Wednesday, April 16, 2014

A Finish....

Two good things I learned while doing my CQ sampler.

  1. Make sure your block has some kind of defined border that is nice and straight....not all over the place like mine was.
  2. Leave at least half an inch of clear space around the edge...no beads, no embroidery...nothing! 
Why?...because you are really not going to have a great time trying to finish it off nicely.

After cutting the edge very neatly.....I'm such a fibber:).....I had nothing to put a binding on so I sort of cheated. First I cut some heavy pellon about 1/2 inches larger that what I was left with and placed my block on that. I stared at it for awhile.

Then I roughly cut some backing material from a scrap I had.  I lay my pellon/block bit on top.

Not bad...I took off the block and folded the fabric over the pellon like I was wrapping a gift.


I then pinned it nicely and carefully basted it so that no stitches could be seen on the back. I closed the mitered edges with a invisible ladder stitch.


I found a small lace edging that matched the fabric and basted that on the raw edge of the block...voila.
 
Now all I need a some gimp edging to put over the outside edge of the lace and finish it off nicely.

Phew.....I have learned my lesson and will be careful when doing my CQ blocks in future :)

Take care. 




WIP........


More about my crazy quilting sampler on line class with Kathy Shaw.

I'm finding that the silk ribbon embroidery is not my forte.  It looks pretty though. Anyone who can master it rocks in my books...LOL I would say it takes lots of practice to get it right.

I found it was very difficult to keep the soft integrity of the silk ribbon while pulling it through the two layers of fabric. Pliers were needed when doing the vine. Bad planning on my part. A lot of my leaves are over areas where the seams meet and there are four layers of fabric. Ah well this is how you learn stuff...what not to do.....right?

We have now been introduced to Fly Stitch Roses and French Knot Wraps....eeeek !!

Thank goodness there are videos.

I'm posting the videos here so I can find them again. Also you might like to give SRE a try.

Fly Stitch Rose

French Knot Rose
 
Rosebud Made With French Knot and Beads

Twirled Ribbon Rose.....

Anyway, here is my effort. I think I may be done with this. I'll finish the edges and put it in my stitch diary book for further reference. I've learned quite a bit from this class and I'm considering taking Kathy's intermediate class when she offers it.


If you're interested in cloth doll making, I have also started a new class with Angela Jarecki called The Traveler: Anya and Baba. You can find out what I'm up to over here.

I'm joining up today with The Needle & Thread Network...come on over and see what my fellow Canadians are up to.

Take care:)

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

WIP Wednesday

I was planning to show you further progress on my crazy quilt sampler today but things didn't go as planned. I need a certain width of green silk ribbon for the embroidery. I went to my favourite store and they had none in stock. I did buy some sequins and beads but alas no ribbon.

I wasn't idle today though. I had this small piece of cotton that was part of a fat quarter bundle. It's very pretty but I really didn't think I could use it as it is.


I cut a small corner off the piece as I decided to fussy cute some of it just to see it I could use the motifs for anything. To add a little more body I used some Wonder-Under and fused a piece of plain fabric to the back. Then I mod podged the whole piece of fabric as well. I know.... pretty weird but it really changes the whole texture of the fabric. I then cut out the butterflies and dragonflies with small sharp scissors. 

The edges still frayed a bit because the cotton was very thin. Also, you can see in the picture below that the top left butterfly has a white edge that I didn't think was very attractive. As an experiment I used some Lumiere in Halo Violet Gold and slightly dabbed the paint on the edge of each butterfly. See the butterflies on the bottom and top right. Now the white edges can't be seen, there is no further fraying and there is a wee bit of glitter.


Now I have a bunch of kinky butterflies and dragonflies to use as embellishments :)

I managed to get some paint on the bodies of a few of the butterflies as I didn't realize I had some paint on my fingers....ooops. No harm done though:)



Tomorrow I'm going to another store that I do know has the right size of green silk ribbon I need. This time I called ahead. They have six shades of green so I'm spoiled for choice. It's a store for Cross Stitchers that has quite a selection of threads too:)

Take care.




Thursday, April 3, 2014

WIP

Well my sampler block for the online crazy quilting class I'm taking with Kathy Shaw is starting to fill up. I've done almost all the steps except the ribbon embroidery.
I remember doing silk ribbon embroidery years ago when Brazilian embroidery was a big fad. Silk ribbon is not easy to handle. It takes a light hand, patience and practice but the results are very pretty.

I really love the work of Di van Niekerk. She does such lovely work and she makes it look so easy. Kathy posted a link to Di's YouTube video on doing the iris stitch and I thought I'd share too.


Also here is her video on spiderweb roses...they are often used in crazy quilting....


Di van Niekerk has other videos if you are interested....here. 

Til next time.....

Take care:)

Added:
A great source for embroidery stitching how to's is Mary Corbet's videos which you came find ...here.