I did it! 30 Daily Stitch Meditations!

The first 30 Stitch Meditations for 2019

Here’s a look at all of them. I’m going to explore with you some of hat them in more depth as we go along. Some I like more than others; some have taught me valuable lessons about myself and my style. But the first ones I’m going to cover are these.

Recently a friend was giving away strips of fabric she wanted to get rid of. They had been decorated by students at a workshop she taught. I took 3 of her strips but had no idea why.

Then I started researching an idea I had to see if anyone else was doing it. Well you know what happens online in places like google; Pinterest; Flickr and the likes. Rabbit holes are all over the place! I stumbled on this technique and realized that was what was going on with those fabric strips.

About the same time I came across the Stitch Meditation group on Facebook. I joined in and started creating little mini fabric collages which became a perfect place to use pieces of the strips. I’ve indicated where the strip was used on each piece.

First up are the “whole cloth” ones, only stitches were added to these and sometimes some buttons and lace. 

One took on the appearance of a fan.

Fan shape with lace trim

Another one had faces looking out at me. 

Faces one side view one straight on

One spoke to me of a summer cloudburst. 

Summer cloudburst over the hills

And then there was just stitches wandering around buttons and space.

Stitches and buttons wandering around

Placed with other fabric they blended in sometimes just a square in the middle,

Square in the middle

sometimes most of the middle,

Most of the middle section

or on the left side.

On the left side

One even joined with a piece of felt leftover from a stitching project my 4 year old granddaughter and I made.

A piece of felt and lots of stitching

Now back to the rabbit hole:

The process is simply using pre-washed fabric, rubbing alcohol and Sharpie pens. You can do it flat or place the fabric over a jar or some type of container and then use rubber bands to hold the fabric in place.

You color the fabric with two or three markers and then spritz it with a little rubbing alcohol or use an eye dropper to drop the rubbing alcohol onto the colored area. Then be patient and watch the magic happen. The color will start to spread. You can add more rubbing alcohol if desired or wait for the fabric to dry (takes just minutes) and then add more color and/or rubbing alcohol.

Some Sharpies will not work; like the ones made for fabric or the fast drying ones.

This process requires experimentation, patience, and imagination. The fabric should be heat set with an iron for 5 minutes (keep moving the iron to keep from scorching the fabric and use a press cloth), or it can be placed in a dryer.

It is best to use this fabric where it will not require washing.

Enjoy!

Rose

Hello there! WWW

Well I haven’t posted a WWW (What I’m Working on Wednesday) post in like forever – well not since May anyway. Does that mean I haven’t been working on anything? No of course not and if you’ve visited my Finish It Friday posts you know I’ve been doing a little bit anyway.

Okay so what have I been working on since May? Here’s a brief (I think) rundown of some of the works:

1. The butterfly vest – all embroidery is finished. I just need to add some sequins, beads, and maybe a few more stitches, and then maybe line it.
2. The monochromatic bird nest – some stitching has been done on the bird nest part but I haven’t worked on it in a while.

   

   Bird Nest Embroidery

3. The summer hexagon wall hanging – the hexagons have been stitched together and now I’m working on adding some border half hexagons etc. Again I put it aside for a while. I’m debating my choice of fabric for the final round. I thought it looked like shiny, sparkly beach sand but now I’m not so sure. I plan to use the same fabric for binding.

   

   Summer Hexagon Wall Hanging

4. The crazy quilt elephant block – a lot more detail has been added but I still have more to go. It gets picked up every now and again. I finally had to print out a copy of it and scratch some notes on it so I could remember what I planned to do to it.  Notice the upper left corner tie fabric. I couldn’t decide what to do on that seam allowance and so I tried to imitate the fabric. This is an idea I’ve been toying with, it isn’t perfect but it’s a great future reference.

   

   Notes

   

   Elephant Crazy Quilt Block

5. The crazy quilt blocks for “She Colored Everything Yellow” have also had a little detail added to them (well to one of them). Bullion loops, French knots, buttonhole stitch and more. I really need to get busy and give them some undivided attention.

   

   She Colored Everything Yellow Crazy Quilt Block

6. Embroidery has really taken over my creative life lately. Can you tell? All of my Finishes have been of small embroidery.
7. I’ve finished embroidering the Love sampler, just need to put it in the framing hoop and I’m done!

   

   Love Sampler Embroidery

8. The scribble “Elephant Bathing” that I did when I was a teenager has taken on a new life as an embroidered piece. Right now I’m just using it to test out a product. I have a feeling I will be doing more than one or two pieces based on that scribble.

   

   Bathing Elephant Scribble

9. In the mix is a scrappy quilt for our guild’s “wounded warrior project”. I agreed to do one that was all cut out from donated fabric. The pattern is Bonnie Hunter’s Pineapple Blossoms.

   

   Wounded Warrior Blocks in Process

10. What there’s more? Yes indeed. I have been busy making little tiny crochet dresses to be used as favors when my granddaughter gets introduced to the world (well to friends and family of the mom). She’s due to arrive in two weeks! Her ‘met the baby’ party won’t be until December though.

    

    Mini Crochet Dresses

11. Also crocheting some tiny doilies to finish off some already made needle “nabbers”. They just need to be added to the pots before they are glued onto a wood circle and little ladybug buttons need to be glued to the flowers. Then they are off to a quilt shop in Hawaii!

