community for Mini Tennis, Adult Coaching and Free Play.

10:30-12:30 Sunday 30th June

More info and to register

http://bit.ly/2WvdPg5

#bigtennisweekend #sheffield #tennis #sport #familyfun #ridgeway

You’ll discover my Instagram feed at this link and here are related posts:

Tennis Club Promotion Part Two

Fabric Design Highlights

Thanks for being here and to my wonderful subscribers.

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Creative Apps, Tools and Tips

I thought it may be helpful to share some creative apps, favourite tools and tips for use in visual arts and design.

CamScanner App

A great convenient, ‘on the go’ tool for scanning using your phone and the CamScanner app. You can either take a scan/picture using the app or can import an image to convert that into a scan. The app locates the boundaries of your image and adjusts the light so you can even scan in low light. It’s a huge time saver and has a good memory capacity before it requires any payment. You don’t get bugged by ads. CamScanner is 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 in my opinion.

Screen grab of my CamScanner latest work

iPhone XS

My phone is a key tool in my work, for photographing, drawing, editing. The camera on this phone model takes beautiful images and the ‘portrait’ mode is a useful feature for product shots and photographing work. I like the ‘pano’ feature for creative shots. Couldn’t function without this. Great size, weight and stable when used with a tripod. iPhone XS 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I take a LOT of photos and create new designs on my iPhone

Pixelmator App

How I love Pixelmator. I can’t say how much I use it as it’s seamless in my work. I’m probably across in the app 5 times a day. Layering images, drawing, adding text, creating social media ads, resizing, mocking up ideas, creating repeat patterns. The app is intuitive, making it easy to learn and to use. This is a corker of a creative tool 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Pixelmator App Screen Grab Showing Layers of a Design.

Bernina Sewing Machine

I would never have thought that I could love a sewing machine as much as I do my Bernina. It’s reliable, compact, and with the digital display I know what the machine settings are at a glance. I want to make the marks myself so I’m not interested in sewing machines that take over and do the sewing themselves. Swiss engineering is renowned and my Bernina is a fabulous example of this that runs like clockwork. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Bernina B215 Sewing Machine sewing an ice cream themed fabric that I designed.

YouTube

A learning gateway for everything you might ever want to learn about, where someone always seems to have the answer for using a new product, or technique. I’m going to give YouTube 🌟🌟🌟🌟 as the ads can be annoying, but then again it’s ‘free’. YouTube is about the people who take the time to share their experiences and knowledge. Of course it’s best to watch a few videos for any given subject to be able to gather a few perspectives/ methods.

I’ve always enjoyed making films so I love that I can share my movies and reach people through YouTube. Here’s a link to go to my channel.

Inspire by Kim YouTube Channel screen grab

50 Ways to Draw Your Beautiful Ordinary Life

This book is like a hug of a drawing course. The creators of Flow magazine have done something magical by bringing together exercises from their illustrators to make this big beautiful collection of inspiring, drawing skills inducing delight. Love it with some good TV and a pencil or fine liner. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Flow Magazine.

Collage of the cover and pages of my drawings in the book.

Instagram

The place to see image based posts, as opposed to more wordy content. A window on creative studios, processes and what everyone is working on, it’s such a creative time that we live in. Instagram makes the world shrink to the size of the app and I love how we can connect with kindred creatives and find people with shared interests. And there’s always someone somewhere on Instagram, even in the middle of my night – when the darkness becomes a blank creative canvas for new idea seeds to germinate in my mind. Hoping the ads, which have increased in frequency, don’t takeover, like they appear to have on sister site Facebook 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Inspire by Kim Instagram Screen Grab

Also I have to mention PicCollage, which now allows a mix of still images and videos in collages, and WordPress for my blog.

I hope this proves helpful. Wanted to share these findings and also this is a way of expressing gratitude for this tremendous tech and fabulous phone based functions which are my fundamental tools.

Please stay and see some more posts here.

If you’d like a street these are my favourite ones.

Fabric Design Doll

Fabric Birds

Workshop – Testimonials

Reflecting on 4 Colour Full Years

Workshop – Final Places Available

Make a fabric bird, or two, or something else that makes your heart sing at the fabric design. workshop on 2nd June. Book now with Sue of Stitched Up and Fleeced, Sheffield’s leafing textile studio.

