Cyra ~ Ice Cream & Christmas Trees

Haha, what a great title - Ice-cream and Christmas trees can only go together in a blog post.

Neapolitan Ice Cream Baby Blanket

It's Finished. 

Yay, I have a FO.

It's called Neapolitan Ice Cream because it is the Chocolate, Strawberry & Vanilla ice cream colours of the Neapolitan ice cream blocks that I used to buy when my kids were young.

The pattern for this will be in my Ravelry projects soon.

Hexie Quilt

A few bright greens have been added. 

A LOT more bright greens are yet to be added, lol.

Christmas Trees

I have added the beads decorations to my little Christmas trees on the woven felt hearts, and buttonhole stitched around the hearts.

Just have the hanging ribbons to add before I can call them finished.

And, a large, fiber related, street art project is in the planning stage for Oct/Nov.

I'm starting to gather the necessary 'bits & pieces' for it.

I hope Tony doesn't want to put the car away in our garage before Nov, lol.

Happy Stitching

Susan: CQJP Yet Again

Only one seam and one corner left to finish on the June block. I'm not catching up, but I'm not falling further behind, either.

Here was seam 43 - just a bit of doodling on a short seam.

Then I did this longer seam and the corner. I may yet add beads to the long orange seam, but I'm happy with the corner. I had the camera on the wrong setting, I guess, 'cause it's pretty fuzzy. Better luck next time.

The whole block so far:

CQJP2015: January: Good Progress

Here are photos of progress I made this weekend. Seams 5-6 aren't well pictured, sorry.

Whole block now.

As always, the pictures don't do it justice. I really love the look of this block, though it's bead-heavier than some blocks I do.

Cy - A month of hearts

 My Free Form Hearts for the month of September 

For my  Straight From The Heart Quilt 

Metallic thread Kantha Quilted heart in contrasting halves.

Machine blanket stitch applique with hand stitched Buttonhole Bars edging.

A Crazy Quilt Patchwork Heart with Crochet flowers embellishments.

A cute 'fussy-cut' rose fabric heart, appliqued with small cross-stitches in a variegated thread.

I'm still trying to vary the techniques that I use on the hearts, and I think I'm still coming up with new ideas that I haven't tried yet. So much fun to be had in a haphazard free forming way.

That's my lot for September.

See you in October, lol.

Susan: CQJP2014: April

Still working on it. With my trip, not much advance, but a couple of small seams are finished. This completes the fan.

Seam 80:

Seam 81:

Fitzy - Keeping it real

My block is coming along nicely. More thought goes into the block than actual stitching howsomever!

I apologize for the lighting on the block, at 4am there isn't a drop of natural light to be found. (If you suggest I do it a day ahead, you really don't know me, lol.)
Would love your suggestions for the large area left of center, it needs to be something with a meander to it, for movement, I just haven't found it yet. I plan to do some small seam treatments on the other 2 remaining seams that carry behind the flower, and something to make the lace sections a bit more interesting (need suggestions there too please).
Looks like I'm soon to be approaching the 2nd block...no stopping me now!

Susan: Two More Seams & Minimal Beading

I'm getting into things a little more this week, making some small progress, thinking a lot about what is next. Last week's seam is beaded with itsy bitsy gold delicas. There will be triangle Beads on Seam 51. I think Seam 50 is finished as is. Sassa Lynne threads, of course!

Seam 50:

Seam 51:

Whole block, so far, because I know it will make Judy happy. =)

January Reveal

Yes, I know it's March, but some of us are just a leetle behind. February is almost finished, too. Hopefully you can click these larger.

Seams added this week:





Whole block:

Cy - And another block bites the dust

Work on the crazy quilt is ongoing.

Trying hard to catch-up and get the last couple of blocks completed during the first half of January, so that I can then stitch them together into my wall hanging before the end of January.

Progress has been made on the October block over the last two days.

Here is where I am at the moment - almost complete. 

Freestyle Rhodes Stitch

Dice - inspiration for this came from the silver dice that was in my Christmas cracker.

The Crochet piece for this block. With a row of Chain Stitch at the base.

An Invented Stitch - probably been invented before I created it, but it is not in any book of instructions that I know of. Starts as a 'sort of' ladder stitch but with a knot on each side that 'pulls the stitch into a 'blocky' looking zig-zag.