    

    Mini Crochet Doilies

12. Okay I need to make this an even dozen. What else is there? Oh yeah that’s right, I worked on trying to make my daughter a sleep mask. Wasn’t too successful in that department. The first one was too small and the second one was too tight.

    

    Sleep Mask

Not to worry though there are more projects waiting in the queue!

Happy Stitching (on Wednesday and every other day)!

Rose

Three weeks and counting:

Oh my, it’s the end of January and I feel like I am behind already. I should have at least thee things completed and a start on finishing my fourth. OK here’s my second item. From the before photo you might be wondering what’s to finish since they are already packaged but if you look at the one in the middle you’ll see the difference.

Needle Nabbers Photo

I have these little flowers for sale in my online shop and also at a local quilt store, Kilauea Kreations, that is popular with the tourists. Well the owner of the store mentioned to me that people were finding them to be a little on the tipsy side. Now we don’t want that to happen, do we! She showed me how she had glued a piece of round cardboard to my sample and it was stabilized.

Completed needle nabbers photo

Well I couldn’t settle for a piece of raw cardboard so I had to put my thinking cap on. I found some wood circles, painted them to match the flowerpot but that still wasn’t good enough for me. So I decided to crochet some little doilies to top the wood circles. That solved the stability problem. Now however I ran out of the paint I was using and found that none of the local stores were going to carry that brand of spray paint so I was back to thinking again. I did find some of the paint while on vacation in Texas on clearance so I purchased what the store had left and stored it with my son. I knew I wasn’t suppose to carry it on the plane back home. So I still needed a temporary solution. I considered sending the wood circles to my son, have him paint them and then send them back to me. But I really didn’t want to wait and they were earmark as a need to complete project. So then I decided to try painting them to match the doilies and flower colors. That worked! So these are ready and will be going out as gifts soon.

Unfinished white button bracelet photo

Finished white button bracelet photo

Next I decided to finish one of my crocheted cuffs with buttons. That went quick although I did have to “scrounge” through my buttons to find some more creamy white ones that would work. Going through my buttons is always a tempting process that often gets me sidetracked onto another project. I resisted this time though and was able to finish the cuff.

Now on to my next project. I received a phone call from the same quilt store requesting that I send them some more of my Needle Candies as they had sold out of them and all they had left was the sample. Wow! Then I realized that I had some already started from 2010 so they would work in perfectly. However as I was working on them (I need to make a dozen) I attempted to make a change to the little holders that I made from fabric. The stiffener I used dulled the fabric somewhat and I wanted to try and brighten them up a bit. I also wanted to add a little protection to them so I brushed them with some gloss medium and shellac. But I put too much on and they became cloudy instead of bright and shiny. So now I had to make some more from scratch. This time I’ll use a smaller brush and just do one as a test. Yes, I did all twelve the first time! I’m still working on these but hope to have them finished and in the mail to the store by Tuesday at the latest.

Needle Candies started photo

You’ll notice I’ve added a slide show to show some of the UFO projects I’ve located while trying to clean and organize my crafting space. Not up to 52 yet but getting close. And actually I could list some that are now grouped together as individual projects. I decided to group some of them because I was stumped on how to do the next step so as I work on those I’ll let you know what had me stumped and hopefully how I solved the problem and moved on.

Happy stitching!

2011 A Year of Finishing, A Year of New Beginnings

This is really nothing new for me but a friend on Etsy who blogs as Fabric Fascinations issued a challenge to all of us starters who don’t always finish. The challenge - each week finish something we’ve already started. She encourages us to photo it in progress and then completed. Posting to our blog or flickr account or facebook will help up with accountability and encouragement.

I’m going to give it a go. I’ve tried this on my own before and had mild success for awhile. I thought maybe putting myself out there with others might be the trick. If it works I’ll have at least 52 completed projects. They can be anything that has a beginning and an end. Most of mine I think will be items either for my shop, myself, or for others. Some will take longer than others to accomplish but I hope to post at least once a week. Some weeks may only be in progress items and some weeks my have multiple finishes. But the goal is to finish the year with 52 items that were started prior to 2011 and completed in 2011.

Do I have 52 uncompleted items you ask? Oh yeah and then some! I’m not sure if I can round up all 52 projects immediately but I know they are there. It would be kind of interesting though to post all 52 in the state they are at now and then move them to a completed section as they get finished. We’ll see. Hmmmmmm - could that be a project?

One added bonus to this is I will need to post at least once a week to my blog and keep it active. Not like 2010 where it wilted in July! And yes I still have more hints and tips to post.

One final note for today it might be interesting to see how the 1st half of the year compares to the second half as I plan to retire from my full time job the 1st of July.

And I do know that I’m getting a late start on this. The above was actually written out on our way back from a nice vacation in Texas. One item I thought I would complete was stuck in my suitcase that was delayed. Another item I considered I remembered that I needed to find the scraps of fabric I was going to use as the binding and even if I did find them my sewing machine was still in the shop for servicing. And on it goes. I know excuses, excuses! But I did remember these sweet vases I had started and never finished so they are my first item (three of them, can that count for three items?). They were hand crocheted around the empty glade bottles. I just needed to finish the ends, starch the ruffles at the top and make the flowers. They will be listed in my Etsy shop soon. I love to recycle items. These bottles have been in my stash for awhile but it was just recently that I got the idea to crochet around them.

And so we begin 2011 the year of finishings and of new beginnings!

Happy stitching!
Rose