For more details about the workshop click here . To see inspiration for what you might like to make visit this link. There really is no limit to what you can design and make.

Here are some examples of workshop attendees designs.

Hope to see you on 2nd June. If you’re too far away let me know where you are and how you like to learn and we can find a solution for you to try these techniques.

Book the workshop and enquire now by contacting Sue at Stitched Up and Fleeced using this contact form.

Sew, design, stitch

Fabric Design Workshop Sunday 2 June 10 – 4 pm

This one day workshop gives the opportunity to bring stitch into the fabric design process. Stitching before and/or after transferring designs onto the fabric gives some beautiful effects and is fun to explore.

You can bring your own sewing machine or use one of the studio’s machines.

Book this lovely workshop @stitchedupandfleeced

#sewstitchdesign #fabricdesign #textiles #sheffield

This fabric design was created from a wax relief print of free machine embroidery, I then stitched into the printed fabric.

The above fabric became the body of this doll. She combines fabric design dye techniques, stitch and my favourite things including tulips and butterflies.

After hand painting and printing this design I placed a fleecy layer behind it and a titched details

Stitching fabric waves onto this fabric print to add texture and depth to the sea.

This small fabric bird was printed using plant sample from in and around our garden. Then stitched to create the pretty bird.

Come along and try these techniques and enjoy creating something truly unique.

Book at http://www.stitchedupandfleeced.com/workshops

Related posts:

Fabric Design Steps

Fabric Design Workshop, 2nd June, Sheffield

Workshop – Testimonials

Products from Colourcraft

Fabric Design Doll

With an idea to create doll I drew sketches then began assembling pieces of fabric that I had created through exploration with free machine embroidery techniques and heat sensitive fabric paints.

I’ll be demonstrating how to design and colour fabric in this way at a workshop on Sunday 2nd June. More details here and to follow.

I arranged the fabric pieces I’d created and stitched them together on my beloved Bernina before free motion embroidering further details of my favourite things, swimming fish, tulips, spiral shapes, hearts and flowers.

Fish and clams inspired by exploring the coral reefs of Egypt

Once I had the assembled and embroidered a length of fabric I drew pattern shapes and then cut them from the fabric thinking carefully about the placement of the different designs, details and colours, so as to create a striking bright design and balance where the colours popped against each other.

I stitched the legs and arms front to backs and she started to take shape.

My optician had asked me to capture my colourful Johann Von Goisern frames with my artwork so this seemed a good opportunity for a shot for this. The optician called it ‘frames and threads’ and shared it on their social media.

As the doll has two facial expressions one eyes open and one in calm restful bliss I needed only a little hair. I had a small piece of the bias binding leftover that I had pressed with magenta coloured heat sensitive paints, and wax relief of Passion flower tendrils, for the draught excluder project.

Turns out she’s a sun lover, I spotted her relaxing in the sunshine as I rethreaded my needle.

This work gave rise to the idea of placing supportive words and phrases on a doll to reassure and inspire the owner when life feels its most challenging, I’m going to develop that idea further.

Try it yourself:

All of these pieces of fabric were plain white when I began this project. Using heat sensitive paints I added colour and design to the fabrics to create something unique and original.

You can learn and explore these wonderful dye and stitch techniques, creating with colours and designs that you love to make something beyoutiful and uniquely you.

Join me on Sunday 2nd June at Stitched Up and Fleeced in Sheffield. 10 – 4 pm, £60. A wonderful day, no experience necessary.

You can book now by messaging your interest at this link.

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed this work.

I’m off to draw the doll now in different poses and develop a story around her.

If you’ve enjoyed this post these are other projects that you may enjoy seeing…

Bird and Flowers Cushion Design

Fabric Design Workshop – 2nd June, Sheffield

Fabric Design Project – Window Box Tulips

The Inspire Bear

Heat Press Inspiration

Fabric Design Project – Window Box Tulips

Now there will always be flowers 🌷 by my window. Started with plain white fabric and hand painted the design before printing it onto the white fabric.

From my initial marker drawing to being in use, my designer draught excluder, here’s the story in a less than 40 seconds video.

Marker sketches

Painted designs ready for pressing into the fabric.

Used passionflower tendrils for wax relief to add texture to the bias binding.

I reused filling from the previous draught excluder, which the fabric had worn through.

