Giveaway winner.

I listed the writers of the comments on my 300th post (for which I thank you all), not including duplicates and there were 11. So I numbered each one and then fetched one of my trusty d12s (that’s a polyhedral 12 sided die numbered 1-12 for non RPGers) to choose the winner.

It rolled:

 

And as you can see from my hastily scribbled list, number 9 is…

Karen!

Congratulations, Karen. If you could let me have your snail mail address and an idea of whether you would like a hammered blue, impressed blue, hammered red or impressed red pendant, I’ll pop it in the post for you.

The rest will shortly go into my Etsy shop. 

Edited to say: they’re now all listed here on Etsy.

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300th Post Giveaway!

I missed Under A Topaz Sky’s third anniversary in May so decided that since I was relatively close to 300 posts, I’d have a giveaway to celebrate that milestone instead.

I’ve been finishing more of the projects I started last year on my silversmithing course, including the plans I had for these brass domes. Hammered…

 

…and impressed with embroidered fabric.

They have finally been pierced and attached to silk cocoons to make unusual and quirky pendants.

There are two colours: red and ultramarine blue, and two types of finish on the domes, hammered and impressed.

To celebrate my 300th post, I’m going to give away one of these unique little pendants. The winner can choose from: crimson red with a hammered dome or vermillion with an impressed dome…

…or ultramarine blue with a hammered dome…

…or ultramarine with an impressed dome.

They have brass jump rings attached as a bale and I’ll include a ribbon or thong or something similar as well.

If you would like to enter the giveaway then just leave a comment below and I’ll draw a winner out of something suitable next Thursday, October 2nd 2014. Good luck!

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Giveaway Winner!

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to leave such lovely comments for my Second Anniversary Giveaway.

I’m delighted to announce that the winner is… Jody, from Beach Treasures and Treasure Beaches.

Jody, if you contact me via email (bottom bar of the blog on the right hand side) with your snail mail address I’ll send Sea Glass: Lilac Swirl on its way to you!

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Happy 2nd Birthday to Under A Topaz Sky!

Two years ago today, on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday, I decided to dip my toe into the blogging world in order to document the creative part of my life, which makes today Under A Topaz Sky’s second birthday.

So I’m marking it with a giveaway. Not for the lovely strawberry pavlova pictured above, which just might not make it through the postal system, but for one of my sea glass canvases: Sea Glass – Lilac Swirl.

It’s English sea glass on hand dyed calico, hand embroidered with threaded chain stitch in silk and stranded cotton and measures 7″ by 5″ and three quarters of an inch thick.

So as a thank you to all the bloggers, lurkers and other visitors worldwide who end up under a topaz sky with me,  here is my second birthday present to you. And I’m happy to post worldwide.

In order to enter, just leave me a comment before Wednesday the 8th of May and I’ll draw the winner on the 9th.

Good luck and thank you all for your support over the last two years. 🙂

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Valentine arrives and slow progress

I was delighted to be the winner of Penny’s Valentine’s Day giveaway for one of her wonderful art dolls and a couple of days ago Valentine arrived, beautifully wrapped and snug in his box.

He’s taken up residence on the top shelf of my reference bookcase which sits next to the computer and holds all my most used reference books, ceramics and other treasured items, where he can keep an eye on the comings and goings of the household.

He’s a joy. Thanks so much once again, Penny.

I’ve been working on one or two things that aren’t coming together quite as I envisaged so it’s been slow progress as I feel my way through. The first is another one of the fused angelina shapes that I ironed over a rubber stamp. It started off like this:

I added back stitch around the edge in very fine dark purple silk thread…

…and then whipped the back stitch with a metallic purple and green thread.

I’m going to fill the middle with beads or possibly something like gold chip work.

Then there’s the next rusting block. I’d got as far as this, with eyelets in a variegated cotton thread and french knots in stranded silk:

 

And then I’d stopped, which usually means that my sub-conscious knows it isn’t right somehow. When I picked it up again, I decided to put in all the eyelets first…

…and at that point realised that what I wasn’t happy about was the way the eyelets and french knots obscured each other. Far too messy. The small patches of french knots were removed and it’s definitely better.

As with the angelina flower, I’m not 100% satisfied, but it’s getting there.

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Winner of the Wintry Fabric Book Giveaway

First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment – they were wonderful and I genuinely wish I’d had more than one book to give away. I even thought about trying to rustle up a second one but time and other commitments got the better of me.

My lovely Julia Land salt pig was pressed into service again, names written on pieces of paper and placed inside and the one that came out first was…

…vivjm of Live. Grow. Nourish. Create .

