A little bit of mixed media

The first thing which springs to my mind when thinking of mixed media are buttons, spare bits of fabric, a assortment of bright or muted fabric paints and the ability to allow your imagination to run wild - ideally with a cup of tea and a biscuit! ( tea and art is a unbeatable combination! ). From the first time I heard about this art medium I was hooked, who wouldn't be? So starting in the idea, sketching and template stage I begun by incorporating two of my favourite things, classic literature and textiles ( and buttons! ).

Here's the first of my mixed media cushion, based on the wonderful Wuthering Heights!

I thought of adding the writing / quote when I was halfway through completing her hair so decided that was the ideal place to add it, I think it works rather well don't you? I know my hair blows
''Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near'' !

This is the second and most recent one, based on the great fiery and independent character Demelza in the Poldark novels by Winston Graham.

I loved making her curly hair, an idea I had when I was trying to create that bouncy yet thick look that most curly hair has. Made by intricately stitching each individual circle of fabric.

I hope you like them and if so you can find them on my Folksy shop :).

Link here - https://folksy.com/items/6827535-The-Cornish-Maiden-Applique-and-Embroidered-Cushion-Mixed-Media-

A new collection - introducing Sybil!

Happiest dressed in her 1950's long flowing skirts and floral flower pattern hats, Sybil is usually to be found strolling around her much loved allotment or baking cherry tarts, Victoria sponges or scones in her old cottage kitchen - all with her devoted wire haired Jack Russell Lottie by her side.

With a love for tangy cheese and pickle sandwiches and strong tea, she loves to harvest her home grown vegetables and collecting fruit from old trees down the old farm track. Occasionally stopping to talk and sneakily give a freshly picked apple to a little Shetland pony in the meadow beyond the orchard.

Sybil has many little habits and ways, she is also very traditional in her tastes, strongly believing there is only one way to make a good pot of tea, make her famous bread and butter pudding or to brush a reluctant Jack Russell!

Sybil loves socialising with her neighbours over the garden fence, trading gardening and baking tips, but loves nothing more than warming up by the fire in a thick woolly jumper and a good book on a rainy day.

Filled with dried Kentish lavender and embroidered onto soft textured fabric, I hope you love the Sybil Collection as much as I love making them! :).

See the Sybil and Lottie story cushions here ~ https://folksy.com/shops/LiliDog/collections/253689

Picture blog

With that Friday feeling in the air I feel writing long paragraphs hard to imagine after a busy week of animals, walking, day to day activities, designing and trying to get it all into a hectic but manageable order! So to relax into blogging after the short break I've had from it I've decided to make this one a sort of picture blog, a combination of what I've been up to with sketches and ideas for the weekend ahead!

Some doodling from a few days ago, I often make these random sketches - my way of relaxation! They mostly get carefully filed away and because they are carefully filed away they sometimes end up carefully lost!

A page in my folder dedicated to the big-eared chaps often seen in fields or contently nibbling away on a gardener's prized vegetable patch! but they are such characterful animals that have become so apart of the English countryside that you can't help but love and cherish them. Most of these drawings are in black and white with the coloured one soon to be featuring in a project over the weekend.

I always get this enthusiast watching intently while I'm working - she's probably stitching while my back's turned!

This little cat peeping out of my hoop will be on a small decorative long cushion. The breed is a Siamese cat, a world away from the usually extremely hairy breeds I seem to drift to when I'm deciding upon a design! Below is a embroidered framed design I made a few years ago with a cushion made using different methods to those I usually apply that I made yesterday for a friend depicting her beautiful horse!

I hope you all have a terrific weekend! :)

New Ideas & Upcoming Projects!

I have what you might call a 'crafting mind' I like to try my hand at any new and intriguing project at any given opportunity ( normally all at once! ) and have a tendency to be sewing, cutting wood or painting up new ideas for a myriad of different creations and ending up leaving and coming back to things later on. Making cushions, linocuts, canvases and lavender sachets is irresistible to me and I find it just as exciting as when I'm packaging up a item to go to a new home. Mostly dabbling in animals at the moment, it's occasionally nice to mix things up a bit with something completely different. Skulls for example, are certainly unusual compared to a quirky dog drawing or a smiling cat! but skulls can be quite effective when used correctly as seen by many artists loving gothic design.

















