Last weeks of handstitched class

Week 4 of the hand stitched class was appliqué.

This was brought into the quilt with a simple dogwood bud shape embellished with blanket stitch.

The strips for the sides of the quilt also had on point triangles which were a little fussy to make but well worth the effort.

I’ve said it before but what is it with cats and quilt photos.

Another appliqué project offered was this cute flower pillow.

She also gave directions for embellishing a skirt. I made the skirt but never got around to the embellishment.

I have been focusing on getting the quilt done.

The backing is going to be very simple using the Sarah Jane family tree panel.

The final week was about hand quilting. My quilt is now bound and ready to go with some beautiful pink perle thread I got from crochet Australia.

This is the pattern that will be in the pink border of my quilt.

The other projects offered in week 5 were some napkins and a whole cloth quilt. I am going to give the napkins a miss but make the whole cloth quit (using the fabrics below) for a friend that is expecting a girl in november.

So now that is the end of the handstitched class. I made a lot of projects and I sent Sheridan a lot of “work in progress” text messages.
This is the first blog based online class that I have done and I was very impressed. Rachael obviously spent a lot of time and effort preparing the projects, taking photos, writing blog posts, creating instructions and making the videos. The projects were easily made and the instructions easy to follow.  There was always something interesting to make for each topic.
It was great to have the Flickr pool too, to see what other creative types made and how they interpreted the projects.
I can’t wait for her to run the quilting curves class again, I will definitely be signing up for that one.

Thanks Rachael. I had a ball.

Bright idea no 57 – stitch sampler

This hand stitched class I have been doing has not surprisingly seen me doing a lot of handsitching recently. It sparked an interest in my little girl.

I set her up with a piece of hessian and a simple picture. She took to it like a duck to water.

I then bought her the sublime stitching under the sea pattern transfers from Voodoo Rabbit. I thought the designs were a little small for  her. So I enlarged them on the photocopier and transferred them using a clover transfer pencil.

Wanting to teach her different stitches I struggled to find a decent pre printed sampler. So of course – I designed my own.

The panel (printed portion) is roughly 10.5″ square and it is on Kona cotton.

The name of each stitch is written in each shaded portion.

There is also a simple line diagram (shadow) of each stitch too.

I am really happy with the way it turned out but would like to tweak it a little more to make it perfect.  Have you got any suggestions?

If you are interested in one please let me know. I have only a few – ok 5. First in, email me craftjunk at gmail dot com. Cost would be $7 (free postage to Australia).

If they prove popular then I will get some more done.

Week 2 Handstitched class – Embriodery

This weeks set of projects was all about embroidery.

So far I have (almost) done 3 of the 4 projects.

I embellished a simple elastic headband for my daughter for school.  The headband isn’t great, it doesn’t stretch enough so it doesn’t fit.  But overall the project was quick and easy.  I might try and tackle this project again with a better headband.

I made the stitch samplers using the Kraft card from the supplies kit and my stash of perle cotton.  While I was at it, I used the same technique to decorate the front cover a moleskine.

As you can see my machines are feeling very neglected here.

The last project that I am tackling is the embroidery round of the quilt.

When I measured the border to stitch I found I had the wrong measurements.  Pretty sure that I stuffed the dimensions of the pinwheel border.  So before I began the stitching I took off the last border to make it the right size for the next pieced round.  This didn’t fix the embroidery round but I was able to fudge the dimensions of each HST.  They are not perfectly even or square but they look ok.

The last project that I didn’t get to was a set of sashiko coasters.

I hadn’t really intended to do this project anyway and was going to work on some sashiko panels I bought in Japan instead.  I will get around to the panels one day and think that I will do one of them like this. (image from Purl Bee)

handstitched class week 1

There were 3 projects offered in the first week of class which focused on reverse applique.  They were embellishing a T-shirt, making a small felt needle book and a dogwood blossom quilt block.

I decided against the T-shirt project.  The techniques she used were straight from Alabama Chanin.  I decided to make a book cover from the Alabama stitch book instead of the t-shirt.

Thanks to Sheridan’s workshop on how to stencil print in Canberra, I stenciled a simple paisley flower shape onto fabric so the design would be on the front and back.

I layered the fabric and stitched around the design.  I then cut out the centre leaving the white underneath. The white is a little too high contrast for me and a dark cream or tan colour may have been better.

The felt needle book was fun to make.   It seemed to be a little bit floppy for my liking folded in half.  I decided to make mine fold into thirds to ensure the contents were a little more secure. Maybe some interfacing in the lining would have been a good idea too.  I like this book but not as much as the ones that I made for the sample swap!

I managed to get the stitching on the dogwood blossom quilt block done in Canberra (well mainly on the flight home!). It is totally because of Sherdian that I got this done at all.  Having her tell me what to do and how to do it made a huge difference.

I added the borders and now it is waiting the next step.  This cream border is going to be embroidered!

I am making this into a quilt for my 7 year old who is all about pink.  I do have the purple fabrics in the range too but maybe an all pink quilt might be the way to go.

Handstitched

Sheridan and I are doing this handstitched class run by stitched in color.

Even though we live a 1000km apart it is nice to do stuff together. Now we have something new to organise, plan, seek opinion and  chat about.

I am heading away at the and of the week and I have madly been collecting supplies so they are ready to go when I get back.

