Cy - Heart Crazy

Straight From the Heart Crazy Quilt

Week 27

This week I have a Kantha embroidery heart to show you.

Free Form style, drawing free-hand straight onto the fabric, gives this piece a traditional look.

The pale pink heart in the middle is rows of chain stitch.

Other stitches used are: running stitch, back stitch, satin stitch and emphasized couching (where the couching stitches comprise a design).

And a couple of blue 'bricks' on the Building Blocks quilt can be seen on my blog HERE

Now I must get a couple more days of packing done. Just got to get the house on the market, and then once sold, we can enjoy our travelling retirement.

Sunday Tutorial: 3D Embroidery (Couching)

 

I first saw this on Pinterest and followed the link to a "repin" blog (bad form doing that!) and then noticed it is from our friend, Mary Corbet at needlenthread.com.

I looked through Mary's website and couldn't find the source easily or quickly.

 

Anyway, I thought this was a very clever idea.  It has Cy's name written all over it!

 

If you try this, Suz (!), let us see!

A reader (Thank you Mary Ruth!)  offered more information on this stitch.  Apparently this picture is just one step in a much more involved stitch.  But, as it is now, it would still be a fun couching idea!

Here is the full link.

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:

Carolynn-- Satin stitch, motifs, couching

Late again! However. . . great excuse! Yesterday we went on a dawn hot-air balloon ride over the Sonoran desert north of Phoenix! What an adventure!
AND I'm out of the boot and walking on my foot; so glad I did the surgery!

Now to embroidery.  I just couldn't get used to the dark oval I had put around my mother's picture, so following Nancy's advice, I pulled it out.  Instead, I put some silk ribbon flower wreath motifs above and below, and outlined the picture with some silk tubing couched down with a single running stitch.
I added a random motif in the light block above and to the left in a cream thread. It didn't show up at all, so I pulled it out as well and redid the motif in a taupe. Don't know if that was wise, either, but at least it shows up!

I thought I'd better try some satin stitch, so I added a heart motif,surrounded by satin stitched hearts in the lower right corner:  (whoops--needs to be rotated one turn to the left!)

Next I added some motifs to the "family" block:

(I'm sorry! I don't understand what's going on with the pictures coming in sideways or upside down! I will get some technical help from my husband when he's here!)

I have two more blocks to complete for this project, one started, one still blank. I need to get busy!

Susan: CQJP and TAST

I'm putting this up tonight because it's so hard for me to get to the computer on Sundays!

I did the stitch, and it won't be a favorite, but I like where it is here. You can see the stem stitch I did on the print under it, too. There's more to go there, French knots, but I didn't get to it.

This one was just fun, and I like it a lot. I don't think you can tell that's really sheer ribbon. I cut a piece in half down the middle and then stitched the sheerest part under on the sewing machine and laid it next to the seam. Then I started playing. I guess that counts as couching, too.

I also added beads to this one. I had exactly the number of those bronze colored barrels to put on the seam!

One more week to finish the rest!

Cy - CQJP - TAST - Quilt Blocks & Life

CQJP - TAST - Quilt Blocks & Life

Life got in the way of my online presence over the last few weeks and trouble always seems to come in 3's.

See my blog for more on Life's Little Troubles

TAST update

At the moment I can't remember where I got up to, but here are some that I have done on the chunky, brightly coloured, highly textured cushion that I'm making for my (almost blind) mum.

Chain Stitch

Couching

Running Stitch

Whipped Spider Wheel (tutorial on previous post on my blog)

There are other stitches on this cushion too, as I'm slowly building up the colour and texture.

I have actually done a few more Whipped Spider Wheels on here, but no current photos as yet. You will have to wait for next weekends reveal for that.

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CQJP - February Finally Finished

Yes, I have finally got to a finishing stage for my February CQ block.

There is still more I would like to do on it, but I have run out of time, and really need to concentrate on my March block.

And some details.

Stumpwork butterfly.

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Other Projects

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I have also stitched this Kiwifruit applique block for the Prostate Cancer fundraiser quilt, that my local quilt group are making.

And the following pic is the block I've entered in the block lotto for March at the quilt group.

The theme for this month was the Grandmother's Flower Garden Block and had to have a cream background.

All hand stitched.

Well that's me done for another reveal.

Happy Stitching.

Carolynn's January Red block

Hello!
Here's my first post, and it's late, but for a very good reason: an attack of vertigo has laid me up for the last couple of days!

This is a block I started for the Stitch Twelve group, with the plan of doing a block a month, each using a color from the color wheel until we had done twelve colors. Well, January's block took me two months, and now I'm re-evaluating whether or not I want to continue with that plan.

