A pencil case

Well it's pretty warm out today so this afternoon I am going to spend some time in my  sewing room before working in the garden later this afternoon. (by working in my garden I mean that I wander  around with a glass of something cold and water the plants.)

Anyway, I picked up some hand stitching the other day

I started this project last January I think. It is sort of like doodling on fabric.

It's totally inspired by a Japanese woman who has some gorgeous embroidery.  Yumiko Higuchi, (I blogged about her here

http://periwinklequiltingandbeyond.blogspot.ca/2014/01/milagros-embroidery-and-new-classes.html

After I finished that piece shown above I was still in the mood to stitch so I sketched out a simple row of flowers on the piece of linen.

They were pretty quick to embroider and as I was stitching I thought about  a project i had been wanting to make from a  book I have called Zakka Style, 

It features  little stitched on corners at the bottom and its made out of wool. I decided to just put wool on the back and use my stitching for the front of the pencil case.

I had an orange zipper on hand so I decided to make the lining orange.

I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm really happy to have a pencil case. It's a bit deeper than normal so I'm sure it will be handy for other things too. Now I think I'll try to find Something brown to add for a zipper pull....details, details....

Red work Monogram

One of my interests is calligraphy, and another is embroidery.  I also like cushions.  What better than to combine the three in one project!

I have a soft, red, knitted rectangle that I had intended for a cushion cover.  I was using yarn left over from another project so I had only enough to make one side of a cushion.

I also had on hand some thick, tea towel cotton that has quite a pronounced weave to it that I decided to use for the other side.  

With a rather nebulous idea, I started to draw on the fabric using a blue, water soluble ink pen.  ( I love that pen, it has come in handy for so many things)

To draw a circle, I have various sizes of inexpensive embroidery hoops, 

This is what I started with,

After I had those lines embroidered,

I decided to fill in the rest by just repeating the flowers and leaves.

The stitches used are mainly 

      backstitching, to outline all the lines inside the two circles

      Chain stitch to make a heavier line for the circles

      French Knots to add accents on the flowers

I thought about stitching a pattern on the H, but I am pretty much out of this thread.

Time to sew up the cushion now! 

It's a beautiful day

This morning is just so perfect that I have to sit on the deck and stitch. Coffee is also involved.

I decided to do some fun little embroideries that will fit in to hoops later,

Last night I drew up my petals on the TransWeb fusible web,

And cut out the rest of the petals that I need to complete the blocks for the vintage combination quilt that I've been working on.   Still don't know what that block is called.

Do you know the name of this block?

If so, please advise.

Wool letter tiles for garland

Yesterday morning I found myself sorting out my stash a bit.  Things had gotten a bit messy, as they do when you just keep pulling things out to use and then not putting them away.  

So I resorted  and stacked into rough categories.  I don't have much space here in Savannah, and so I didn't break things down into their individual colors...

But it does feel much more manageable,

I have been persisting in making more letter tiles, this time with wool embroidery,

Doesn't everybody have a case full of pretty colored floss?

I love when I get to use my handstitching threads

I made them pretty much the same way I did the fabric ones the other day, except for the letter part, I just used a disappearing ink pen to mark out letters on the 4 inch circles

I had two kinds of wool, one was the woven wool yardage that you shrink yourself, by washing it in hot water and drying it in the dryer. The other was a commercial wool felt that was composed of pressed together fibers,

The woven felt was much more easy to stitch through, although it was a little bit darker in color. the other "woolfelt" had quite a bit of resistance to pulling the needle through. However I was using six strands of floss so that's quite a thick amount of thread to be pulling through. I think I've done embroidery on it before and didn't notice that it was hard to needle through.

Can you guess what phrase I was making the letters for?

It is a question that was supposed by Silke on her blog the other day

I agreed that this is a really good question to ask yourself quite often. So now I have it hanging above my cutting table in my sewing room just to keep me on my toes

If you had a garland hanging above your sewing table, what would it say?

Milagros embroidery and New Classes

Yesterday I started an embroidery that is all in backstitch, (with just a few french knots). 

 I was inspired by the work of Yumiko Higuchi,

you can see lots of her stuff on her Pinterest boards, here

She seems to cover a whole piece of fabric with motifs, like this:

and then either frame it or use the fabric to make another item: such as these bags:

So, I drew out some motifs onto one of my fat quarters of Essex Linen, using a blue ink pen that disappears when it gets wet.  

