CQ Horse done - for now.

I was working right up to the end yesterday, and still didn't have a chance to fix the blue tinted bits on the horse, but my pillow was ready for last night's meeting! Ta-da!

There were four others who finished and of course they were wonderful and had so many great ideas I want to redo all sorts of things. I will probably add a few things when I pick apart the closing seam to fix the horse (which won't be until I have taken care of some of the things I have put off while rushing to finish this). The lower left corner, around the poppy, is not much embellished so I want to add to that, and a few other spots need something.

This is my favourite bit. It was fun to work all the swirls. DD the younger picked this out from my TAST collection - you can see my original sampler of the stitch in this older post.

Again at DD's request I did some buttonhole pinwheels because she liked the TAST sample.
I really enjoyed the feel of holding the fabrics to do the embroidery work. Each kind of needlework seems to have its own joy. With stumpwork it is figuring out how to get from 2-D to 3-D and have it look good. The cross-stitch work I've been doing lately has been nice because it seems to work up quickly, so you get gratifying results soon. But holding the various layers and weights of fabric yesterday felt wonderful. I guess that is why I've taken up weaving, I love the feel of fabric.

The photo below shows one of the requirements of the challenge - a spider. According to our president, it is good luck to have one on your CQ. I searched for a spider charm, though not too hard, and couldn't find anything so it is just a small black bead with thread legs. One of our prizes was a spider charm, so next time I'll be ready.

Also last night was our silent auction to raise finds for the chapter. I have added some spectacular threads to my stash, at an excellent price. I'm looking forward to thinking of something to make with them all! I also have the leftovers to use for children's programs, although I think the charts and books will be donated to the public library. I haven't looked through things yet, but I'm sure if nobody in a large group of ladies wants to pay 25 cents for a stack of patterns, they can't be that good.

On the weaving front, I'm off to class tonight to learn how to sley the reed for double weaving. Once that is done, I'm sure I'll have a baby blanket in no time.

Moving right along

With suggestions from the future owner, I've been adding seam treatments to my block and it is gradually looking better. I am especially pleased with the orange/yellow ribbon roses, since this is the first time I've tried to made them and I suspect the ribbon wasn't really meant for the task, but they look nice. The felt flowers and butterflies were purchased - the local Ben Franklin has all sorts of felting supplies now. My stitch notebook, created while following TAST last year with sharon b, was most helpful. I wasn't able to keep up with the last couple of months of TAST but my book has been so useful, I think I'll finish it up this summer.
I should have finished photos on Wednesday, since I need to have the whole pillow ready for tomorrow night's EGA chapter meeting - this was our president's challenge for the year.

And now I must share a new to me blog with you all. I made the mistake of following a link in the Chilly Hollow newsletter, which is posted on the needlework guild newsletter editors list as well as Jane's blog. I guess I've missed this blog, Two-Handed Stitcher, because I've been concentrating on embroidery and fibre art related blogs, and this is needlepoint, but boy am I impressed by what you can do with needlepoint - the otter is adorable, the patterns in the Pacific Grove Collage are wonderful and the Pacific Tide Pool is to die for. I envy the people at EGA's Western Pacific Region Seminar at Asilomar who get to do the pieces Laura is teaching. I'm trying not to check out everyone on her blogroll and add them to my Google Reader because then I will get nothing else done but blog reading! Of course I had to check out one by Glenda, a fellow Canadian - Life, the Universe and Stitching.

Horse CQ progress and a new weaving start

As always, I seem to be learning from my mistakes with this project. For some reason, I think because the material was at hand, I used a light tan fabric to stitch the horse on. So, when it came time to paint a background, which I had to do because I hadn't thought ahead and didn't know I would want to make a sort of landscape around the horse, the colours of the fabric paint took on different hues than they would have on white. That was lesson one. Lesson two was, no matter how careful you are, if your colours have lots of water, they will soak into your threads, which is fine if the threads are gray, but not so fine if they are white. This leaves me with some touch up work.

