Okay, then, CHAIN My Heart!

As mentioned, I retired the last block and made a new one for the next set of TAST 2012 stitches. I decided to try using a crazy quilt template found via Google image search, for the new block I was going to make. I sized it, printed it out, cut out the pieces, and traced the shapes onto pieces of fabric. So far so good. But when it came to putting them together, for some reason, It just wasn't working.

I fussed around with it for half a day and then thought, well, I'll just bag that idea and sew them together as the spirit moves me. And it came out not too badly!

Block 2

I like it much better than the previous block. It's larger, for one, by a couple of inches each side, and the seams just look like they make more sense, and it's backed with muslin already. And I got it done just before Sharon released the Week 8 stitch.

But the Week 8 stitch turned out to be a Chain Stitch, and I couldn't figure out where to put it on the new block, so I put it on a different block. I'd made a heart block, as an exercise in learning crazy quilting. So here's my chain stitch:

Heart in progress

In hindsight, I think a slightly lighter green and fewer strands would have looked better, because now it looks to me like it needs more on the right side for balance. Or something. I like how the heart is looking, otherwise, though. I like the chain stitch. I think it will come in handy for a number of things in the future.

Let's see, what did I learn this week. I learned that if you just keep going, even if you don't know what you're doing quite yet, things get better. I learned that giving a little more thought to weight of thread and color is probably not a bad idea for best results. And I learned that patting yourself on the back for making some progress feels pretty good.

Unchain My Heart

It took awhile this week to figure out how to incorporate the Detached Chain Stitch for Week 7 of the TAST challenge into my block. I turned it this way and that way, and just couldn't land on somewhere to put it. But I did get some ideas, albeit rather tame ones, of things that might improve what was already on the block.

This is how the block looked before I started:

First, I added some green around the heart, because it just didn't stand out the way I'd wanted it to. It ended up like this:

Then I decided to add something more to the herringbone stitch, which ended up like this:

Then that made the chevron stitch look lonely, so it ended up looking like this:

At this point, the crushed velvet spot kept staring at me, so I added a semi-circle over it, and then it hit me, that's where the detached chain should go! So here it is:

It mostly covers the smooshed spot. Then, at the last minute, I decided to add some ribbon under the back-slanted blanket/buttonhole stitch, so now the block looks like this:

So, it's been improved from what it was. I'm declaring this block done. It's not the best work I've ever done, even at just starting something, but I think it's moving in the right direction, if much, much more slowly than I'd hoped. Sigh.

I'm still enjoying the process very much, and eagerly look forward to the next stitch. A new block will be made before tomorrow night, so there's somewhere to put the stitch. And this Block #1 will be laid to rest. To be honest, I never liked it to begin with, but you have to start somewhere. This week, I learned the detached chain stitch, that you can always add more to something if it just doesn't rock your world, and that the creative process probably consists of waves of adding something more to whatever you're doing because it doesn't yet rock your world.

Blockhead

I did the Week 5 Herringbone stitch for TAST last week, pinky swear. See, it's the image right here:

But I missed doing a post about it. I was in a funk, of sorts. I had become dismayed over how lopsided my block had become, and didn't relish taking a photo of it's ever-wonkier edges. It seemed to be twisting around in a circle from all the hooping it had gone through so far, not to mention the pulling out of stitches.

So I went searching the internet for more information about crazy quilt blocks. As mentioned in an earlier post, I tend to jump into things whether I know what I'm doing or not. But it's usually not a totally uninformed leap of faith. I've usually done at least some searches for basic information. I'd done that for crazy quilting. I'd apparently missed some fairly significant steps, however.

Like I hadn't attached my block to a muslin backing. I also hadn't "ironed the block within an inch of its life",  as one place had put it. So I set aside my light-weight craft iron and got my heavy Rowenta and steamed the sucker flat. Then I squared it up, lopping off the wonky bits, and basted it to a muslin backing.

Oh, my, what a difference that made! Now the block fits in the hoop better, I can use a larger hoop, and the block is stable. Yayyyyy! I was so happy with how much easier it was to deal with it, that I added the two more spider roses that Boud had suggested. Now the rose doesn't look so lonely.

By then it was Monday and there was another stitch, so I added the Chevron stitch for week 6 of TAST, and have finally gotten a post up here.

I didn't have any more seams to add it to, so I just plunked it in the middle of one of the pieces. I used a template for marking the fabric, first, and still managed to get it a little cockeyed. The template was another suggestion by someone. So this is how the block is looking now:

I added an outline of fly stitches to the ones that were already on the piece in the upper left corner. And while I was pressing the block within an inch of its life, some water spit out of the iron and I managed to crush/melt the velvet in the lower right corner of the block. So I'll have to come up with something creative to cover up that mistake creative opportunity.

I learned quite a bit the past two weeks: Use of templates for the stitches to aid in their uniformity, using backing muslin for stability of the block and to increase its size for ease of using a hoop, being careful with steam and (probably synthetic) velvet, and that M&M's peanuts make embroidery even more enjoyable!