Hello everyone I am back again. I have been very lazy with my blog for nearly a year. I have all these good intentions but never seem to do it. 

I hope you enjoy this little bag it was made for a challenge by Stitchmap. The challenge was the bag and because we are an embroidery group a necessary element was the embroidery.

The embroidery is a Brazilian embroidery I designed for a class I am going to teach next term. I can certainly not claim the stitches as mine the come from a number of different sources and are interpreted by me. The layout of the design though is all mine.

The little button is a Dorset button that I will probably change for an embroidered one; but as I had the Dorset made I used it. An excellent site to see how to make these pretty buttons is here. 

February Block Challenge Finished

At last I have finished my February block. This one was a marathon because I decided to make this a practice block for bullion stitch. 

I am afraid I got lost along the way and in the end I used a lace butterfly to finish the block. This is supposed to be farm with vegetables and fish and bees and one sheep that really needs to be shorn. All in all I enjoyed doing this block it pushed my comfort zone right out.
March I have decided is going to be easier I will only be allowed to use seam decoration lets see how that works out.

I have been so slack this year no posts since February. I really intend to try harder next year but we will see. I have done two courses with Stitchmap this year. 
The first was the Crazy Quilt Course where we made a pretty sewing kit and the second was Redwork. I was very fortunate to have Shari as my mentor each time.
Here are some photos from the Crazy Quilt

Here is my first needle book I use it for Milliner (my favourite needle) and Crewel needles

The second needle book. I use this one for Tapestry needles

The thread holder contains my special threads - mainly silks and Brazilian threads

The pincushion sits on my worktable and because it is so large it never gets lost

This is the thread holder opened out. It was such fun to do creating this secret garden for my threads

And here is the whole set together.

This course had a lot of stitching as well as design elements in it. I found it really valuable.

The second course was Redwork and here is a photo of my finished set. These are little weights filled with rice for the times you do not want to use pins but still want to hold something steady.

Once again this was a very stitch intensive course but I think the finished product was worth the effort

The Diamonds are finished

I signed up last year to swap 3 diamond blocks. At last they are finished and mailed out only 3 days late. That is a record for me. They were such fun to do and I am very happy with the way they turned out.

Here are all three of them together. Of course I have left a much wider frame around them but I pinned it back for the photos.

This is a closeup of the first one I finished with a pretty peacock in the centre block. The photos are not great as I had to use my phone. 

That is a tale in itself, I could not get the pictures to load into my computer so I could send them to my blog so after much swearing and cursing, yes I used the magic @#$% word, I finally worked out how to get the blue-tooth to work between my laptop and my phone. 

Not bad for an Old Gal hay!!!

This is the second one I finished  All the stitching is experimental either I am learning to do a stitch or I want to find out how a combination works. It often means a lot of reverse stitching LOL.

And last but certainly not least is this one more just playing around but I wish the photos came out better.

I have no idea which of my partners got which diamond because what I did was package them up with a little note and sealed the envelope. Then I addressed them, kind of like a lucky dip. I mailed 2 of this morning but I do not yet have my third partner's snail mail address so soon as I know that I will send it off also.

I do hope my partners will like their little diamonds as much as I have enjoyed making them.

My Beautiful Christmas Cracker

Here are some photos of the Christmas Cracker I received from Faye. I was very strong and did not open it until Christmas morning but I forgot to take photo of it before I opened it.

Isn't the stitching just beautiful I am so lucky I love the Asian influenced fabrics.

Such pretty braids, beads, laces and 2 silkies as well.

Here is a closeup if the silkies not a very good one I am afraid but they are just beautiful in real life.

Yesterday I put the photos of Diane's blocks on the blog but looking at them this morning I realized you cannot really see the stitching so I have uploaded photos of my work on Diane's block. I hope she likes them. I found this an extremely challenging set but a stunning idea and can't wait to see the finished product after Diane embroiders the views from the window. 

Block1: This is Portuguese Border Stitch done in pink and soft green perle 8. This is from TAST from Pintangle and is a really pretty stitch and easy to do.  

Block2: These are some of the stitches from  "A Book of Fancy Designs for Ornamenting Oriental Work" this is a gorgeous old book from the Antique stitch library. Crazy Quilting was known as Oriental work in Victorian times.

Block 3: Another set of stitches from "A Book of Fancy Designs for Ornamenting Oriental Work" . They are up and down buttonhole stitch detached chain straight stitch and fly stitch. The thread is perle 8.

 

Block 4: The base stitch is taken from the little Victorian book I have been using for this set. It is worked like a cross stitch but up and down  I then tied down each corner with a minute cross-stitch and put buttonhole wheel flowers in alternate holes.

Block 5: This is just a series of stitches out of my head. I used a variegated perle thread 5

Block 6: A little kitty staring out the window chain stitch, straight stitch in rayon thread.

