SAL Update – Bee #1
February 28, 2021 at 9:10 am | Posted in Embroidery | 12 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
As promised, today’s the first progress report on my new project. It’s another one from the fine folks at Gecko Rouge, and it’s called “Bee” by Lorna Laine. Here’s my progress for the first three weeks:
I love the colours of this so much! There are several new things I’m trying out with this:
- The fabric is 28 threads per inch instead of 25. Small difference, and I can stitch it just fine, but I feel that especially in confetti-heavy areas there’s just not enough space for all the stitches. Will be fine for this, which turns out not to be very confetti-heavy, but I’ll stick with 25-count in the future.
- Gecko Rouge is switching its Magic Guide fabric to another brand. This one has one coloured thread every 10 threads, the previous one had two every 20. I appreciate things being marked every ten threads, but the main difference is one vs. two coloured threads – with two the lines on the pattern are exactly between the two lines, no thinking required. With one I had to decide and remember which row/column lies exactly on the coloured thread, which takes slightly more thinking when counting.
- I’m trying out Pattern Keeper, an app where you can import PDFs of Cross-stitch patterns and mark your stitches on a tablet instead of on a paper copy. This one’s a total game changer, making things much more portable and easier not to miss single stitches hiding in the crowd. Will use this going forward. Currently only available for Android, but if you have an Android tablet, it’s worthwile checking it out.
Pattern Keeper also counts exactly how many stitches you have done and how much there’s still to do, which is fun. The Bee also is a much smaller pattern than my Owls, so you can really see progress. But as promised, I’ll switch back to the owls for the next update, so they will get finished at some point!
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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
SAL Update – Prism Owls #18
February 7, 2021 at 9:03 am | Posted in Embroidery | 12 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
I managed to finish the body of my owl! Here she is:
Here’s the comparison to last time, using the handy compare feature again:
Since getting there, I couldn’t face starting the next section, which is his feet and a huge chunk of the branch he’s sitting on, which are mostly similar colors so makes sense to tackle together. Instead I started a new project, for various reasons. I’ll explain more and show you a first project pic three weeks from now. It’s a fun one! For the moment, I’m aiming to switch between them at every SAL weekend, so you’ll get to see progress on both in alternative posts. In the long run, the new one will probably become my travel project, once travel is a thing again.
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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda and Helen.
SAL Update – Prism Owls #17
January 17, 2021 at 8:59 am | Posted in Embroidery | 16 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
It seems like I continue to work on this in bursts. I think one of the reasons is that when set up, my cross stitch needs the part of my craft table that other projects need as well, so I’m not inclined to swap while in the middle of a project. The last weeks I was occupied with a still secret quilting project, which I finished up yesterday. So in order to not have a no-show again, I did add a few stitches before taking a new picture. So, let’s do a game of “Spot the difference”!
Last time vs. this time:
So, let’s see what happens for next time – that probably depends on how long it takes me to get stuck into the next creative project that needs space.
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.
Flying Geese
January 6, 2021 at 7:05 pm | Posted in Patchwork | Leave a commentFor my current (secret) project, I’m making rather a lot of Flying Geese blocks. Since I like to be efficient in my sewing, I looked up ways to make the blocks without waste and with as little fuss as possible. I settled on this tutorial. It’s a nice and efficient way to make the blocks four at a time, which is exactly what I needed.
While doing a trial block, I noticed I had rather a lot of overlap in the middle when laying out my white squares on top of the blue one:
The original tutorial doesn’t have quite as big an overlap, but the reason this happens is that I like to make blocks like this a bit bigger than needed, in order to be able to properly square them up later. So I asked myself whether I really need that overlapping fabric? Turns out I don’t, since the vertical line I drew on the white fabric shows where the second cutting line will be in the end, the first one being the horizontal line drawn in. Anything going over that vertical line to the other side will end up creating unnecessary bulk without any function, so I decided to go ahead and cut those corners off:
After sewing to the left and right of the horizontal line, cutting in the middle and ironing, this is where we are:
The second cutting line will now be a vertical right down the middle, where the white fabric doesn’t overlap and add bulk. Here’s the four blocks after sewing the remaining two white squares on, cutting and pressing:
Those obviously still need squaring up – if anybody is interested in how I go about that with this kind of block, let me know!
