itching to do some stitching

I wish I could say this great piece was mine. Sheila, a quilting friend in town, shared it with me last week, knowing I'd fall in love with it. She said her sister got it for her at the Kane County Flea Market years ago.

While it looks like a dresser scarf I wonder if it was used to drape a sewing machine to keep off the dust.

The motifs are just killing me.

And all that crocheted lace. Oh my.

baby hexagons

The hexagon diamonds have been a great lap project for sitting outside with the kids and as a go to project to take to my quilting group on Tuesday. However, it doesn't exactly fit into a purse and I like to have a small project that I can take out when I'm waiting for a piano lesson to finish up.

Some of the hexagon diamonds for the larger quilt had leftover pieces. Others were colors that didn't work with any of the blocks. I also had a stack of hexagons that I don't think were ever intended to go with the larger diamonds since there were only 6 of each pattern.

These are the result of those leftovers:

For now I'm just putting them together one flower at a time. (To give you an idea of the time commitment - each flower takes me about an hour from start to finish.) I think I'm going to sew them one to another as below to make a doll quilt.

I wish I'd put something in the picture for scale. A quarter fits nicely on each little hexagon to give you some idea. So far I have enough sets to make 27 flowers. We'll see where they lead me.

why i've gone missing

Nothing dramatic. No problems here. Just life - spring break, family stuff. It's so easy to just get out and enjoy the sun and warmth and forget all about the computer. I'll try to catch up on the kids' lives for family this week. For my quilting friends, I've managed a few more blocks and I'll post those soon as well.

With spring's arrival, I'm spending more time outdoors with the kids and need some handwork to keep me occupied. (I also think my local quilting group - many of whom hand quilt - has rubbed off on me.) I decided to continue working on those hexagon diamonds I posted a while ago. I love working on this project, but because it's all done by hand and takes so much more time than machine work, I simply don't have as much to post each week.

This is the design wall in my studio with some of the hexagons in my final arrangement. You'll notice it looks like many are missing.

That's because they're here:

I'm hand appliquing each diamond onto white fabric. Because the hexagons were sewn partially by another woman, I was somewhat forced to continue assembling them in the same way. The seams are a bit wonky and none are exactly 1/4". A steam iron and starch did wonders for getting the diamonds to behave and lay flat, but there's just no way they'd all go together neatly with one another. Nor would making a path of hexagons between them work.

So hand applique it is. I've wanted to try a new skill and this is definitely giving me practice. At this writing I have about 7 more to add. Each one takes me about 45 minutes - I'm new, I'm slow. I'm trying not to think too much about how long this project is going to take to finish.

-Especially since I feel I should finish it with hand quilting.

Later in the week, I'll post another related project. I'm a little hexie crazy right now.

happy gadgets

Just a quick update to provide a little information about the transfers I used on the dishtowels.

They're an Aunt Martha's Hot Iron Transfers pattern called "Happy Gadgets 3929". Commentor, Anne Marie, says she has seen them online. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby. For those of you with one in your area, the Aunt Martha transfers are on sale this week for $1.19.

I used this set for the towels I made about ten years ago.

The towels are also an Aunt Martha product. I bought mine three to a pack at Joann Fabrics. I don't think I've ever seen them on sale there, but those 40% off coupons come in handy for stuff like this. Sorry, but I couldn't find them on the Joann website.

Thanks for the nice comments and emails. I've enjoyed reading them and using the towels all week.

saturday

friday

thursday

wednesday

tuesday

monday

sunday

When I wasn't working on hexagon diamonds the past couple of weeks, I had the embroidery hoop out.

The days of the week dishtowels I embroidered when Glenn was in preschool are showing their age. Here are their replacements in a one-a-day installment series.

feedsack embroidery

What I've been doing when I haven't been posting the past few weeks:

I bought the feedsack at "the garage sale" and I'm pretty sure I photographed it for a previous thrifty thursday post. Above is where I'd gotten to a few weeks ago and was feeling like it'd never be finished. I thought I could do an "in progress" post.

Instead, the weather continued to freeze me out of the basement and I got addicted to watching Gilmore Girls in DVD. Handwork was the only answer to that dilemna. Before long I had this to show for my efforts:

All of the words are outlined in perle cotton in either the stem or backstitch. The leaves were filled in with chain stitches. Blanket stitching surrounds the oval.

The inspiration for this was a vintage quilt I spotted in a book (no idea what one it was now) that had advertising feedsacks in every block embellished with embroidery. This one is much larger than those - about 20" wide by 40" long. I'd like to feature it as the center of a wall-hanging sized quilt for my kitchen. That's a project for another day.

green tea on a cold day

I'm done with winter. Unfortunately, it's not done with me.

My studio is in the basement which is a nice, cool place to be in the summer months. Right about now though - I almost dread heading down there to sew because of the bone chilling cold. And it's taking its toll on me.

The past few weeks have been spent doing a lot of handwork upstairs with a minimum of sewing at my machine. When something has to be done down there, I've been saving it for a day that's at least in the 20's. Then I run upstairs to make more tea when I'm finished.

Now I have this little cutie sitting on my spice canisters to greet me when I reach for some earl grey. She's from the Softies book. The only change I made to her is on the tag. It reads "cha" or tea in Chinese.

Maybe I should make a stuffed sun.

gingerbread girls

I did say that the holiday decorations were put away, but I've still got some holiday crafting to post before I can put the whole thing to bed. Humor me while I catch up.

No stripey Hanna pajamas for all three this year. Glenn was a sport for a very long time, but I didn't even bother to ask this year (or last as I remember).

