Susan: May Block Seams

A good start was made on the May Oz book cover. It's orange, and that is not a color easy to find in my threads and fabrics, but I did find one variegated DMC ball - where did it come from? Who let it in here? LOL!

Seam 30: Though you would never guess it if you saw the seam that inspired this, it did come from Val Bothell's seam #125 that I saw from her FB thing. I don't do FB, but I did see them on Pinterest on her page. 'Cause you know, I don't do Pinterest either. Life's too short - I don't have that many years left!

Seam 31: Also inspired by a Valerie Bothell's #9 seam, much closer to the original

Seam 32: Inspired by my Carole Samples' seldom used template - bad photo, sorry. You really can't see the pretty flower beads and the purple delicas in the middle of them.

Corner 16: Inspired by something I saw on a page in the Embroidery Stitch Bible. I don't use it often because it really isn't suitable for crazy quilting, in my opinion, but I was thumbing through it in desperation and saw something that inspired this after I closed the book. Here is where I used that DMC I found - it has a LONG repeat.

Next week, Judy, I'll show the whole block. This week, I'm torturing you. =)

Cy - CQJP 2015 February block started

CQJP 2015 - February's naked block has been hand pieced in my neutrals fabric colour scheme.  

And some base foundation stitches have been added to a couple of the seams now.

 You will have probably guessed by now that February's block colour is YELLOW.

Susan: Corner Progress

I had only one day where I worked on CQ this week. Here's the corner stitching I did, which took forever and still needs more embellishing.

The green and yellow is Aurifil 12 wt. It's a good thread, but I still prefer Sassa Lynne. These are the only two colors in which I have this thread. I'll look for more, but that's simply because I'm a thread collector!

When this is finished, I pretty much just have the upper left corner to finish, two relative short seams, and a little more beading. So by May 1, I may be able to start on the March block. =P

Cy ~ Heart Crazy Quilt Catch Up

This week I am playing catch up with my Straight From the Heart Crazy Quilt.

Here are three weeks worth in one post (is that good value, or what?)

Week 11

Machine work - haha - something you don't see very often from me.

Playing (experimenting) with free-motion quilting and also practicing with metallic threads.

Pink and purple satin fabric, only the purple one is the shiny, slippery little devil.

Hand stitched to the black rose fabric with buttonhole stitch.

Week 12

Reverse applique heart with a fly stitch decoration and a fabric 'ruffle' flower for the centre.

Week 13

Two more 'ruffle' flowers (just because I was enjoying doing them) and a Suffolk Puff flower (I am English so that's what I call them, you may know them as Yoyo's).

The stamen are made with Cast-on stitch.

The Suffolk Puff looks somewhat black in this pic, but it is actually a deep aubergine.

I may add some hand stitched embroidery in places on this, I'll just have to see what time I have spare.

 Quilt Show Photo Album 

The quilt show photos that I mentioned last week are on Flickr - all 108 photos.

You can catch them here

....and don't be shy, say hello over there...

There are too many to post to this blog sorry, but here's a taster for you....

Cy ~ Heart Quilt ~ Fun Time

Some stitching fun was had this week

The 'sun' puff started life as another project last year, but it was not suitable for that in the end, so it has ended up on this patch with embellishment.

Velvet heart

And a flower

I make no excuses for putting bullion stitches in the middle instead of French knots. I had my fill of FK's last week.

Susan: Block Three Update

A day when it was mostly snowing (Where is Spring?) provided me with lots of stitching time. None of it is sticking, but there's been over an inch. Now it's coming down a lot again, so it may start collecting as it cools off. Tomorrow is another day like it, according to the weather report - and sixties on Easter. Weird spring! So here's the progress I made during the snow.

Block so far:

Susan: Just a spider web

After making so much progress last week, this week was a dud. Next week I'll get lots more stitching time! I won't be working.

I did decide what to do on this ribbon, and got started. Just didn't get very far yet!

Susan - CQJP Block 1

The stitching on the first block has started slowly. I incorporated some of the Fly Stitch experimenting from last week's TAST stitch, and then added a butterfly in backstitch and French knots. My last thing for the week was a feather stitched vine, not yet embellished.

Part of my goal for this year is to learn more about working with pastels. Some of these colors are pastels. Some are more jewel tones. I like my embellishment to show against the background, not fade away, so this is making it very difficult for me to work in pastels. There are moments when I wonder why I ever set that goal!

I have used a combination of Sassa Lynne and DMC perles, 8 and 12, on the block so far. I like that look better than floss. I suppose I should have made "use more floss" one of my goals, too, since this project is about stretching my comfort zone - but I didn't.

