SAL Update – Prism Owls #14 – again
November 15, 2020 at 10:33 am | Posted in Embroidery | 10 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
Unfortunately I haven’t touched this in the last three weeks, so here’s the last state again:
I have been busy elsewhere, however: my November project is making a textile postcard for every day of the month, that is, 30 in all. I’ll do a writeup here when the month is up, but you can follow along as I’m doing them in this twitter thread. I hope to have something more to show on the embroidery side next time.
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
Challenge 2020 – not a 25th Anniversary
November 1, 2020 at 10:12 am | Posted in Patchwork, Quilting | 1 CommentTags: 2020 Challenge
A couple of weeks from now, there should have been my local quilt group’s 25th anniversary exhibition. But since it’s 2020, this will obviously not happen. Last year around this time, as we always do, we set ourselves a challenge for this exhibition, and since I won’t be showing the result in real life just yet, I thought I should at least post about it.
There were three different elements to the challenge this year: a silvery holographic fabric, silver ornaments (a rosette and a star) and a reference to the number 25. The silver is referring to the use of silver in connection with a 25th wedding anniversary. The size of those is standardized to 40x40cm, so we can use the same hanging system every year.
When thinking about a design for the quilt, one thing was immediately obvious for me – the 25 is going to be a 5-patch block made of 25 squares. I was going for a checkerboard effect using light, dark, and the silver holographic fabric. Around this, of course it had to be a celebratory rainbow, since I still haven’t worked out my fascination with rainbows from last year. A fairly short time later, I had this:
The finished quilt is pretty similar, since I decided to keep the quilting minimal – I just used straight lines in the middle of all the pieces using a silver thread.
So, that’s two of the three elements – the holographic fabric and the number 25. So, where are the silver ornaments? To be honest, I don’t think the quilt needs them, and I probably will attach them for the exhibition and remove them later. But it’s still a good question where to put them. My original idea was putting them on the black squares of the checkerboard, but I’m currently leaning more towards something like this, emphasizing the diagonal of the quilt:
I’ll probably even go a bit more random with the positions, having a wider path in the upper left on the yellows and fewer in the lower right. But I have a whole year now to make that particular decision, so I’m not worrying about it right now.
SAL Update – Prism Owls #14
October 25, 2020 at 7:14 am | Posted in Embroidery | 17 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
Another tiny bit of progress this time, but we’re starting to see colour!
Last time:
Now:
The reds are on the beak and on the upper part of the wings, which is not a huge area, but there’s lots of different colours involved, so I might take a while on this.
I think progress will stay slow in general on this, since I do try to prioritize my own creative projects when I have the brainspace for them. This one is a good travel project, and in fact the progress was made when I was traveling for a few days at the beginning of October. But who knows when I’ll get to do that again, and at home I mostly have my own projects on the go.
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
Green Woman #12 – Finished!
October 11, 2020 at 8:39 am | Posted in Fiber Art, Patchwork | 5 CommentsTags: Green Woman
Celebrations are in order! I’ve finally finished all the invisible bits and pieces that were still missing, and now I have a finished quilt I’m very happy with. Here it is:
In addition to putting on the binding, adding a label and a tunnel for hanging, I added a few tiny details that were better left for embroidery and beads than for patchwork:
Here are the sundew flowers with the shiny beads, and I also gave the flower on the upper right a few:
That’s one long-term project done, and I am happy with the result. Who knows when I’ll be able to show it off to people in real life, though, with everything that’s not happening this year.
Off to find something new to get obsessed with, now…
SAL Update – Prism Owls #13
October 4, 2020 at 7:51 am | Posted in Embroidery | 15 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
It’s been three weeks again! Just a tiny bit of progress this time, but I did finish all the black stitches inside the owl. Last time:
And now:
The wings and the beak will be in the reddish tones of the feathers above the eyebrows, while the belly feathers will be in the same greens as the little piece at the top of the head. I’ll probably start in on the reds next.
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
SAL Update – Prism Owls #12
September 13, 2020 at 7:32 am | Posted in Embroidery | 18 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
I’ve made actual progress this time! Here’s last time (6 weeks ago in this case):
And now she looks like this:
Not much colour yet, but I did get the black in the interior mostly done, and you can now see the structure of the feathers on her belly.
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
SAL Update: Prism Owls #11 – again
August 23, 2020 at 6:57 am | Posted in Embroidery | 12 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
Sorry, not a single stitch done since last time, I was busy doing other things. I do hope to have something for next time. So, my owl is still looking the same:
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
Green Woman #11 – Quilting
August 16, 2020 at 9:27 am | Posted in Fiber Art, Patchwork | 2 CommentsTags: Green Woman
I was pretting busy during the last weeks, what with a virtual Worldcon and all that. I can’t believe it’s been a year since Dublin 2019, where this project was conceived. When we saw this last, I was trying to figure out how to do the quilting, and right now, this part is finished!
Free machine quilting is one of my favourite parts of making a quilt, even though it tends to be a struggle to maneuver the quilt through my very normal-sized sewing machine. I have seriously been eyeing some of the dedicated quilting machines at times, but then, who has that much space to spare?
So, here’s some progress shots I took:
You can see that I followed the line drawing pretty closely in the coloured areas, which makes the quilting do double duty – adding detail to the image as well as securing the layers together. For the white areas, I knew I had to come up with something different, since those are totally unstructured in the original image. I already had experimented with leaves on the postcards, and my thoughts went to something like a wild rose hedge for the foreground. So I did some doodling:
These are not quite what I finally used, but having them on the page helped me visualize how I wanted the border to look. To stay with the clean look of the original, I was going to quilt with white thread on white fabric, so this will be one of those nice things you only see when you look at the quilt close-up, but shouldn’t make a huge impression on the overall look. Here’s a detail, so you can see how it came out in the end:
The big flower is actually the outline of a flower that was woven into the fabric of the damask table cloth I used. It’s pretty much invisible unless you look very closely, but it’s there and it makes me happy.
After removing the basting stitches and squaring up the edges, here’s the pretty much finished quilt:
That’s most of the creative work done! Next I will be attaching the invisible binding, and then do the small bits of hand embroidery and beading I have planned for the sundews and flower. It might still be a while, since currently it’s way too hot to sit under a quilt and sew!
SAL Update: Prism Owls #11
August 2, 2020 at 10:52 am | Posted in Embroidery | 12 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
All black this time as well, but I’ve finished outlining the body of the owl, so I can start stitching it in.
Last time:
Today:
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
SAL Update: Prism Owls #10
July 12, 2020 at 8:22 am | Posted in Embroidery | 14 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
No new colours today while I work on the background around the owl. Also very busy with other projects I’ll probably post about later.
Last time:
Today:
Here are the other members of the SAL who are posting today. Make sure to check out their work, it’s amazing: Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
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