I'm still doing other designs, at the moment we are working with the beautiful cat that is the British Shorthair and it will be in the same style as the half face cat cushion and perhaps be appliqued in the same gorgeous colour as the cat's coat.

I also have a strong love of the seaside and try to find any excuse to make something relating to it. I am focusing on sardines currently but can't wait to start on some other fish species once I have
finished completing some of my previous designs. Here are some stages to the applique
sardine cushion.

More designs to come, thanks for looking and Merry Christmas!

My Favourite Season, Autumn.

Ah, It's that time of the year again! That moment when you take a stroll through the woods and the trees have started to cloak themselves in a myriad of colours, flaming reds, vibrant yellows, burnt orange, all looking like they want to outshine the other in some unspoken competition. 

Mushrooms and toadstalls have started appearing in vast quantities, their chestnut brown or red spotted tops easily noticeable among the fallen leaves of nearby trees. Each seeming to be small houses in between the deep moss green in valleys of holes or dips, feeding off the fallen tree trunks and old bracken.

Leaves aren't the only thing falling, keep an eye out for the beautiful individual works of art that are acorns. They are a particularly gorgeous shade of brown at this time of year. They are amazing seeds, a single oak tree between 70 and 80 years old can produce thousands of them and make up the most of a squirrels diet during this season.

Waking up in the morning to see mist draped through the trees and coating the bushes and grass with fresh dew, broken only by the golden sunlight that shines through even the most stubborn of rain clouds, giving everything a mystical feel. Reminding everyone that Halloween is drawing closer.

A time for evenings in with a toasty fire, slippers, warm tea, pumpkin carving, hearty soups and freshly baked bread.

Happy Halloween all! 

Fabric Painted Chicken Cushion Designs In Progress.

A lot of work goes into making even the smallest of cushions, especially when they're highly detailed, hand-drawn and hand painted.


First of all we start by finding a desirable chicken breed - which is hard because they're all so lovely!.

Then we draw out the beautiful chosen fowl in bold black ink so we can see it through the fabric.

( this is not the same breed as the grumpy chicken in the picture above! ).


Adding all the details which makes the breed so stunning and distinctive.

Then onto the calico to paint.

Then we paint them....

To make sure they all look their best we hand paint each individual feather just as they would look like on the real chicken, using differing tones of the selected colours to reflect the gorgeous glossy sheen of the bird's body, head and wings.

We mostly use cockerels because of their humorous and bold characters.

Then we cut away the remaining fabric around the design, picking some lovely fabric to make the cockerels really stand out.

Wyandotte and Scot's Grey Cockerels.


We then sew it up into the finished cushion which will look a lot like this one when it is finished
( Minus the hessian backing ).

From our previous shop Freddie's Girl.

This one will also be available on our shop as part of our chicken collection.

Back to crafting! hope you all have a terrific day! :).

Experimenting With Silk.

It's amazing how through an accident a good idea can be created. Not long after I began making my cat cushions, the ones that completely face you, that half of the face was obscured by a book laid on the table, cue another cushion idea. Now what do cats do best? hide behind things! particularly walls. The red embroidery silk works best for this and here is the finished result.

These are both available on Folksy and Etsy.

Another accident was when I was sketching out a design for my series of dogs with balloons cushions, upon drawing out a polka dot balloon my hand slipped and created a curiously nose shaped mark in the middle, add whiskers and a wide cat smile and Voila! Instant quirky cat balloons.

I have yet to make any more useful mistakes and continue trying to fulfill my creative nature and keep crafting items. At the moment I'm in the process of making some embroidered fish. Ah to be by the sea! making some fish is the next best thing I think. They will take some time until they're added to the shop as I prefer to list a collection of them together. I can just imagine them hanging on a beach hut somewhere, a fisherman's latest catch without the worry of salty smells in the home!

 Sardines ~

Dover Sole ~

The Dover Sole was one of my first fish that I did.

They may look familiar because they were both on my old shop.

A soon to be coming collection which was mentioned in my last blog was the sheep cushions, they will be made and listed on the shop as soon as I get some more material.

Dalesbred Sheep ~

The Herdwick was my first sheep cushion and is now in a happy home ~

I'll just go and craft some more now, in between fabric and baking! ~ hope you all have a lovely afternoon!