Susan: CQJP2015 January Reveal

I finally finished January's block at the end of February. I'm not off to a good start on time!

Seams 8 and 9 added - sorry 8 is a little hard to see. There's more contrast in reality.

Corners 3 and 4:

All of it together, TA-DA!

Judy~ Two Quilts Done! Shocking, Isn't It?

Our oldest grand son turned NINE yesterday; how can that be?  It seems such a short time ago that we flew off to Chicago to hold him for the first time.  He said it was -5 there yesterday, so I think the quilt arrived just in time.  It was a fun kit that I got a long time ago when he first showed interest in outer space.  It's backed with fleece even though I've learned it doesn't keep its cuddly softness very long.

And now I hope Debra is sitting down. Sun Bonnet Sue is DONE!!! (Better late than never right? Only now I have to decide what to do with it. You can see the fold marks?)  Sorry for the not so great photo.  We aren't freezing here, but it's still really dark in the morning, foggy, too.

For you newbies, in 2012 our group followed the new weekly stitch and incorporated them into our work.  As I already had 12 stamped Sunbonnet Sue blocks, I decided to do one per month and add the requisite stitches along with the ones suggested on the pattern. It was a fun challenge, but it took me forever and a day to get the binding sewn on as other projects kept moving ahead of her.  Stella's arrival also cut down my sewing time. Imagine that! 

Here are two fuzzy close-ups, in case you're interested.  I actually did a bit of embroidery on the label but forgot to ask DH to take a picture of it.  A friend in my quilt group did the quilting and made Sue pop.  Had I known how to do trapunto, that would have been a way to make her even more pronounced.

In our cedar chest a number of other quilt UFOs are lurking, not to mention numerous other cross stitch, embroidery, and knitting projects that are in bags and drawers elsewhere.  My goal this year is to finish them and also whittle down my stash(es)!  There, I said it, now please hold me to it!  Have a happy week!

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:

Susan: Now a Final Reveal

I have to sew this border on, and will update this post later today when I do. Here are some close-ups you haven't seen:



 

Here's the final picture of the top, completed! 

I'll talk about my 2013 project next weekend. It's totally different, and has very different goals from this year's. I printed out the silkies this morning, and I'm very excited to get started on it, though I'm starting a month behind. That's okay. I'll catch up more easily with 6" blocks!

Judy ~ Partial Reveal

All the blocks have been successfully washed with no trace of the blue and no running colors. Yay! Pressing the blocks has fixed the wonkiness, much to my relief. Half of the blocks are sashed, and I hope to get to the rest soon, but right now we are off for a walk and then headed across town to see our little Max. Till next time, happy stitching!  (PS Today is our oldest grandson's eighth birthday. Where did those years go?)

Judy~All 12 Sunbonnet Sue Blocks and the Monster

Once I dealt with the bajillion loose ends on the Monster sweater and sewed on the last button, I finally had time to pay some attention to Sue, who's been sulking ever since the end of the year when I stashed her away for a while. So, without further ado, here they are, all 12 blocks waiting patiently to be sashed:

And here's the little monster that's been keeping me busy. Please note that I did do a tiny bit of embroidery on same monster. It was supposed to have a wide, toothy grin, but I could not deal 
with any more loose ends. I hope it fits!

This week should see some time for some stitching. Yay!

Deborah - Reveal

For better or worse, this is my final arrangement. I should be finished by next weekend.

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!!

Cy - CQJP January Block reveal

CQJP January Block

Just a few days after the end of January and I have my block at a good finish point for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project.

So this is the 9 inch completed block so far.

And here are a couple of close-up pics

 

 

In that last pic you can see I've added a piece of crochet to a seam. 

I have decided to create a piece of crochet lace (or maybe two or three pieces) for each of my blocks. Crochet is my 'other' passion, so it feels very natural to include my own crochet on the crazy blocks. Crochet pieces will be designed and made specifically for the cq block and staying within the colour scheme. That will make my blocks even more 'personal' to me.

I shall be adding a raised stitch butterfly to the centre fabric patch at some time in the future, but I want to have a few blocks at the completed stage so that I can stitch a few at a time for continuity throughout the 12 blocks. 

I'm not sure yet what form they will take. I've still got that part on the project design board.

I'm happy to have the first block of my CQJP done now, and I look forward to getting February's block started. I'm really enjoying the challenge of working on these blocks.

My stitching 'theme' is not entirely traditional looking. I am trying to incorporate a more geometric look to the blocks as I don't want to go too 'flowery' with them (although a flower or two did pop up on this block, lol)

I love experimenting with pattern, line, shape and form.

That's all for now folks!!

Happy Stitching

EXTRA.....EXTRA........

Susan asked for a close-up pic of the seam with the scallops ..... so here it is

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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

Cy - TAST week3 - reveal

TAST Week 3 - Feather Stitch

Here are my experiments with Feather Stitches for this week.

And here is the journal page so far, with three week of TAST stitches.

I feel sort of cheated, or hard done by, with this stitch because I was very short of time to do any stitching this week, and I don't think I have experimented with feather stitch enough for my liking yet.

I may have to come back to 'play' with feather stitch some more when I get some spare time, but at least I did manage to get a few rows done in time for my weekly reveal on this 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.

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!