CQJP 2012 May Block

I have finished the work on my May CQJP 2012 project.  I am pretty happy with it.  I think that filling it up more and making bigger stitches has made a difference.

May CQJP 2012 Block

I tried to do a version of a crinoline lady.  I tried to fill in the background with some flower stalks made of buttonhole wheels. There are flower bushes made of French Knots and French knots were also used to embellish the Fly stitch seam treatment on the left. You can also see a closeup of one of the butterflies that I have mentioned in previous posts.  The butterfly pattern can be found here. You can find other butterfly patterns on my Crochet page. Here is a close up of that section:

Close up of CQJP2012 May Block 

I get so much inspiration from the web.  In the picture below you can see the bottom lace piece was embellished with a Cable Chain stitch.  This was the stitch for week 25 of the TAST on Pin Tangle  The pink flowers running vertical along the right side of the crinoline lady were inspired by an article about Granitos on NeedlenThread.  You may like to know, that Mary Corbett has created an alphabetical listing of her stitch videos which she talks about in this post.

2nd View of CQJP 2012 May block

I have really enjoyed this block. Now I am going to get my June block started.

Theresa E

TAST 2012 has begun!

TAST 2012 is a great opportunity for me.  I first found Pin Tangle a couple of years ago.  I admired the author's contemporary sampler enough to start one of my own.  I thought then and still think that it is a genius method for learning and recording embroidery stitches.  I couldn't help but also associate the traditional meaning of a stitch sampler to the project.  So with visions of the Lady of Shalott in mind,  I started one of my own. While I have worked on it to try out new stitches, it has not been a priority.  With TAST 2012 beginning and my new enthusiasm for Crazy Quilting,  I have revived my interest.

The first week of TAST 2012 began with the Fly stitch.  The format of my sampler had already been decided.  What I thought about at the beginning of this new project was what my goals really were.  I decided on these 4 main goals that are:

1. Learn new stitches
2. Be exposed to and think about creative ways of using these new stitches.
3. Design CQ seam treatments
4. Learn how to copy, transfer and mark my designs on the fabric.

It is interesting that I would be starting on a striped cotton which was not AIDA cloth.  My striped cotton would not have the grid quality that is so useful although the stripes would be helpful. This means that I would have to mark the fabric to try to get somewhat even stitches and to translate the idea onto the fabric.  This is something that I will need to get much better at. 

Here is my version of the Fly Stitch.

TAST 2012 Week 1 Fly Stitch

These are very basic fly stitches.  Within the group of participates, there were many creative uses. 
Sharon of Pin Tangle and host of TAST 2012 put togther some week 1 highlights.

Here are some other useful links:

Fly stitch from Sharon B's Dictionary of Stitches
Fly stitch Video Tutorial: Vertical Fly Stitch from NeedlenThread
Fly stitch Video Tuttorial: Horizontal Fly Stitch fron NeedlenThread
Bing Search - Images of Fly Stitch