Here We Go Again!

Oh goodness I've been missing in action for so long.  I have been busy, I have been doing things. Here are some of the blocks that I've made for our guild monthly block exchange.

Red and White Block for April

Flower Basket Block for March

This is a little card that I worked on for another on-line exchange I participated in. I was late with it as I forgot what the deadline was and thought I had longer to work on it. Oh dear. But I did get it done.

Postcard for online swap

The project was to do a postcard that included paper and embroidery so I designed this little card. I had some postcards for my inkjet printer that I had purchased a long time ago and then never used. Perfect. Then I remembered my sketchbook with a little flower design I had worked on, again some time ago. I thought it would look great as a card. The other part of the challenge was to focus on the word create so I added some words to the card. After I printed the design I decided to color in the flowers with some markers.  Then came the fun of deciding what stitches to use and then piercing the paper. About halfway though I remembered I like to keep the first of any new idea I make. So I printed another card and this time added the hummingbird to it (another one of  my little sketches!). When it came time to embroider the hummingbird I opted for some metallic thread. It was a little tricky to work with but I love the results.  I received this one from my exchange partner who lives in England.

Postcard Exchange from England

I'm still trying to straighten up and get somewhat organized in my "studio room". I may have a new idea to share later about fabric scraps. Testing it out now. 

I've been rather busy with my quilt guild lately, mainly working on promoting the show that took place May 1 and 2. It was a good experience for me and I also got involved in the take down. What a lot of work goes into putting on a show! I still have some things to finish for the guild and we are already talking about next year's show.

I haven't done any Finish It Friday posts because I haven't finished anything on Friday lately. (Well I haven't started anything new on Friday either!)

For my 15 minutes a day project I've been concentrating on this vest.

Butterfly Denim Vest WISP

I've blogged about it before here. One thing that I keep reminding myself of is to keep track of the thread colors I'm using. I started this about 15 years ago - what!!?! I can not find the blue thread that I used on it to begin with. I have found a DMC light effects thread that comes close but that thread is a little more difficult to work with than the regular floss. But I'll manage. Right now I'm concentrating on doing an irregular running stitch on the lines within the butterflies. Here is a view of two butterflies, one has been stitched and the other one has not. I think doing the stitches adds a lot to the look of the butterfly. Why an irregular running stitch? Because I don't seem to be able to keep my stitches perfectly even in length! Plus I think irregular is more interesting than perfect. 

I keep thinking I need to add some flowers among the butterflies but that will mean an even longer time before this is finished. I do wear this vest every once and awhile just because I can.

Well that's just some of what I have going on at the moment. 

Happy Stitching!

Rose

OOPS! OOPS!

Needle in ear plug

Yes a double oops! This was to be posted first on Monday and then yesterday as part of my Monday night tips and tidbits but I forgot. Yes I’m trying to get back to posting on a regular basis!

In an earlier post I had this item in a photograph and said I would explain it later. Well it is now later.

The red thing is an ear plug (unused!) I stuck my piercing needle (just a regular embroidery needle) as far in as I could. Now I just grab the ear plug and start piercing my paper. It gives a little cushion but I can still feel the needle. Makes it so much easier on the fingers. And when I am done I can just stick the ear plug needle into the foam for the next time I need it. Easy to spot too because of the red color. So far I have not had the needle come out of the ear plug.

Happy Stitching (or in this case piercing)!

Rose 

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Rose 

Well hello there! That’s me back in 1956. Age 10. Occasion – the first dress I made by myself. It won the district Singer Sewing contest and went to regional. We couldn’t afford the trip to regional so I had to have a photo of me wearing the dress accompany it to St. Paul/Minneapolis.

My mother who was an excellent seamstress decided it would be better to have someone else start me on my sewing journey. I made little fashion doll (fore-runner to the Barbies of today) clothes on my working toy sewing machine but now I was going to learn to use a real honest to goodness sewing machine. So she enrolled me at the local Singer Sewing center. I was allowed to pick out my fabric and my pattern. It was not the easiest pattern but my mother never discouraged me she just let me forge ahead. Typical of my mother really, she decided to learn to knit in her 70’s and when she picked out the pattern she wanted to do her senior center instructor tried to discourage her. But she was determined and she succeeded much to the instructor’s amazement! That’s just the way she rolled.