I think adding those two small cuts at the beginning helps making the whole process easier at the end, and I’m always for avoiding unnecessary bulk. I was surprised at first that I just could do away with the overlap, but thinking about where my sewing and cutting lines will be made it clear that there would be no problems with doing that, and my trial blocks confirmed that.
SAL Update – Prism Owls #16
December 27, 2020 at 8:43 am | Posted in Embroidery | 12 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
I started this project about a year ago now, and it’s going slowly but surely. I got to play with lots of colours this time! Here’s last time:
And today it’s looking like this:
I’m currently working my way through the fringe of feathers under the eyes, with the rest of the body to follow. Below that, his feet and the branch he’s sitting on.
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.
Another Challenge Finished
December 24, 2020 at 3:13 pm | Posted in Patchwork | 3 CommentsIn addition to our regular yearly challenges (latest installment), occasionally the pile of leftover fabrics from my group’s charity quilts and challenges gets too big and needs purging. What happens is that at our yearly quilting retreat (remember those? We were lucky to go in January, when we could still be together in a big room for a weekend), a set of piles of matching stuff will be created. Then we draw numbers from 1 to however many we are, and whoever got the lucky number 1 can choose a pile first. There was some stuff I had my eye on, but as I had a number solidly in the middle, I expected most of it to have gone first. I did think I could possible get the fabric I actually got though, since I love it but it was pretty controversial at the time we did that challenge back in 2014. I may have been the person who chose it back then. So yay, I did get all the scraps of the black and white fabric from it. A fellow group member still had some she was willing to part with, so I ended up with a decent amount of fabric.
Here’s my quilt from the original challenge:
While those extra challenges don’t come with any instructions but “Use this stuff, come back with something for next year’s exhibition”, I wanted to set myself a few restrictions. Apart from the print, I wanted to use only solid colours and black. Given the amount of fabric I had to work with, I also decided to make another 40*40cm pillow cover. Here’s the result:
I was pretty sure I had enough fabric to make the nine windmill blocks for the middle, and decided to set them at different rotations against the black background. Once I was finished with that, I realized I had almost but not quite enough fabric left for a border. I decided to insert a square of each of the solids I used, and fill in anything still missing with a few bits of black. The quilting is fairly simple – lines going mostly parallel to the seams. Done, so let’s hope we can actually have an exhibition again in November 2021.
Wishing all of you happy Holidays and a better year 2021!
A Month of Postcards
December 13, 2020 at 1:05 pm | Posted in Patchwork | Leave a commentTags: postcards
2020 was finally getting to me, and November promised to be particularly fraught. I decided I had to do something constructive to replace some of the doomscrolling, and posted this on Twitter on the first of November:
I had started making cards earlier this year, first as samples for my Green Woman quilt, and later to make my yarnbombing project for CoNZealand mailable. This was an extension of that, trying to figure out what else I could do with the format, and generally making things. I kept at it, and ended up with 30 cards at the end of the month. Here they are in all their glory:
You can follow the link to the tweet to see the whole thread of cards, but in addition, here’s a gallery of all of them:
I really enjoyed making small finished pieces almost every day, and finishing things I started was definitely one of the habits I was trying to get into. A format this small also helps me to get past my perfectionism into a more playful state of mind. I had a rough list of ideas before I started, but I didn’t really get around to exploring all of them, but did multiples of others, which is perfectly fine.
I used my scrapbox as the primary source of fabrics to use, so this is also an overview of what my favourite themes and colours are, with snippets of fabrics of many past projects making an appearance. There’s a lot of nature-themed ones, and a rainbow or two – both things nobody who knows me is going to be surprised about. I also did get around to raiding my lace box, but I’m still not quite sure how to incorporate more lace into my quilts – it’s not because I don’t have enough.
SAL Update – Prism Owls #15
December 6, 2020 at 8:27 am | Posted in Embroidery | 18 CommentsTags: cross-stitch, SAL
After finishing my November postcard project (the promised post still needs to be written), I took a few days to add some stitches to my owl, just to have a sense of making some progress. So here’s the previous version:
And this is today’s state of things:
I’m working on the beak, and there’s also some structure appearing on the wings. I may have caved on buying a couple of other kits from Gecko Rouge that I absolutely adore, but I’m committing to finish this owl before starting the next one when it arrives.
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 #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 | 2 CommentsTags: 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.
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