Block 7: Stars reflected in the paintwork stitched in woven star and drizzle stitch with colonial knots, my favourite sort if knot. Stitched in perle 8

Block 8: Just stitched as the muse struck. Blanket half wheels and detached chain. 

Block 9: This in fact was the first block I stitched. The woven stitch daffodils were taken from an old copy of Inspirations. I thought the idea of a couple of flowers forgotten on the window sill was sweet.

Back again with a bit more on the BAS Round Robin. This has been very challenging and Diane's blocks were no exception in fact I think they were the hardest of all but in some ways the prettiest. 
Because of the constraint not to use the light green areas and maintain the integrity of the light and dark values if the window frames this really made me for one think. 
Once the blocks came to me there was not too much room on some of them. Any how here is my go at these beautiful and exciting blocks. I can't wait to see them finished after Diane puts the scenery in the background areas.

This block I added very little to just the Portuguese plaited stitch in the lower left hand.

Here I added the lower right upright panel to click on the block to get a larger view.

Lower left upright is my work here

Once again the lower right  upright.

The right upper upright is my stitching

The kitty sitting on the window sill is mine

The Stars reflected on the left upright above the other kitty. I did not do the kitty but I think she is so cute.

The stitching on the upper right upright.

The daffodils on the lower left window sill are perle 8 woven stitch.

Most of my stitching came from either TAST in www.pintangle.com or from a fantastic little booklet "A Book of Fancy Designs for Ornamenting Oriental Work" from www.antiquepatternlibrary.org. In Victorian times Crazy Quilting was called Oriental work hence the name of the booklet.
I hope you enjoy looking at these lovely blocks it was indeed a privilege working on them. For a larger view of the blocks just click on any one of them.

I have just signed up for the 2013 CQJP challenge. I hope I do better than I did this year what with my hip and foot I seemed to slow right down with my sewing. I would have thought being confined to a wheelchair for 6 months would have meant lots of sewing but it was all just too hard and I did very little. So now I mam determined to stop procrastinating and get back to my sewing.

At last I seem to be sewing again. I have been working on a couple of projects for lately. The first is Pam's Build a Seam blocks. I have finished 3. The first one is the Chevron Stitch

 I used Chevron to cover the seam and then had a nice play with fly-stitch, colonial knots, detached chain and pistil stitch.

The next block I did was the Cretan stitch

instead of doing the seam I filled in the little blue area with cretan leaves, bullion roses, colonial knot forget-me-nots and some detached chain leaves.

The last one I have finished so far is the Buttonhole Stitch.

For this I used knotted buttonhole on the seam with buttonhole and colonial knot hollyhocks with a few detached chain leaves thrown in for good measure. 

The colours in these photos are not very good but then I am not much of a photographer.

The second project is some butterflies using different methods of stitching for my U3A class I attend on Tuesday afternoon during term time. I am also experimenting with a way to transfer drawings to embroider to my fabric. For this series I am using a water soluble fabric with the design drawn on it. As the item I am embroidering on is to be used as a food cover it will need washing so I am not worried about whether I can wash it. 

The first butterfly is my version of Jacobean Embroidery

Not a great photo but there you go.

The second is Dorset Feather Embroidery 

This photo is better and you can see the water soluble fabric I am using.

And last so far is an appliqué using sheer fabric

I hope it works but we shall see. You can also see the sewing lines on the water-soluble fabric.

I also did a Dorset Feather strip that I will eventually stitch onto a hand towel.

With this I used an ordinary pencil to do the placement marks. I am sure it will wash out.

Hi all it has been an awfully long time since I came to play here but hopefully I am back. In March 2012 I had a fall and broke my left hip and then in April I had my left foot reconstructed. This had to be one of the silliest things I have ever done because I have spent since then in a wheel chair with only very limited access to my computer. At last I am now at least using a walking frame or, at home, a walking stick. I am sewing more and have just finished my bit on the 9 blocks for Joyce

This is the buttonhole stitch I did the little butterfly and the twisted buttonhole with buttonhole wheel flowers. The nest 2 photos are close-ups of my buttonholes.

This is the backstitch block and a close-up of my cornucopia.

Chain stitch is one of my favourites and the little octopus and sand dollars are both worked in chain.

Next is Chevron Stitch 

 This is the herringbone stitch I used 3 different colours and 3 rows of stitching one on top of the other.

Fly stitch is used on this block.

 close-up

 Straight stitch was a bit of a problem for an idea at first but then I thought of Pekinese stitch which is a sort of whipped straight stitch.

Just have fun so that is what I did. Black feather stitch which is very hard to see on the dark velvet and red needle woven daisies with black colonial knot centres.

I loved working on these beautiful blocks with their rich colours and textures. I am sorry I did not do more but I felt these blocks had been held up long enough so I just pu the best I could on each block.