Cy - Crazy Quilting at last

Phew! Finally I have some stitching to show you. 

We've been so busy here on the farm lately that I've not had much time left over for sewing.

The grass is almost ready for cutting and bailing again and that will be another busy time here at 'Lewis Acres'.

But for now, here is what I've been up to.

Crazy Quilting with 'Kathy Shaw' inspired seams plus a few 'personal flourishes' of my own.

Plenty of room left on these seams for the addition of beads and SRE.

I'm just waiting for the postman to bring my new supply of Silk Ribbons.

I had to order more because my original stash is packed away in sealed boxes in the shipping container, and no way am I going in there to start opening up already packed boxes, lol, assuming, of course, that I can find the 'correct' box.

And just in case you are wondering about the background fabric.... it is all my own hand dyed neutrals.

Happy Stitching

Cyra

Susan: More Seams

The first one, Seam 70 was inspired by something on Annie's Loopy Lace blog. Even though she hasn't posted in 2.5 years, and hasn't responded to e-mails, so I don't know what might have befallen her, the blog is still up and has wonderful inspiration. I'm still not getting the greatest pictures. Me or the camera? You decide! LOL

Seam 71 is from another Annie seam. It was an embellishment on another cretan seam she did. If you want to see particular kinds of stitches, just put in the base stitch, like cretan, and all the posts for that will come up. I wanted to do something to embellish the lace, but not too much. There is more that is going on the ends and I didn't want to get too involved on the middle of the lace.

The feather stitching you see is the base of some, I hope, fancier SRE floral work around the picture. We'll see. Now that I'm in the groove more (thanks, Aunt Jo!), I will have to go back and add a little more to Suz's mom and Aunt Bobbie. Probably not until I catch up, though! Aunt Jo is only March!

A few more facts about Aunt Jo:

• Her most important charity was an unwed mother’s home which she supported from the day it opened its doors until the day it closed down.
• She went to college and was a strong part of the women’s movement.
• My friend, Candi, spent more time at her house, growing up, than in her parents' home. She was the only really tolerated child of Aunt Jo's husband.

Debra: TAST--Cretan & Herringbone

Truthfully, the week flew by and with some non-sewing concerns to deal with, I didn't get as much done as I had hoped with my project.
On the flip side, I now have a clear direction & can stitch successfully through my Christmas wallhanging.  I'll probably save more time to stitch with less teeth gnashing!

With the block arrangement decided, I sewed the inner gold trim border in place and assigned either red or green as the blocks' main color.  That bit of planning will be helpful now that I've made the decisions.

I worked the cretan and the herringbone stitches as the outer band on 2 blocks.  I took the spacing cue from the fabric.  Both stitches are favorites and I use them regularly in my handwork.  No experimenting from me--not my goal.

I was also able to begin organizing my Beautiful Garden wallhanging.  Following some reevaluation of my stitching purpose and enjoyment, I decided that my crazy quilt needed to be more personal.  I have some memories and life events I plan to slip onto the surface (mainly through key embroidery motifs) that will document my family's history.  It will be a 2nd layer of interest.

I've been hesitant until now to commit to the idea of adding familial historical motifs to a specific crazy quilt but I think this one is a good candidate.  I'm going to make sure that the motifs have significance other than being "pretty".  Toward that end, instead of designing a wallhanging, I've decided to design a quilt.  I'm going to let the patches and the colors speak to me block per block.  I'm not going to worry about how each patch within the block relates but instead how the whole piece relates to the smaller patches. 

I'll be making 20" blocks.  It sounds large but the machine embroidery takes up a good amount of that space.  I feel more confident moving forward now that I have my muslin blocks pinned to the design wall and parts of my previous piece pinned to those blocks.  I hope by next week to have a few blocks totally pieced.
It took a little time to stop the mental energy on one idea and move toward a new idea.   -- It's amazing how much effort goes into this kind of work!

Cy - Reveal TAST, CQJP & BJP

(Sorry I missed my scheduled slot because of 'the boating' thing. So slotting in at the end of the weekend).

TAST Week 4 - Cretan Stitch

I enjoyed creating these variations of the stitch and will definitely 'play' some more with it.

From left to right the stitches are:

Cretan Stitch in lilac

Various stitch lengths and widths in navy blue

Knotted Cretan in light blue

(this one took a bit of coaxing to get it right, and even then I had trouble getting the knots to stay in place, but I persevered with it)

Raised Cretan in green

Open Double Raised Cretan in green

 

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CQJP - January WIP

 

The 'naked block' is 9" square. 

I have only got this one made so far.

 

And just a bit of stitching added here

 

The Crazy Quilt journal project is my most dominant and time consuming WIP.