  

 I had about 4 hours yesterday to stitch, so I was able to get a pretty good start on it.

 

Sometimes in redwork embroidery you use backstitch for more detailed pictures, and stem stitch when you want a heavier line, 

Anyway, the way of having the motifs randomly spread out over the surface reminded me of Milagros, the little motifs that many south americans use for prayer.  they sometimes fix them to a cross or a heart, as reminders of what to pray for,

The back of the piece, for whoever is interested......

 CLASSES!

As I was stitiching, I started to  think that it would be lots of fun to have a class at the store based on embroidery stitches!  (My mind is in overdrive right now as I am thinking of our new store space).  

It's been about 4 years since we had a whole variety of classes, since we just haven't had a dedicated space for a classroom.  However, in our new space there is a full basement (2000sq.ft!) and surely we will carve out a large sewing room.  So, now my brain is churning about what sort of classes we might offer.....  If there is something you've been hankering to take a class in, let me know!!

Thread organization

I made some little dog shapes out of clay to use as thread holders for some of my stitching threads. Yesterday I spent some time organizing my threads and using the little dogs for their purpose.

These are some of my beautiful 50% silk 50% wool threads from Caron. I've been using them to stitch on another picture. This one is done on wool and its about 11 inches square.

iStitching on wool is lovely.  i backed it with a layer of quilt batting so the needle just glides through and I don't need to use a hoop because it's got enough hand that it won't pucker.  I still have some stitching to do on this piece. But I am enjoying it quite a lot

Something new

Something that I don't do enough is to play with fabric and stitching in a way that isn't related to the store. I do so much sewing of samples and writing patterns that it takes up a lot of time.  Then it seems like whenever I have time to so I work on something that is for the store.

 However the last few days I have consciously been trying to do something that is just playful exploration. I was very inspired by the work of Nancy Nicholson who is a British person who does a lot Of machine stitching on fabric she has a blog and a Facebook page. (Sorry not to include links to these pages, I am writing on my iPad which is a little more limited with that sort of thing.)

She has beautiful stylized images and a wonderful sense of color putting things together. For myself I am a bit more timid and have more conventional imagery. Well, it's all about the process isn't it.

This is part of a longer piece which I will hopefully photo graph later after it is finished. At the moment I have to stitch more on some birds. 

here's to trying something new, enjoy your day.

New Cross stitch...

I know that most quilters also have other hobbies related to fibres  or textiles. I myself love anything with fibers, --, stitching, embroidery, knitting, crocheting.....

I particularly like alphabets samplers.  During my latest hiatus from Crosstitch it seems like a new style has emerged, called quaker style. It has quite large motifs stitched in solid colors. I like them quite a lot

Of course I have to try one or two we'll see

And of course since I had a spare 18 in.² of Belfast linen,  there was nothing to stop me from starting right away. The threads are variegated for a change, again something new for me.

Cross stitch styles

There are quite a few different styles of Crosstitch that people have done over the years. Yesterday I I completed the stitching on this alphabet sampler which I got as a kit a few years ago in France.  The company's name is "Picoti, Picota" in case you want to Google it for some of other projects.

I been liking alphabet samplers for a while already and the mono chromatic style appealed to me.

I think I might add a little simple band at the top and the bottom to make it more vertically  rectangular but I will just leave it as is for today.

The photos below show another type of Crosstitch. I purchased these at a  flea-market a few years ago for three dollars each.

They are unframed and stitched on Aida cloth.  the bird pictures are rather charming in my opinion.  I don't really know what to do them but I just thought they ought to be appreciated, and so i brought them home with me.  

All of these samplers are about 10 or 11 inches wide and 12 to 14 inches tall.

Felt Balls

 I have been making felt balls on and off for a while now, as you can see!  They are part of my use up all the tiny little ends of wool project. 

 It is actually sort of meditative to sit and roll yarn into little balls.  And some not so little.

 I did a bit of stitching on this big blue one.  I plan to take most of them to the shop to sell, because not even I need 400 wool balls.  (Or do I?)

 The bright colors do look sort of cheerful against the SNOW outside.  Yes, snow.  However, i plan to leave for Houston in 2 days, so I don't care.  Ha ha .

 Toad still thinks it's autumn.