Congratulations!

So, once I have a snail mail address, the wintry book will be on its way to you.

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Wintry fabric book – a giveaway!

Several things came together for this book.

Firstly, I finally finished the little wintry silk fragment and thought what a good book cover it would make.

Secondly, I’d just bought some scraps of Japanese kimono silk from ebay and thought what a wonderful way the fabric book would be to showcase their delicate beauty.

Thirdly, I had a couple of long meetings coming up and combining the donkey work of lacing fabric over the cover boards and stitching ‘endpaper’ pieces on the back to finish it off with the whole meeting thing is a great way to take the boring edge off both.

I love the figured blue-grey silk of the ‘endpapers’.

 And lastly, I’m still loving making these little books.

The pages are all silk, and as I had trouble with the red cabbage dyed silk pages, I decided to iron them first. It helped, but the silk moves around a lot more than cotton and it made stitching the spine quite difficult. I restitched it three times and it still isn’t quite as even as I’d have liked.

I chose the smaller stitch pattern for the french link stitch and decided to use a cool blue cotton thread to contrast with the wintry greys and blacks of the cover and pages.

Inside, a range of printed and woven luscious silk ikat, crepe etc.

This looks out of focus, but it isn’t – it’s the ikat pattern.

It’s a pretty miserable time of year here in the UK so I thought it would be nice to have a giveaway for my little wintry book.

I’f you’d like the chance to win it, then in time-honoured fashion, please leave me a comment by next Saturday (9th February) and I’ll announce the winner on Sunday the 10th. I’m happy to post to anywhere in the world. 😮

Good luck!

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And the winners are…

… Emma from A Little Bit Of Everything was the first name out of my lovely Julia Land salt pig

and she is the winner of  ‘Along the Turquoise Path’.

Marie from Magic Moon Musings has won the ribbon roses piece and

Julie from Mixed Media was the third name I drew and will receive the selection of natural dyed fabrics and trimmings.

Many thanks to all of you who left such lovely and thoughtful comments. I appreciate them all and also the visits you all make to my blog.

Here’s to the next twelve months. 😮

 

 

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A First Anniversary Giveaway!

Happy First Anniversary to my blog!

I started it exactly a year ago, on May Bank Holiday Monday, and it’s become a far more useful, interesting and important part of my life than I could ever have guessed.

I get so much out of the blogging world that it’s impossible to know where to start listing all the delights and pleasures it gives me, but the biggest benefit is that it motivates me to keep sewing; to push through the times when I’d rather give up on a project because there’s now (rather to my amazement!) an audience for what I do.

So as a thank you to all the bloggers, lurkers and other visitors worldwide who end up here, I’m hosting my first ever give away with three things to be given away. In order to enter, just leave a comment. Anything will do – even Hi! – and I’m happy to post worldwide.

The first name to be drawn out will be sent my rusted piece  ‘Along The Turquoise Path’ which I blogged about here. It’s a piece of rusted calico embroidered with variegated metallic thread, embellished with rusted washers and graduated turquoise chips and mounted on a 7″  by 5″ canvas.

The second name drawn will get my final ribbon roses piece which I blogged about here. It’s laced over stout mount board and is a dainty 4.5″ by 3″ and doesn’t include the easel, I’m afraid.

The third name to be drawn will receive a taster selection of my naturally dyed fabrics and trims, including red cabbage, avocado and eucalyptus dyed fabric pieces.

Leave your comment before the 8th of May and the winners will be drawn by my small helper on the 9th.

Don’t forget to check back to see if you’ve been lucky!

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Bluework!

Our last Embroiderers’ Guild meeting was an in-house session on redwork. There were lots of great ideas and worked examples for inspiration and I was rather taken with a redwork project from Stitch magazine which consisted of freely drawn cups, mugs, coffee and teapots.

I chose a sugar bowl shape and was just drawing it on my linen when it occured to me that it was rather like a Chinese porcelain bowl. If Chinese, then it had to be blue and white, hence bluework, rather than redwork!

The bowl is outlined in chain stitch in one strand of fine hand-dyed blue silk thread.

As ever, I like to work in small sections, so I gridded up the bowl with the idea that each section would be worked with a different pattern. Top left is lazy daisy flowers.

With french knot centres in stranded cream silk.

Then in one of the bigger sections, branches, formed from layers of stem stitch.

These will carry cherry blossom in cream french knots.

And this is my 100th post!

100 posts in almost a year and the first anniversary of my blog is coming up on the 2nd of May. Thank you to everyone who comes to visit and watch out for my first giveaway coming up to celebrate the event.

 

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