Lesson three, don't paint yourself into a corner, or rather, paint all the way to the corners so you don't have to be so careful when piecing your quilt. If you look closely on the right side, you can see a couple of non-blue angles on the center section.
I must admit, when I finished this at 11 pm I was not a happy camper. Nothing seemed right, although I did figure out which embellishments would cover my unpainted angles. Luckily, when I looked at this piece in the morning light, which was much kinder than the yellow bulbs in the craft room (which is really the garage) I started to like it. By the time I started embellishing seams (photos tomorrow) I was happy with it. And both my daughters like the fabrics used. The red flower in the lower left is actually from DD the younger's riding sock. She has zip up boots and regularly catches her socks in the zipper, which ruins the socks. But this pair was so colourful, I knew I had to use it for something!

My next weaving project (my third) will be a baby blanket and I will be doing double weave so it will be double width - 48 inches wide - plus there will be a checkered pattern. I chose to use acrylic baby yarn because it will be the most practical in terms of washing and even washable wool still has the chance of causing an allergic reaction. One couple in my family is expecting to baby via adoption any time this summer, so I thought this would be a nice thing to make for them. The variegated yarn is bright rainbow spectrum with nice mixes between the main colours. I like it better than the pastel version and if my placemat testing experience is any indication, the white and pastel would have been too close in hue (or is that shade, I'll have to read up) and the checked pattern wouldn't have shown up well.
By the way, here is the pillow I finally made from the fooling around I did at the end of my last warp. You can't see it well, but I left a fringe of warp at the top of the pillow. It seemed to fit with the fun yarns used in this piece. Posting this photo has made me realize I didn't post a photo of the finished placemats. I'll try to do that soon. Of course, during the final stitching I realized that I had made 7 placemats, instead of the expected 6! This doesn't say much for my counting skills while weaving.

TAST 29 Arrowhead stitch and finished Dragon CQ pillow

I've had stitching time but not blogging time the last couple of weeks, but I finally have a chance to sit and write. I'm very excited because this morning I sent off an article and some photos on the VA tapestry project I did this year with my daughter's art club. It will be in the December issue of the EGA magazine, NeedleArts. That has been one of the things keeping me busy.

On the TAST front, I was so taken with some of the multiple arrowhead rows in Sharon's samples, I decided to use that stitch on my last Dragon CQ pillow seam. First, since I've learned how important testing is, I tried some arrowheads on a counted thread doodlecloth to get a feeling for even arrowheads. I decided I liked the triple blue one best, with all the arrowheads in the row starting from the same seam. By the way, the green mess represents Sting singing a John Dowland song on the album Songs from the Labyrinth. It is a contrapuntal sort of round and it was going through my head. I don't think I'm ready to illustrate Fantasia style yet.


So, after the practice I came up with this seam. This was the third try at the bugle bead row. The first time, I didn't have enough to do the whole row so I took it out and tried using some coloured half bugles I had lying around for every other arrowhead. It looked horrible so I took it out again and waited until I could get out and buy a new tube of beads. I'm very glad I did because I'm happy with this seam.

And here is the final pillow. My first CQ project is done! As well as having help from Sharon's TAST challenges, I had help and encouragement from ktj in pa who sent me patterns and encouraged me to try crazy quilting.

TAST 28 Sheaf stitch and Dragon CQ progress

I had limited stitching time last week because of work, so I did a very small sheaf stitch practice before using it on my CQ block. I was glad I did because I tested different spacing, both of the uprights in the single stitch, and the spaces between stitches. When I tested the beads with the stitch, I realized that I had to give extra space between stitches to make sure the beads had space. Once again, I've learned the value of testing on a doodle cloth before stitching on the actual piece. You'd think after all these years I'd have learned that but I've always had the mistaken belief it would waste time, when really the time waster is pulling out stitches that don't work because they haven't been practiced.

So here are the rest of the seams I've done. This is the feather chain and wheatear intersection. I added beads since the last time I posted this block, and purchased more of the pearl coloured Krenick to finish the wheatear seam.

I added blue beads to the gold Basque stitch and charms to the Chevron.

I'm still not sure about the light blue ribbon seam. I've added gold spacers in two different sizes but it still isn't right. I'm thinking of weaving some silver filament thread through the ribbon. We'll see.

I think this will end up being my favourite seam. It is the bullion braid I worked on during TAST 27 with different colours. I'm not quite done yet, but it looks good so far.
Here is the whole block as of last night. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I've padded the dragon to make it stand out. I'm thinking of the best way to ground him, since right now he is just floating there. We looked at crystals for him to have his front paw on, but there was some disagreement about the size yesterday, so next time we are at the craft store I'll take the block so we are sure of the size. The last seam is in the bottom left and so far no inspiration. Any suggestions are welcome!