For tools, I used Carole Samples' templates, Strips for Success templates, and a book called The New Anchor Book of Free-Style Embroidery Stitches is responsible for the butterfly design - except I added the French knots to decorate the wings a bit.

There's nothing here I dislike, but I did seem to take forever to decide what to use where and how to accomplish it. I know that some stitchers plan every stitch, even sketch them out before they begin. I have tried, and that doesn't work for me. I wind up changing it even if I do plan and sketch. Part of the reason is that, for me, the process is about adding a bit, standing back and contemplating what looks good with that bit, then going on to the next thing, sort of building a consensus of stitching, if that makes sense.

Fly Stitch Flowers

Barbara's Dandelion

Deborah's Flower

Jen's Leaf

Susan's Flower

Susan: Fly Stitch Sampler

I had enormous amounts of fun making this sampler and love the variations. I'm going to be stitching a lot of them on my CQJP, starting tomorrow!



I'm going to work on this CQJP first of the four I have prepared so far:




I'll have a lot more to reveal next week!

Deborah: TAST Week 1 - Fly Stitch

Okay, my mistake. I obviously can't read or tell time.

Didn't get as much done as I'd hoped but here's my fly stitch "doodles":

I started a new combination but didn't get it finished.

Here's a little flower using my new fly stitch skills.

A few of these stitch combinations are found in this book, The Stitches of Creative Embroidery. It's not the sexiest book around as there are no fancy color photos but it's been useful to me. It's out of print, but Amazon has used copies. Check my blog in a little while for some photos of a very basic fly stitch on my CQJP block.

Barbara's TAST Week 1

This week I used fly stitch to make a dandelion. 



Come by my blog and see how I use stabilizer to transfer images for stitching, and where I got my inspiration. 

Angela: TAST Week 1 - Fly Stitch

I did it!  I actually got it finished.  I wasn't sure I would but I kept going and just now finished at 2:20am.  Each page in my journal will feature a birthday or anniversary of something that means something to me.  I have always loved archaeology and Jan 3 just happened to be the day Howard Carter opened King Tut's tomb so I chose the boy king's death mask for the design.  It's pretty detailed and I will probably not go that route again, I'll keep the designs more simple.

The outline is backstitched in gold metallic and there are small amounts of satin stitch, but the rest are all fly stitches.  I really like how the stripes on the headdress came out and the beard.

So far so good!

Cy - TAST Week 1--Fly Stitch

 TAST Week 1 - Fly Stitch

My full journey and more photos about Week 1 are on my blogspot site at

FREE FORM STITCHING

I have decided to do my TAST stitches on 9" x 9" squares of recycled even-weave linen that I have hand dyed. These will then be made into a stitch reference journal and added to throughout the year.

Here are my Fly Stitch experiments

Judy's SBS with Fly Stitch

Well, this week sailed on by with the "minor interuption" of the arrival of our newest grandchild on Wednesday. (You can see when my stitching stopped.) At any rate, these designs have lots of blank spaces which should be perfect for incorporating the TAST stitches. I plan to finish the top of the bonnet like the brim but don't expect to get to it before my prescribed post time. (Sure hope that works correctly!) My practice sampler, or in Debra's words "Doodle Cloth," will be on my blog soon, hopefully. After seeing suztat's honeycomb effect, I want to try using that variation on another bonnet...no problem, there are 11 more. My plan is to use 1 block per month. Right now though, DH and I need to go see that baby!

Debra--TAST -- Fly Stitch

My goal for TAST this year is to develop sets of complex looking bands that can be stitched with basic stitches.  Toward that end, my seam treatment this week features a herringbone stitch as the structure of the band with the fly stitch added in the valleys of the herringbone stitch.  The cross stitch fabric band was couched down with small fan stitches.  Later, when it's time for the embellishments, I'll add beads in the fly stitch's belly & the fan points.

I decided this was a good project in which to use my specialty threads.  The cross stitch band is from a huge stash that a friend gave me.  I think these were originally used in the '80s & '90s for decorating towels.  I think the bands will help convey the folk feeling I want for my Christmas wallhanging.

This seam treatment is 3 vertical rows of Fly Stitch overlapped.  It's pretty bare right now but will be dressed up with beads later.  As I was stitching, I decided the neighboring fabric will be perfect for small star sequins.  I'll just place them over the printed stars!

Comments welcome!

TAST: Wk 1- Jan 2: Fly Stitch

Week 1: Fly Stitch from Sharon's TAST Challenge:
Further information is listed here.
Examples from our Tuesday Stitchers:

Sample courtesy of Sharon Boggon @ Pintangle

Suztats

Connie

Cyra

Debra

Judy

JenClair

Angela

Tahlia
Deborah
Susan