So off I went to the class. The ladies teaching were knowledgeable but when I started to cut out the pieces they decided to have a gossip feast in the corner of the room. Well when they finally checked on me they were horrified to see I was cutting off the hem. I was following the fold line rather than the bottom, an honest mistake for a 10 year old I think. Well there wasn’t enough room to scoot the piece over so they just had me use a bias binding to turn the hem up. They had a bit of explaining to do when it came to the judging part. But at least they owned up to it!

Sleeve detail with trim and covered button

I still have the dress, and I am always amazed at the detail in it, from covered buttons on the sleeves, to handmade binding trim around the sleeve and the sleeve tabs, to turned under seam edges (we didn’t have sergers back then!), it looks like a lot of work.

Seam edge turned under and sewn

Even the gathering was protected from raveling 

Sweet little button detail echoing the fabric design

I still have the handwritten critique that I received and the prize which was a zippered case with three Singer scissors. The case is a bit ratty and I’m not sure I have all three scissors but it’s still a treasure to me.

What prompted this trip down memory lane?

Well I was watching Karen in one of her Simply Stitch videos and she had made a printed copy of some of her fabric work and was incorporating it in her paperwork cutouts. I had my little pin pricked fashion illustration dress in mind and the light bulb went on. I could do something like that with my first dress and so now I have another idea to work on to put in my ledger. Oh the ideas just keep coming!

Close Up of the Fabric

Be back soon!

Happy stitching

Rose 

I Love Needle Piercing!

Okay how many of you when you read that thought of body piercing and thought no way, not Rose!?

Ha ha, you’re right I’m not doing body piercing no way, no how but I am piercing paper. And I really enjoy it even though I’m not really, really good at it yet like my instructor is. Yes I’m taking another online class (well it really isn’t a class, no particular assignments, we’re just flies on the wall watching how she works). The she? Well it’s Karen Ruane of Contemporary Embroidery. I’ve taken a couple of other classes from her and I love her work and her way of teaching.

She does a lot of embroidery and paper piercing among other things and gives us plenty of eye candy almost on a daily basis. If you visit her blog you’ll see what I mean.

So here’s my projects so far:

Geometry Flash Card Triangle

• I’ve been thinking about seeds and seed pods a lot lately. I’m not sure if it is the season or what but it did start when I was making the geometry flash card with triangles. It just seemed like the one with the seed stitch had all these little seeds trying to escape the triangle only to fall back down because of the enclosure.

Seed Pod Rough Sketch

So I went on a search for seeds being released from their pods and one thing led to another. I wound up with a sketch of sorts.

I started transferring it to my acrylic paper with needle piercing and went a little overboard. Not exactly thinking ahead here. I did manage to do some cutout sections for which I embroidered some white cloth with white thread. The embroidery has been attached and some French knots added to the paper. There’s more work to be done on this piece but I find that I need to let it rest and then when I start again I am happier with what has been done.

Seed Pod Progress

• Watching Karen work gave me another idea for working with a fashion illustration I did when I was in college. I’m trying to find the book source for the original dress but I know I took it and scaled it down a few times and then traced the sketches as dresses dancing down a line and then tried to color them and give them pattern and texture.

  

  Dress Illustration

  I’ve always wanted to do something with this illustration and now I am inspired to work with it on paper as a needle pierced piece. At the same time I remembered my first dress I ever made (I was 10 years old), I thought that would be great fabric to photograph and then add as inserts into the paper design. Oh the little red thing laying in the photo I'll tell you about that later in my tips and tricks!

One final project for now is a scribble of mine that I have pierced into paper and stitched with white thread. I’ve done the cutout and now need to decide on how to back them. I have two ideas. One came from just accidentally laying the cutout on top of my notebook which gave me an idea for some type of stained glass effect. The other again just happened when I laid the cutout over the top of my seed pod sketch. Now to decide.

Overlay of notebook

Overlay of seed pod sketch

I have a lot more work to do including a special order for a button bracelet and quilt squares that need to be done soon so I’d better get busy.

Be back later!

Happy stitching or piercing!

Rose