TAST 27 Bullion and a CQ block

As I thought about the bullion stitch, I wondered if you could use it to make something that looked like cording, so I used some gold to try and get the look. I started without enough of an angle, but I think the top bar of gold comes close. Then I played around with flower forms, then I wondered if I could make upright loops. The blue loops have over 20 turns of thread around them. I had to try fuzzy white crewel wool in raised loops to make a sheep, and I thought smaller loops, some raised, would make a nice grass or moss look. My final trial was a braid, which was fun, and I really like it so I'll use if for one of the seams on the dragon CQ block below, although in different colours.


I used my TAST stitch book to decide on seam treatments - I think it will be a great resource and with 27 stitches in it now, quite full. As I look at this block, I realize it needs more so I'm going to add beads or sequins to the seams. I'm also thinking the dragon's front feet need some sort of crystal to rest on, and I think I've seen just what I need in the beading and jewellery aisle at Michael's. I'll wait for the next coupon though.

TAST 22 Satin Stitch

I use satin stitch heavily in many of the pieces I've been working on lately, especially stumpwork. But since I slacked off last week by using what I had been working on, I thought I'd do something just for TAST this week. The inspiration for this was a fill stitch gone bad, done by somebody else, and while it didn't work for that piece, I thought it would be perfect for this. The leaves and flowers are also satin stitch.

Since I've mentioned recent projects with satin stitch, here they are. These two are petals and leaves for a wild rose stumpwork project. I'm planning a special finish for these so I'll post more photos soon.

This is the tail of a dragon I'm putting in the center of a CQ pillow for my daughter. I started the dragon back in February with the tail and discovered I needed more floss but I could no longer find the DMC colour variations I had started with. They had stopped making the all dark blue and now only had a dark blue with purple. So I blended it in by adding some purple to the tail and then getting on with the rest. So far I am happy and so is my daughter. She likes the scale effect of the chain stitch in the body. I love the way the satin stitch reflects differently with the different directions.

Finally, here is the Virginia tapestry project finished and framed. Most of the motifs were made with stain stitch because that was the easiest filler for the designs the kids drew. Some, like my daughter, thought about the direction of the fur or petal growth while stitching, others went higglety-pigglety but they still look good. This was displayed at a county festival today and well received by those who saw it. It looks like a local museum wants it for the summer, but afterwards the principal wants to keep it at the school - she even paid for the framing!

So many projects, so little time...

I am busy working on a more complicated than usual TAST sample this week, but in the meantime I wanted to share some of the different things I've been working on lately.

I finished another 3-D stumpwork flower.
ktj asked me what size they were, so here are all three I've done so far with a ruler:

My daughter had some time this weekend to draw me a dragon to stitch to put in the middle of her CQ pillow. I decided to try to imitate scales by covering the dragon in detached chain stitch (TAST 3 so I'm in practice). I've used some dark blue variegated DMC floss with a strand of peacock blending filament. I hate blending filament but it looks nice - hard to see in the photo but in real life it just gives a bit of extra depth to the colour.

I've also been working on this year's President's Challenge for my EGA chapter. Some Stitching Post members may remember that I wanted advice on what to put in a fabric envelope, because the challenge is to stitch an envelope and send a token gift to another member in it. The recipient is a secret until it arrives. It also has to have a holiday theme - although any sort of special day will do (maybe Talk Like a Pirate Day?). So I'm sending a spring envelope. This scene - based on some DMC charts - is under the envelope flap so it won't get ruined in the mail. It has been fun to design the envelope, but now I have to line it and sew it up so I hope it works!

First CQ block

After contemplating crazy quilting for quite a while, I finally did something. It is interesting that while I can go off without a pattern while doing embroidery, I just couldn't bring myself to cut fabric without a pattern. So thanks to ktj, The Stitching Post founder, I received some patterns I could print out and here it is, my first block. Now, of course, I need to embroider it. I know there will be a dragon appliqued to the center, but after that I'm not sure. I'll need to check my stash of metallic threads I think, to keep up the magical night theme. Any helpful hints at this point, before I make a mess of things, would be great.

Speaking of ktj, her chain stitch piece is fantastic! The colours and patterns and the way everything swirls together is just a delight - be sure to see it.

Katie's New Place: 01 13 07-Stitch Practice Chain stitch