Just Checking In:

Single Needle Candy in Box

So I worked like mad to get some more of my Needle Candies ready for the store. I finished a dozen just in time to take them to the quilt guild meeting. One of the regular members lives near the store and has some of her goods for sale there. She is more than willing to drop items off for me saving me the postal expense. Don’t they look all sweet in their packages!

Needle Candies Package

You’ll notice I’ve added some more items to my 52 Week Challenge slide show. I keep running across UFO’s to add to the group. Still not up to 52 yet. If you take a peek at them you will see that there is quite a range of activity there. And it is for sure that some of them will take a lot of work to complete.

One of the items in that group is a hoop with some denim fabric (from a pair of my daughter’s jeans) in it and a little embroidered heart. I wasn’t happy with the heart but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. Then one day it hit me, just fill the heart with white buttons, add a few more buttons off to the side and finish! So that’s just what I did. The back is covered with a dark blue felt. I was looking for some way to cover the back of the hoop but haven’t found anything to use. I don’t want it showing from the front and everything I’ve tried so far is a little too wide. I think I may look for some narrow rickrack but otherwise I’m chalking it up as done.

Denim in hoop with button heart

That put me in the mood for working on some embroidery. I’ve been itching to do some for awhile now. Finally settled on the doodle owl I had printed on some vintage fabric. The owl was beginning to fade so I needed to get started on it. It is looking good. Finished embroidering the owl, added some detail embroidery to a few of the original flowers on the fabric and it is now ready for finishing. Expect to see it finished soon!

Hoop Wall Art Owl Embroidery

Doing those French knots on that piece encouraged me to go ahead and add French knots to my colorful doodle piece. So now I’m working on it too! I had been considering doing the knots in the remaining white spaces on this piece but I was intimidated by my mother-in-laws (Eunice Rowe Balaz) work. My mother was an expert embroiderer but my mother-in-law was a master embroiderer. I’ve always been amazed at her French knots and the masses of knots that she used. It’s been a long time since I attempted them but I think I’m doing okay!

I’ve slowly drifted back to embroidery and now realize that it is something I really enjoy doing and can sit for hours and work at it. Just wish it was something I could do on the bus but the needles are too sharp and I already poke myself enough without using them while being jostled around on the bus!

One of the other things I hope to get accomplished soon is a slide show of all of the quilts I’ve made. There are a few that I don’t have photos of and a few that are very poor quality photos but I think it’s good to have a file (in this case a slide show) to remind myself of what I have made and to share them with others.

Happy stitching!
Rose
Rose