I’m delighted with the end result it’s practical and pretty at our juliet balcony.

I like the immediacy of these fabric design techniques. It takes just 30 seconds to transfer the painted design from paper to fabric. I only use the fabric I print, not having to buy patterned fabric by measurement and trying to match up the patterns, with lots left over. I can just work with white fabrics and print the panels to the size and scale for whatever I am making. This can be reusing and repurposing fabric, anything from clothing to pillowcases. The designs are entirely my own and are unique and unrepeatable. This uniqueness and bespoke nature of these techniques is the magic that I’ve found, and that I enjoy sharing through workshop sessions.

Follow my blog to see dates of upcoming workshops or email me if you’re interested in a one to one session inspirebykim@outlook.com

Related posts:

Fabric Design Workshop

Bird and Flower Cushion

Miniature Cheese Plant

Bell Pepper Allergy Campaign

“Symptoms of capsicum allergy result in serious situation like anaphylaxis or mild signs like asthma, abdominal pain, hives, eczema and head ache.”

Source: Allergy Symptoms.org

During #inktober I created my first bell pepper allergy illustration. I then saved this on my phone to show when ordering food in restaurants.

Watercolour painted peppers added to the original many language background

Now don’t get me wrong it’s not that I don’t like peppers. I find them deliciously tasty, but it took some years to pinpoint that being doubled over with severe stomach cramps, hot and cold sweats, three days when I couldn’t get out of bed, diahorrea until my system was empty, was due to eating bell peppers.

Bell Pepper Allergy and Intolerance Symptoms – Found through research.

Give me a chilli and I’m happy and fine, but a fragment of bell pepper or a pinch of paprika and I loose the next few hours at least. Until my body has painfully fought the peppers and kicked them back out of my system.

It was suggested to me by a GP that it may be IBS, which is why I believe some people could be thinking and dealing with what they believe is IBS when they might just need to drop peppers from their diet. 

Heatpressing hand painted peppers

Machine rendering after hand sewing

Now peppers are very nutritious for some people, but they can be anaphylaxic for some. However they are almost never listed on food menus and food packaging as allergens. Often they’re not written on food menus, despite them being part of the dish. Due to their colourfulness peppers are often used in ‘food on the go’ meals such as salads. Really helpfully they’re often finely chopped and written in minuscule font on the ingredients list on packaging. 

So I just want to make people, you even, more aware of the possible reactions and physical responses to peppers. Maybe this work can take away someone’s pain or discomfort. 

So I’m asking people to think before they eat and serve bell peppers and paprika, I’m asking food retailers to think before they add bell peppers and paprika and to make it as an allergen, and for restaurants to always state where bell peppers and paprika have been used in their dishes. And please use a different chopping board for peppers.

Thank you for reading to the end. Next time you eat peppers just observe in the time afterwards how you feel. If you have any of the symptoms listed in this article you might want to see if the symptoms clear up or cease. 

Eat happy, be happy, consider pushing aside the peppers. 

Free Download – I’ve created an illustrated download for those with Bell Pepper allergies and intolerances. This is for use in restaurants, hotels at home and abroad. Please feel free to print and/or share this with someone that it may help, and to raise awareness of this food allergy. Card size set to 9 x 13cm.

Bell Pepper Allergy Advice Card

Bell Pepper Allergy Advice

Advice Card – Reverse

See more on my Facebook and Instagram

Related work: Work that relates to the techniques is at the following links. I often find that the work is stepping stones to the next creation, like a bright creative path where the next step is revealed upon completion of the present one. These creative projects led to this work.

Bird and Flower Cushion

Steel Company Brand Art

Satin Cheese Plant

Next Step – in the campaign is to use the content created with supermarkets, restaurants and through PR and social media to raise awareness of bell peppers as an allergen.

Mini Case Studies – If you’ve a bell pepper story please email me as I’m collecting personal accounts and experiences that can demonstrate how this intolerance can affect individuals.

Links that may be of use/interest:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/279402-bell-pepper-allergy/

https://allergy-symptoms.org/capsicum-allergy/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321883.php

https://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/nightshade-allergies#treatments

http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/informall/allergenic-food/index.aspx?FoodId=58

https://wwws.fitnessrepublic.com/nutrition/healthy-eating/does-bell-pepper-cause-stomach-cramps.html

If you have a reaction to chillis…

https://metro.co.uk/2018/02/19/chilli-peppers-capsaicin-intolerance-affect-7315577/

Passion for Textile Flowers

Everlasting passionflower lovingly crafted from textiles.