The Stitch Twelve group was working on straight stitches in January, so you will see seed stitch, straight stitch, back stitch, cross stitch, laced running stitches, as well as French knots, detached lazy-daisies, and couching.

The little gold straight stitches on the heart and the black background are printed on the fabric. But I did use little gold straight stitches on the gold arrows, which were meant to mimic the arrows in the fabric. Debra advised me half way through that my arrows need to be pointing to something, so I appliqued a heart down and couched gold braid around it.  This had the added benefit of breaking up that long line of hour glass figures!

The flowers in the upper right resulted from a motif we were learning in another group.  I thought they would fit in well with this block, but when finished. . . hmm. Not so much.

I added the cross stitching, the heart beads, and the ribbon as a way to integrate them into the composition a little better, and I echoed them along the bottom of the block.

This is the first time I have used a stack of buttons, so that was a learning experience as well. These buttons had stems, which made them difficult to position correctly and to sew down securely.

All in all, this was a good learning experience. I learned and used new stitches that I ordinarily wouldn't use. (I'm not a fan of straight stitches much!) I tried some new techniques. The result is. . .the result.  A little fussy for me, a little off in some of the colors and the balance of the design elements, but...finished!!

Susan: CQJP and TAST

I rarely couch because I'm not crazy about the way mine looks, and I want to be more creative. I did the first two seams with couching, and have mixed feelings about it.

Here's the naked block for Fairy 3. Willow, I think. Click to enlarge.

Here are the two seams I did, one with a ribbon and one with stitching. The arms on the feathers were very long and required fastening down. I don't know if that actually counts as couching. There will be beads in there later, too, I'm pretty sure. That seam was adapted from Carole Samples' book, pg. 121, No. 27. I didn't do it the same way, naturally. LOL

That's it for this week!

Barbara's TAST Weeks 8 & 9 and February CQJP

The February CQJP block is done.  I added more fly stitches to mimic feathers on the blue jay, and along the base of the tree as leaves for some blue French knot flowers.

I used chain stitch to create a vine for the tree trunk, and gave it some red berries.

The March block has an image of flying geese at the center.   I couched a wooded bead with Coral Zig Zag stitch right above it.
 

With some tiny beads, this became a fancy beetle.

I've picked some morning glories and some doves for the patches opposite the beetle.  Onward, onward.

Carol - couching - February cq block completed

Couching now finishes the block for February.  However, to obtain an advance on my Travel Journal I had to submit the first two chapters to my publisher who recommended a serious re-writing job!  So the story begins in January.
"My great grandmother was such an interesting world traveller.  She enjoyed nothing more than seeing the world from the deck of a ship where the wind blew through her hair and her scarf trailed behind her.  She told me of many adventures and when I was of a travelling age, I decided to see the world too.  This is my travel journal of those adventures"
This wording now appears on the facing page for January with "Great Grandmother's Voyage in 1901" over the image on the cq block.
Everything should now be as plain as mud and apologies if I'm boring you, but thought I should explain wording for February.

Bottom left shows couching over a piece of dyed scrim.  Throughout the block I have used perle thread 5, 8 and 12 and DMC for the detached chain stitching in the centre.

Facing page with added stitching - colonial knots and pistil stitch from Stitch 12.

Where will Sarah's travels take her during March?

Deborah: TAST Week 9: Couching

Hey, I made the deadline this week.

I did some couching on my CQ Block 2:

I used regular embroidery floss to couch some No. 5 perle cotton which really did not show up as much as I thought it would. I plan to dress up a little more with beads...eventually. :-)

You can also see some of the details I've added on the photo tothe left. I love the way that turned out but it was time consuming. Check my blog for more pictures.

Here I've used the herringbone stitch in pink no. 5 perle over 1/8 ribbon

More herringbone using embroidery floss over 3/8" ribbon. This is a new AAQI quilt hopefully for March. Not my usual colors but I love them - a nice change from the CQ.

I did more work on the cq block this weekend. I am happy with the direction it's taking. 

Angela: TAST Couching Stitch

Here's this week's stitching journal page with the featured stitch of the week: Couching.  I really could not get my head around using this stitch creatively.   All  my compatriots here have put me to shame.

Couching is fairly easy, you lay down a thread or some other type thing and stitch it into place much like the Lilliputians held down Gulliver.  I did have issues with the lines staying straight but that may be more to do with me using 6 strand embroidery thread rather than something more substantial.  Perhaps I should have used ribbon or even a yarn.  Not my favorite page but it will do.

So on February 28, 1784 John Wesley chartered the Methodist Church and this is their symbol,  a cross with the red flame of the Holy Spirit.  To read more of why I chose this symbol please visit my blog.