Adding Color

I'm thinking of adding these flowers I cut from another piece of fabric to the photo on my cq block. I'm not sure I'm up to appliqueing those small buds, however. Not even sure it can be done without a lot of distortion - I'm not that skilled. But I could add the bigger flowers and embroider smaller ones.

What do you think?

TAST Week Four - Cretan Stitch

I tried doing a leaf using this stitch on Aida and just couldn't get it right. I didn't have any problems on the plain fabric where I roughly drew a leaf shape. You can see here where I cut my losses and moved on.

I actually like this stitch although from reading some others' comments, it doesn't seem to be very popular. Leave it to me! I didn't have a problem with it until I tried stitching it along one of the seams on my CQ block. But check my blog. I have a photo of some leaves I did using the Cretan stitch. I liked the results. I found it easier to do something like that on plain fabric rather than the Aida for some reason. Moving right along to week five!

January CQ: Emma

I'm not really finished with this block but here's where I am. I would appreciate your thoughts!

Here's the overall picture. The large space in the upper left will have something there but not sure if it will be a photo. I'll be revisiting all along I'm sure and embellishing over the next few months.

Detail of the 2nd photo. More work to do here

I used the Cretan stitch for the leaves in the flower

Threads and patches: TAST week 3: feather stitch

Threads and patches: TAST week 3: feather stitch has an absolutely beautiful rendition of the feather stitch. Marjolein has layered them to look like lavendar. It is an gorgeous interpretation!

CQJP Progress

Feather Stitch

Finished the first photo of Aunt Emma with her husband Walter. They could not have been married for very long in this picture. Second picture, not sure how I want to proceed. Any suggestions? Would a simple blanket stitch be okay, considering how fancy the first picture is?

When will this stomach bug go away?

Fabulous Ladies

I stumbled upon this blog, Advanced Style, and wanted to share. What fabulous women - all of "a certain age" who look magnificent.

The weather today is so gloomy. Right now it looks like it's about 9 at night, rainy, and cold. In fact, it's so dark it's kind of scary. I have a slight tummy problem and I'm not feeling 100%. On the up side, my dear daughter has given me access to her considerable bead collection since she's not into that any more. I've found some real beauties in there for the cq. I need to go to the grocery store but I'd have to put the dogs in their kennels and I hate to do that - they are so comfortable looking on the sofa. And since it just began pouring rain, I think I'll wait until my DH gets up so he can dog-sit wil I go. Maybe the rain will have let up. It's really pouring right now. I think I need some chicken soup, a quilt & a good movie.

Stop SOPA

Image credit:Craft

Weird things have been going on over here today. Apparently an old link to the New York Public Library was keeping me and others from accessing this blog. I checked NYPL's facebook page because I couldn't get into their web site, and others were having the same problem. I think they had been hacked. Anyway, it 

appears all is well.

 

I'm not done with this, but I'm using an applique to frame the picture. Stitching the ribbon through the photo & the trim was just too much and I did not like the results. I think this is much better. What do you think?

CQJP and TAST Week Two: Buttonhole stitch

This is a very conventional use of the buttonhole stitch but I promise embellishments are coming. 

What else have I been inspired to do:

A CQ block for a future AAQI donation. I came across an embroidered handkerchief and immediately did this before I got cold feet about using it. 

This is a future AAQI donation, too. The embroidered bird  is one of several Debra gave me awhile back for future AAQI quilts. Using my blanket stitchery skills here! 

While I was walking yesterday I had a couple more ideas that I will share later. I had a thought about how to collect all the TAST stitches and more Alzheimer quilts. I'm keeping file of ideas since this is going to be a busy year and I'm going to have to turn those out fairly easily. 

Blogger seems to be jumping back and forth between new and old blogging. I've heard from others that they were unable to leave comments for the past couple of days. I had that problem on Friday - I hope it's fixed because I love hearing from fellow quilters. This morning, I was getting both the old and new way of posting photos. 

Today is my annual outing with my daughters and sister in law. A couple of weeks after Christmas we pick somewhere to spend the day, have breakfast, and shop. For the past couple of years we've gone to Ikea and Atlantic Station. This time, the girls wanted to do Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza. At those two posh places, I doubt much shopping will get done! Ca-ching, ca-ching! I rarely go to Buckhead any more - that's what happens when you move to the 'burbs: you lose your edge - so this should be fun. I lived for several years in the Peachtree Hills.  

Have fun stitching!