I bought a selection of fabrics (from etsy store aspen fabrics) from the children at play range by Sarah Jane. This will be for the medallion quilt which will end up on my little girls bed. She choose this range from a few options I that I gave her.

I got frustrated with the last medallion quilt I tried to make from stash (and scrapped it!). I think this one will have a greater chance of success because I am going into it with a range of coordinating fabrics.
I liked the pink and orange fabric combination but she preferred the pink and lilac ones. She won.

I have also picked up some floss for the embroidery round. And some pretty pink solid is on its way for the hand quilting round.

It is not all about quilts though. In part of the class you have to embellish a skirt. For my canvas I made this simple A line one from and old spotlight pattern. It is made from a charcoal suiting fabric which sits nicely.

The only drama I had was with the zip. I think when I pressed the invisible zip prior to sewing, my iron was too hot and I melted it. Then when I did it up it was weak and the zipper fabric just came away from the teeth.

So I waited a few days to calm down and then replaced it.

Inspired by Sheridan I also did an invisible hem.  At the moment it is a pretty boring black skirt (which was really hard to photograph!)

I am really looking forward to doing some hand stitching and getting some sewing done away from the machine.

exercising, yes! – crafting, not so much

Two weeks ago I was a sewing machine – FO’s (finished objects) were flying out the door.

During the last two weeks I have worked, swam, run and exercised.  There has been little time for crafting.

There are a few projects that are in progress and I pick them up when I have a few minutes to spare.

I do bits of this hexagon blanket (to be) when watching TV at night with hubby.

If I have some down time I do my stitching in front of a glee episode.

I have finally got back into knitting and cast on for the front of my jumper last night at work.

Last week I made Nina (or my version – meet Mena) but she needs some hair.

Two weeks ago I had an impromptu holiday in Kingscliff.  It was a northern meeting of my Sydney Mothers group.  The kids and I went for a day trip and ended up staying for the night. We had a fantastic time.  It was a real little adventure as I was not prepared and had packed nothing except for kites and sand toys.

My birthday has also come and gone in the last fortnight.  I was telling everyone that I turned “late 30′s”. No one bought it – I’m 37.  As a nice gesture hubby didn’t get me a cake so I didn’t have to struggle with not eating it.  I had to work that night but we went out with my Mum for a nice family breakfast the next morning.

The girls

and the boys (I love it when he wants to dress like daddy)

Hubby got me a mummy dummy.   I am not making any dresses at the moment but there is a pile of clothing that needs to be altered and I think that this is going to make the task a lot easier.

Sheridan also gave me some lovely gifts.  Thankyou!  I love my bison tea mugs and the DIY iPhone case is still a blank canvas and has gone to the WIP pile.

So there is a little bit of crafting happening here, but there is a lot more controlling and exercising than what I would like.

Just wasting time

I haven’t left the house in over 5 days. This is the laziest I have ever been.

I have done no exercise at all.
The highlight has been my daily trip to the letter box or out the back turn the pool filter on.

I have done no housework – nothing. Not even picked up, tidied or wiped down. The cooking is not in my hands either, though I have been helping with the dinner salad and my lunch.

My days have been spent on the couch. I watch at least 2 movies a day.
Its not totally wasted on me though, I have been doing some knitting and got the back of my jumper done.

 

My embroidery supplies haven’t turned up yet so I had to go rummaging for something else. I got this cloud panel from SIT.

Its not great, but it kept me occupied for a day.

And found this one from prints charming that I have just started.

I did finally move from the couch yesterday and spent a few hours in the sewing room. Lucky I had a few projects (2 more dresses) that were already cut out.  It did hurt afterwards – reaching, ironing, up and down. But I needed to do something else, my couch was occupied.

Even though I have been sort of busy crafting, I feel bored. And I don’t go back to work for another week and a half!!!

Prints Charming Birdie

And while on the theme of getting things done from SIT, I finished my Birdie stitching that I started at  Prints Charming in Sydney this year.  I have fond memories of stitching this with Renae in the airport and on the plane trip home.

I could have kept going and going adding more and more, but I am happy with where I stopped.

I found this fabric in my stash for the back and it suits the thread colours perfectly.

machine hand stitching????

I am all for emerging technologies and I am the first in line for any new gadget.

But a machine that does hand stitching ….. WTF!!

There is definitely something special about hand quilting, sashiko and stitching.

The stitches aren’t perfect and even though doing it by hand is a little time consuming and difficult, it is well worth the effort.

I guess this machine has a place for those that want the hand stitch look but can’t, or just hate doing it.

What do you think?

embroidered dandelion

I have had a “thing” for butterflies for a while. More recently it has turned to dandelions.

I am so consumed by these two things that I have had a tattoo designed that includes both images.  It is just sitting waiting for the right time to get it done, but that is another story.

I have been wanting to do an emroidery picture since I saw Hillary (from wee wonderfuls) display her stitchettes in simple hoops.

Scouring the net I have found some great dandelion inspiration.

WooHoo cross stictch sell this pattern on etsy.

Hare and Drum have these beautiful completed pieces of wall art too.

Wrapables has a whole range of dandelion products like linens, bags and pillows.

And these dandelion wall decals are just awesome.

Badass custom decals

rm67

lewasdesigns

daydreamer

Anyway, this is how my picture turned out.

It is hanging on the side of our bookcase as you walk into our room.