Letting my Inner Groupie out!

Roller Derby. It's pretty awesome. And if you don't know what i'm talking about, it's worth checking it out. Here in Victoria we have several leagues and I just so happen to know a few people playing in them. One in particular is my friend Molly. She kicks ass for the 'Cutthroat Charmers', part of the 'South Sea Roller Derby League'. I've been behind molly all the way from the begining and when she got to play her first bout I made her a hand embroidered iron on badge with her derby name on it, which she proudly sports on her behind!

Once 'Mollycious Intent' was proudly sporting hers I was commissioned again to do one for 'Inkabelle' who wears hers on the back of her team vest...

Today i finished one for 'The Red Baroness'. I have no idea where she's going to put hers, but it will be pretty cool "badge spotting" when i next get up to the city to see them bout!

It's Finally Here!!!

Ever so excited this morning... Buying books over here can be really expensive so I opted to have Amazon.co.uk send me this one in the post. Anyhoo, guess what arrived this morning!!!

Now, the reason why i'm so excited about this is because not only was it written by someone who I was on the Apprenticeship with (Sarah Homfray,), but also because some of my work is featured in it!

Right there, on pages 88 and 89 are pictures of  'Sam' (our family's beloved one eyed cat) and 'Biggles', the very friendly dog of the Watson family, who commission the piece back in 2008. Both of these can be seen in better detail in my gallery pages, but I'm so very chuffed to have them in this book, which on very close inspection, is one of the best books i have read on silk shading. Regardless of the fact that I have stuff in it, i would totally recommend this to anyone giving the technique a go.

W.I.P. Green Man

So I originaly started this because I've been hanging to work on a green man piece for a while. Then it became a gift idea for a good friend who has just moved house... but then i started to get interest about the possibility of selling it... So who knows what will happen to it!
I had also set a challenge for myself to make it out of up-cycled materials, so the backing fabric has been taken from a skirt and the leaves from school jumpers. The stumpwork leaves are wired around the edge to allow me to shape them before stitching them down, which although great, is also very time consuming when you have to bend them into the right shapes first! And i'll be honest, I've nearly poked my eye out several times...

All the background stitching done and leaves applied before the stumpwork leaves go on.

stumpwork leaves added to the forehead and chin... just 4 more leaves to go!

Now, I will have to put this project a side for a little while as i have a small commission to do before the end of the month (which i'll share with you in my next post), but I don't suspect this guy will be hanging around for very long...

My First Blog post!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my new Website and Blog! It's taken me a while to get it started, but here it is! i'll be using this as my base for all things RalRay Embroidery, with frequent updates on things I'm working on and what I've been up to.

So, take a look around, have a nosey, and hopefully I'll hear from you soon!