Instead, I bought the girls fleece nightgowns from the Lands End outlet and embroidered them.

I'd planned to trace a cookie cutter, but like Goldilocks dilemna, the first was too big, the other too small. I sketched this one to make it just right. Once I had the pattern I liked, I cut it from the paper and traced it with a water erasable pen (the blue kind). Due to how thick fleece is, I used perle cotton in a stem/outline stitch so it wouldn't get buried in the fabric.

I should explain that I have a thing about the girls in matching pajamas on Christmas Eve. Growing up my dad would hand out presents to my mom, sisters and me the night before Christmas every year. Inside them were matching nightgowns to wear to bed. I'd have to go through our old pictures to figure out how old I was when I refused to go along anymore (I was the oldest), but I'm going to go with it around here as long as the girls will let me get away with it.

the series

The Christmas decorations are put away, but I managed to snap a few photos of the other Beatrix Potter Christmas pillows I've made over the years before they were stored until next December.

This one was stitched on linen - with an uneven weave. A bit of a mistake in fabric choice. It would have been fine for a smaller piece, but I thought counting all those threads would make me insane before I finished. Note that all the others are done on aida cloth. The two I've yet to make will also be done on an evenweave fabric.

My favorite so far because of the pinafores. Animals in clothing. What's not to love?

A little harder to see (I had to take the photos in the evening), but all the shades of green look wonderful on this one.

While all the colors in each of the designs makes for a lot of work - the one I just finished had 30 colors, most of which were some shade of brown - I think they all capture her watercolor shading beautifully. Sadly, I could find no name on the pattern to give credit to the artist that translated each of these paintings to stitchery.

Merry Christmas

As promised - the cross stitch that I've been working on for far too long. All those weeks that I had nothing to post - this is why. Those of you needlewomen out there will understand the time involved in this. There have to be 100 hours of hand stitching in this pillow.

It's one of 4 that I've completed from A Beatrix Potter Christmas cross stitch book. Two more to go. I started it a few years ago and would just get overwhelmed and put it away for months and months. I pulled it out again in October when I was feeling too sick to work on my machine. (Nothing feels as nice as sitting under a quilt on the sofa with the tv on in the background, hot tea or coffee on the end table and some needlework in my lap when I'm getting over being ill.) I guess I'd gotten just far enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it was a long tunnel - there are approximately 10,000 cross stitches in this. Knowing I was at least past the halfway point kept me going and I was determined to finish it up before the holiday this year.

Details - Done on ivory 16 count aida. It measures about 10" X 10". The fringe is chenille, but I don't remember where I bought it. Found it in the stash and I'm all about using what I have right now. Before sewing it into a pillow I backed the aida cloth with muslin.

Hope you all are having a lovely holiday!

crafty gifts

More things for under the tree. Today's are for Ellie.

I've been on a roll with felt this year. She's getting a colored pencil roll with a matching set for her American Girl dolls. When she's a little older and takes better care of her things, I'll make her a quilted holder like one of these. In the meantime, this went together super fast and it's pink - one of her favorite colors.

The tiny pencils are from the dollar section at Joann's a year or two ago. There were 18 in the set, but a roll that large wouldn't work in a miniature size.

She was also mesmerized by the cross stitch apron that I worked on this season. This will be wrapped up as a kit. The transfer is from an Aunt Martha's pattern set. I picked a thicker perle cotton out of the stash because it'll stand out more on the fabric and hopefully, cover the printed lines better if they don't wash out well. The design was ironed onto a pale pink quilting cotton that'll be sewn into a pillowcase when she's finished stitching.

The beauty of her getting older? I can give her a present that she makes herself rather than killing myself to make it before the holiday.

I'm saving that sort of insanity for the quilt Glenn is getting. Started sewing on Sunday. Tonight I'm hand sewing the final step in binding it. I never learn. At least I'm not sewing the binding on Christmas Eve like I was doing two years ago.

thrifty thursday

I posted this as I found it almost a year ago. It was a kit that never got stitched up. No idea how old it is. Just a premade linen apron with a printed cross stitch design and several skeins of white floss for $.75 or so.

And now-

Here's a little sneak peak of why I've not blogged so much even after I was feeling better. Those of you stitchers out there, now how time consuming a large cross stitch project can be. Every spare crafty moment over the past couple of months was spent finishing this up-

I'll share the whole thing next week.

3 little mittens

The kids' Christmas ornaments are done.

The patterns are by JBW Designs - Red Mitten Collections I & II.

I didn't look carefully at the sizes when I decided to make these as ornaments and very quickly figured out they'd be larger than I would want for the tree. I rethought the plan and instead of doing them in the traditional cross stitch size, used the pattern for petit point on linen going over one thread. The quarter will give you a better idea of size. (Done as recommended in the pattern, they would finish up around 3" by 4 1/2".) These are probably the last thing I will ever do in petit point. My eyes can't take it anymore.

This one is Trixie's. I picked the pattern with words to commemorate her learning to read this year.

Ellie's was chosen for the script since she'll learn cursive in 2nd grade.

Glenn's was the most masculine of the lot.

There's a darling fourth pattern that I might make up in a larger size to display framed.

They're all backed with this scrap from my stash. I crocheted a chain with a strand of embroidery floss for the hanging loops. When backing them with fabric, I used a tiny stitch length to be sure all the linen threads were caught. The tops were left open for turning and then hand stitched closed after folding in the raw edges.

If my kittens lose these mittens, having no pie will be the least of their worries.