The satin cheese plant I made led to my decision to make a textile passion flower….

I studied the beautiful flowers that I have been growing in garden for 15 years.

Some all-white varieties surprised me in the garden this year.

Passionflower study in coloured pencils

Monochrome study aiming to simplify the forms.

Watercolour study of passiflora.

I then took the designs into stitch. This was the first iteration of the passion flower with a little fused Angelina fibre panel for the centre.

Free motion embroidery and ribbon couching to create the second flower design.

After considering different fabrics I decided to use satin with scrim behind for the third flower experiment.

It was important that I create depth for the flower’s corona filaments, anthers and stigmas. I used felt, a bead and embroidery silks.

My intention whilst working at Chelsea College of Arts at the start of the month was to create screen printed designs that I could later add 3D passionflowers to. 

A passionflower couldn’t exist without its leaves. I created this one using satin that I have designed and printed using Colourcraft products, with felt behind/underside made at Stitched Up and Fleeced in Sheffield.

The final addition was the tendrils shaped with a little love as inspiration. Photographed in the sun, which is what prompts the passionflowers to reveal their striking beauty.

Thanks so much for reading to the end. I’m delighted with this work and will be looking at the display of it. So watch this space by popping your email address in the box at the top of the page to follow my blog. Normally a maximum of one post per week, a little bright creativity into your inbox

Here is the work that led to the passion flower creation.

Bird and Flowers Design

Satin Cheese Plant

Textile Print Design at Chelsea

And finally here are flowers I painted in pomegranate juice (and a little green watercolour). The juice was a stunning pink so I could resist making art with it. The work is inspired by a great book I’m reading The Joy of Watercolour by Emma Block.

Additional inspiration from the Botanica book by Uppercase magazine. A delightful treat of a book.

Designer Dog Coat

Personalised Pooch Weather Proof Coat

My four legged furry buddy isn’t keen on walking in the rain. So to stop this little guy…

…ending up looking like this…

I decided to make him a bespoke coat. As he’s a Lhasa Apso with a long body shop coats don’t fit him so off the peg wouldn’t do the job.

So using his silhouette and paw print, captured on a snowy day, I designed a repeat pattern.

I painted the design in dyes using wax relief…

Then heat-pressed the design onto fabric and cut out the shapes from the paper pattern I had created to fit my furry fashionisto.

The good weather took the sewing and quilting of the layers al fresco.

I love reflective fabric so used used this for back panel of the dog coat.

My lovely Bernina sewing machine made light work of the creative quilting and edging tape sewing.

I don’t think, for me, sewing can get much better than making with fabric I’ve designed and printed myself.

After attaching the pieces and adding Velcro and a button fastening the coat was ready for “walkies”.

The collar up option for heavy rain is quite David Bowie/spacey.

The collar down option for chillier but less wet days.

You might want to see these dog inspired projects:

Drawing With Silks – Cute Dog

The Dog Who Wanted To Fly

Maltese Dog Portrait

Dog Portraits in Acrylic Paint

I’d like to thank my fabulous furry fashion model, Borrow My Doggy for the introduction and you for being here.

Make a new furry friend through Www.BorrowMyDoggy.com

For more fun makes follow my blog, my Facebook page and Instagram feed.

Thanks

Kim and Willow xx

Football Themed Gifts

Football themed iPad rest. My latest project completed.

I was asked to make an iPad rest which would be a gift for an avid football fan, to use when watching his favourite game on iPad.

I created a unique design with football players set in a ball pattern on the main panel (above) and handpainted pitch with the lines stictched for the underside (below).

Watch the creative process in just 30 seconds…

As part of the development of this idea I made a drawstring bag for the same customer.

Also made last week was this phone charger bag, featuring the Barnsley FC painting.

Related posts:

Football Fan Commissioned Painting

Football Fan Charger Bag

Thanks sooooo much for being here. Share this with your friends and football (soccer) lovers. 😊

UK followers have chance to win this boxed canvas in a competition now on my Facebook Page…

Have a great day. 😊👍