Cast-On Stitch in a variegated mercerized cotton.

Royal blue ribbon couched down with thinner black ribbon. (beads have been added since this photo).

The central butterfly needs finishing. Then on to the next block. 

I'm hoping to get one block a week done now until I catch up, so you should expect to see a block reveal for each of the next two weeks.

Got to give myself this goal so that I can bite away at it and finish along with the rest of you here.

Here are the (almost) complete block pics.

I might add a little more bling after I've done the next two blocks.

Wahoo! the end is in sight now.

Happy Stitching

Carolynn--Finished!

My Family Wall Hanging is finished!!

The whole project is 29"x29".  Each block is about 11x11.  I say "about," because one of the lessons I learned on this project is to be much more precise about where my seam basting lines are placed!

To quilt, I stitched in the ditch of each square.  Then I added beads and buttons as an additional way to secure the large squares to the backing.

The little white buttons in around the watch are attached with French knots.

I'm glad this is finished!  I learned some good lessons as I proceeded, but now I'm ready to start something new that will allow me to use the weekly TAST stitches.

Susan: CQJP Update

Sometime this month I have to make more blocks. Hard to believe, but it's the fourth block here and I only made four! No satin stitch on this part.

This is the upper left corner. The spider web is back stitched for the straight parts and flystitch for the cross pieces, just didn't make any stem on it. There are blue beads in the openings in the lace. There will be other embellishments added at the end. I'm thinking of a little silk ribbon in the spider web, similar to Nancy's maybe.

Barbara's TAST Week 2

I used buttonhole stitch as the basis of this seam treatment.  I like the way the flowers are growing in both directions.  Other stitches include: French knot and lazy daisy.

The whole block is progressing nicely.  I've added a few stalks of wheat, and a fly stitch composition.  The hummingbird is a project for this week.  You can see a few more details on my blog.

Susan: TAST 2: Buttonhole

I have more I want to try tomorrow, but this is where I am after yesterday.

I found it much more difficult to do them close together.

Deborah: TAST Week 2 - Buttonhole

Buttonhole Stitch

A useful stitch with lots of possibilities. Most people have probably used this stitch before, but I would have never imagined some of the creative ways it's being applied.

See application on my CQ block at my blog

 Sorry this is so brief!  

Angela: TAST Week 2 ~ Buttonhole Stitch

I used a buttonhole stitch with a varied length for the horizon line back-stitching for the derrick in 6 strand floss and both buttonhole and back-stitching for the oil spurting up. 

 For the oil and the words I used 1 strand of black and one strand of brown Balger blending filament as it has a sheen and a copper color running through it.  You probably can't see it in the photos as it is very subtle.

You might see some reddish lines, they were from the dressmaker's transfer paper I tried using to mark the design.  It does not work on Aida cloth as its too bumpy.  I ended up using the old-fashioned method of rubbing the back of the design with pencil and tracing it, using clear packing tape over the paper so it would not shred as I had to press down fairly hard.  The red will wash out.

More on why I chose this design on my blog.

Cy - Reveal week 2

What a week............. the only trouble with getting on with the stitching is that I don't have enough time left to catch up with what others are doing on here. Stitching is good though so I hope you will bear with me while I try to sort out my 'online' time better.

Revealing week 2.

TAST - Buttonhole stitch.

My experimenting with this stitch was good. Tried a couple of new (to me) variations, and I'm well pleased with the result for my journal page.

Stitches include - back-to-back buttonhole, 4 variations of wrapped buttonhole, V-buttohole couching, alternate sides buttohole couching. slanting buttonhole, length pattern, layered and graded buttonhole, outline buttonhole, wheel, ridged buttonhole, bar (or detached) buttonhole.

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CQJP - January

I still haven't got even one block made up yet. I need to find a whole day when I can get my sewing machine out and get cracking on this. But I have, at least pulled together all the parts to complete my project. So you can see that I haven't exactly been idle on this challenge.

Threads - Beads - Buttons etc.

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BJP - January

My shape for this challenge has ended up a Teardrop.

The starting point for this piece is my own hand-made black and gold scroll bead that didn't make it into a necklace in it's own right (poor thing). 

I thought the orange felt background was suitable for showing off both the black and the gold. All other colours that I auditioned had a muted effect on one colour, and I want both colours to stand out equally on this.

And then I started the embellishing with gold beads.