I like the addition of the lilac and aubergine coloured threads, and I shall be keeping to threads in blues, teals, turquoise and purples. Along with black, white and greys.

The ribbon embroidery and bead embellishments will probably be in the same colours as well.

Lots more embroidery to add yet, and then the beads!!!

Busy, busy, busy (but very enjoyable).

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BJP - Teardrop Pendant - January finished

 

Very pleased with how this pendant turned out, and looking forward to creating a different pendant for February.

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As always:

any, and all, suggestions, help, advice and critiques for my projects are most welcome and even encouraged.

 

Cheers

Cy

Susan: CQJP Block 1 and Cretan Stitch

First my practice for the Cretan Stitch. This is my least favorite foundation stitch. I think it's fair to say I hate it. LOL Here's one I did in 2008 on my sampler.

And here are the ones on this year's sampler piece. The second row of blue I just played with some embellishments. The last one - I don't know what that is. LOL

And here is my entire first block for CQJP2012. It still needs a little beading, but I can do that on Monday and Tuesday. The center is much more embellished than I usually do, and there will be more that goes on the outer edges when it's joined to other blocks. For now, it's finished.

You can see closeups of the seams on my blog at cq4fun.livejournal.com

Deborah: TAST Week 4 - Cretan Stitch

Blogger is acting weird today!

Cretan Stitch:

 Kind of gave up on stitching the leaf on even weave. I had better luck on my my CQ block.

 

Barbara's Tast Week 4: Cretan Stitch and CQJP Block 1

I used this week's stitch, the cretan stitch, to make some grapes for the wheat.  I used a piece of ribbon to help space the stitches, and I think that helped a lot. I hope it doesn't look odd that there are grapes missing around the wheat,  but I didn't want to layer one motif over the other.  The grapes are lazy daisy and French knots.

I'm pretty happy with the finished block.  One down, eleven to go.

 I added a bug for the birds to eat.  The blue stitch to the left of the bug is called snail's trail.

The stitch immediately above the bird's head was the dry run for the snail's trail stitch.  I got the loop going the wrong way, and this is how it came out.  Because it otherwise looked okay, I left it.  If this stitch doesn't have a name, I'm naming it Snail's Trial.

The combination of stitches that runs behind the humming bird is the one I'm considering replacing, so maybe you can give me some input.  It's got a wrapped herringbone stitch as a base, and it's accented with yellow lazy daisy (that's the part of it I like) and some pink French knots.  I've decided that my wrapped stitches look messy, and the spacing changes behind the hummingbird.  I'm not going to tackle this now, but I'm going to think about taking this out and re-doing it in an edited form.

Not bad for a month's work.  I'm really looking forward to starting February's block.

I may be late to the party, but I just figured out that I can just copy my original blog post (select all + copy) and paste it into a new post page here.  Will wonder's never cease?

Angela: TAST Week 4 - Cretan Stitch

This week's stitch for TAST was the cretan stitch.  I am definitely not a fan of this stitch.  It's very simple and yet I had such trouble with it.  I kept getting the needle on the wrong side of the thread and kept getting my spacing wrong.  I think I frogged out as much as I embroidered in.  But it does make for a very nice fill-in stitch on aida cloth.

My subject for this past Tuesday was the Eskimo Pie.  Christian K. Nelson of Iowa patented the Eskimo Pie on January 24, 1924.  

I chose this bit of history because it brings back some wonderful memories.  When I was about 4 or 5 I spent a lot of time during the summer at my maternal grandparents' house and Nana always had Eskimo Pies in the freezer.  I could have one whenever I wanted, not much spoiled was I?  I am an only child and adopted too so go figure.
Nana was the one that taught me to cross stitch when I was about 4.
Visit my blog if you care to hear some more about my trip down memory lane.

Judy~the Cretan stitch

It took me a while to feel comfortable with this stitch for some reason. In fact, it wasn't until the second SBS shoe, and I ripped out the first one and did it over, that it "felt right".

I've been using the suggested colors for SBS, just in case you've been wondering. And now, my questions are: Is she done? Suggestions are welcome. Personally, I kind of like leaving some white space although I did wonder about adding some kind of motif on the watering can. According to the pattern, all of SBS's shoes are supposed to be black. What do you think? Does this make her shoes the focus? Don't know about you all, but I'm ready to move on to block number two!

TAST: Wk 4- Jan 22: Cretan Stitch

The TAST Stitch for the Week of January 22 is the Cretan Stitch.
For more information and examples, check here on Sharon B's blog.

Photo from Sharon B's blog, Pin Tangle

Examples from our members:

Tahlia

Susan

Deborah

Barbara

Angela

Judy

Jen Claire

Connie