More Fly Stitchery with a Blanket Thrown In

Last night I stitched this flower using the fly stitch and blanket stitch. I found those tiny buttons in just the right colors at Michael's.

 Here's the big picture;

More uses of the fly stitch

I was browsing the photos on the Flickr TAST group and saw this beautiful use of the fly stitch. Fascinating how such a simple, easy embroidery stitch can be used so many different ways - so simple, and so elegant!

Here's what I'm doing with one of the photos for the first cq block. I'm using the fly stitch to couch some ribbon around one of the photos:

I stitched that crocheted edging by machine and I'm adding ribbon to cover the raw seam and the stitching. I couldn't get the needle through the photo and the two layers of fabric in the cq block.  I have a sore thumb resulting from very dry skin which splits right at the corner of my thumb nail - on my right hand of course! This happens every  so often in spite of using hand cream liberally every time I wash my hands. I handle library books all day and they are very dusty. It just saps all the moisture from my hands, plus I feel I need to wash my hands all the time because handling library books is kind of like handling money. So I wind up with very painful dry skin. It's really difficult to push a needle through several layers of fabric because of this. This is only slightly easier but I like framing the photos this way. Those scalloped edges of the crochet also have lots of possibilities. 

CQJP, TAST, and Fog...

I woke up this morning, looked out side, and saw this:

which really doesn't do the depth of the fog justice. But it sort of relates to my state of mind.

I could not get to sleep (both girls were out) until around 2 am. Dogs woke me at 3 am needing to go out. Woke me again at 4:30 am wanting to be fed. DH woke me at 6:30 am when he came home. finally got back to sleep and woke at 8:30 am. So yes, I was a little foggy when I got up.

Here's what amounts to a very basic fly stitch, the first stitch of TAST 2012, on my CQ block.

Of course I envision much more embellishment in the next few weeks. I've laid out some of the photos I printed on Saturday. Do three seem like too many to add? I also think maybe they need a border, or something around them to give them some definition? And to make it easier to stitch them to the block! 

These pictures are of my mother's oldest sister, Emma. The photo in the upper left hand corner is Emma with her husband Walt. Around 1926 the family - meaning my grandfather, his wife and children, even Emma who was married -- went to Florida where they thought they were going to make their fortune in a big building boom. It didn't work out and they headed back home. By them my grandmother was pregnant with her 8th child - she rode back to Atlanta from Miami while pregnant,  can you imagine?  There was a family joke that the reason my uncle Frank was moody and a "black sheep" was because of that trip - he was born shortly after they returned to Atlanta. Emma would have been about 17 or 18 - she married very young. 

And by the way, some of the work being done by the TAST participants is really amazingL such beautiful stitchery! I need to shape up! What I've done is so lame compared to some of the work over there- it inspires me to challenge myself and push myself farther. 

I have a lot of work to do.

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

One of my quilts is for sale at the Alzheimer's Art Quilt website!

I just discovered this young lady who has an incredible voice. Sadly, she passed away in 1996.




I plan to download several songs from Amazon. Her version of "Blues In The Night" just blows me away.

WIP Wednesday and Sharon's Band Sampler

Sharon at PinTangle shows today how she makes a band sampler. I remembered a beautiful piece of linen I have with what looks like a hand crocheted border:

The size of the linen piece is about 7", which would be perfect.  Whether I'll use this for the TAST challenge remains to be seen. :-)

I've come up with an arrangement for the cq that I'm happy with. I still need to work on the bottom center block, but I think this has a more balanced look. I'll use blocks in the corners without any of the linen pieces.

This nine block arrangement will work out perfectly for my plan. There were six sisters, who will have one of the six blocks on the top and bottom rows. The center rows will consist of pictures I have of all the sisters, as well as a little nod to my grandmother and a seventh sister, both of whom had passed away before their renewed interest in quilting back in the 1970's but who shared their love of needlework.

 I'm still testing various ways to do the center block. I think the blue is too much of a contrast - I'm looking for a way to blend it into the surrounding blocks. I'm happy with this arrangement - everything else is still in the WIP stage.

TAST began last night and I have begun work on my sampler pages. I've been looking for varieties of the fly stitch both on Sharon's web site, Pin Tangle and other web sites, particularly examples from the group on the TAST Group on Stitching Fingers. I'm so enthralled by the huge variety of work stitchers in the group are doing. There are some amazing embroiderers in the TAST group. What a great opportunity to master the art of hand embroidery.