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.

Framing a Quilt Square

I'd Googled for crazy quilt patterns, and had found some royalty free ones, but decided at the last minute last night to just try putting things together and see what happened for the first quilt block. While sewing piece to piece, it occurred to me that it would be helpful to have a 6" frame, so I could make sure the piece was big enough (the minimum required size for CQJP is 36 square inches).

Raw form, just sewing pieces together on whim

So I cut a frame out of a cardboard box. 6" x 6" looked a little small, so I cut out an even larger frame of 8" x 8".  Then it dawned on me I could have done it with fabric instead of wrestling with a cardboard box and box cutter. Oh, well.  The concept worked, anyway.

6" Frame

8" Frame

It sure helped to conceptualize the block, and massage it a bit in determining where I might cut it, later.

So, what have I learned so far? It would help greatly in sewing to iron some light weight interfacing to the back of slinky or velvety fabric. I didn't, and small puckers can be seen above. I hope to be able to cover those with embroidery, rather than having to tear the seams apart and sew again. I'm pretty sure the imperfections are small enough, and I think leaving them alone and seeing what can be done will be more informative than making them perfect right now.

I've also learned that using a frame when not using a pattern helps a great deal to figure out how to cut the block. So, two things learned already. Next on to the embroidery!