02 26 07 Postcard from Margaret P.

On the crazyquilting yahoo group this past christmas we had a postcard swap. I got my addresses mixed up and sent Margaret a postcard, even though she was not in my list of swappees..........she very graciously sent me a card in return wven though she was not expected to make more than she had agreed to make. We just said do it whenever...well, whenever came today and my day was brightened by such a gorgeous card. The weather here is cold and rainy, with a little snow....this card with all it;s bright flowers is surely the boost i need! What a thrilling surprise to come home to!

02 26 07 Catching Up-Postcard From Susan N.

Susan N. sent me the top postcard about a month ago....the center patch is a piece of embroidered silk that she recieved along the way and the other wonderful stitching and beading is what she did ! I think it is so beautiful. Susan;s stitching is so good! I can;t believe she would use a treasured piece of embroidery in a postcard for me.The back is printed just like a real postcard with a place for a stamp and everything. As if! (I would actually mail this to someone...i am too too greedy for that.......

The bottom postcard is one i made her....it;s not mailed yet.....i was waiting to be inspired on how to finish the back but in the end i just embroidered it with my name and hers and the year....i had to do this after the post card was all put together and it was pretty tough to do.....

aka shiro midori

aka shiro midori, originally uploaded by ponkan.

Valentine's Day Bouquet

Valentine's Day Bouquet, originally uploaded by linda yvonne.

Could not resist this one

, originally uploaded by -gadgetgirl-.

I don;t think i have ever seen a happier baby...this is the face of true contentment and happiness.

ktj

For my friends Maureen and Maureen.

Contorted, originally uploaded by resinacacia.

Contorted..taken by resinacasica, from her flickr stream. Click on her name under the poicture to go there. It is worh the visit.

For my friends that like trees as much as I do!

01-26-07 Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year, originally uploaded by gooseflesh.

Gooseflesh is doing a series on Year of the Pig, and her embroideries are really wonderful. Have you EVER seen a better way to use a simple pink button! does this capture the essense of PIG or what. Do check out her photostream, and in the meantime, i will be doing some embroidery and getting back to the blog later this evening!
If you click on the links under the picture it will take you to her photostream in flickr.

ktj

Snow is falling

Snow is falling, originally uploaded by landl84.

This is for Maureen B. who loves trees and for Maureen C. who loves winter trees!

ktj

Mist

Mist, originally uploaded by KamiSyed.

I thought this was a lovely shot of trees!

01 22 07 A couple of usenet snags

Here's a couple of snags from usenet(not the web)for valentines...enjoy

012207 vertical water band graph(02)

Ok, here is a water band done vertically...i think this will be quite the challenge to stitch out but may well be worth it as long as i can match the colors pretty well. I designed it for 14 count over 1 but that doesn;t mean anything in the long run.....it can always be tweaked a little bit to accomodate another size.

01 21 07 Water band for band rr

Ok..here it is...a band graph with a water theme. Had a heck of a time with the space in between the two mirrored motifs.....i originally wanted an urn type vessel pouring out the water but none of the urn shapes i came up with were pleasing to me so i gave that up after several tries and came up with what you see there now...a sort of free form water-ish thing.......gggggg

01 20 07 Possible band for band rr

This is a graph of a motif i designed as a possibility for using in a band sampler round robin that i am in. It's not cross stitch, it's not black work, but it is counted work.........lol......of course there will be other elements added(if i do decide to use it) in the blank spaces and i think other stitches besides the straight stitches and half crosses. And naturally the colors are variable. Since this is my own design, it is copyrighted to me but i am giving permission to use it for personal use...as long as the design is credited to me. thanks!

01 20 07 CQ round robin blocks

Here are three unembellished blocks from the CQ round robin I am in ....blocks need to be to the next person by the 1stof February and some folks have already recieved theirs, others are in the process of mailing. Here are the three that i have gotten scans of....i think they are just gorgeous!


Sue T.'s block



Susan N.'s block


Jane C.'s block

01 20 06 Jellyfish

, originally uploaded by glenn..

Check out this jellyfish! Isn;t this amazing! How beautiful. The rest of the photos from this set(on flickr) are just as wonderful. Glenn(who took the photo) really did a wonderful job don;t you think!
ktj

01 16 07 Sandie W-calling all WIPS,FITS,UFO's and WISPS

Sandie is having quite the time being able to post to her blog at all.....and apparently there is no help forthcoming.....sooooo...she is looking around for another blogging venue...in the meantime..keep plugging away and getting those unfinished projects closer to where you want them.........ggggg(i keep thinking someone is going to be shouting..yea, right, the trash can!).....i will try to do a round up for Sandie as soon as i know from her that it is ok...and who all i should be checking....
in the meantime..happy stitching.

ktj

oh, and, on the no new blogger support theme, i am still without the comments capacity on this blog..so if there is anyone who would like to contact me my email address in on the sidebar.........

01 13 07 Herringbone stitch on evenweave

On the cotton block 001 I used herringbone stitch on one corner and it made a pattern that i wanted to play with. i duplicated here and then tried to see how else it would look if it was repeated in more rows. Next i want to try it on plain weave again and perfect some of the spacing . My favorite result is the variegated sample of several rows.

01 13 07-Stitch Practice Chain stitch

here is the chain stitch practice piece finally finished....i started it so long ago that i didn;t know whether to label it under UFO's or not.... but at any rate..here it is.
I call these things stitch practices because i am not really exploring all the variations of a sttich, I am just practicing making the stitch with ONE thread and ONE parameter. In this case it was using DMC 6 stand-one strand and figuring out what that would look like covering a solid area, or making lines....how tight of a curve or a point could i make with this stitch and what adjustments in the sttich would i need to make in order to do what i wanted....now i know! First i drew out the words...Chains of thread and chain stitched the letters..then i kept chain stitching lines with curves and made some shapes. Then I made some more lines within the shapes to make some patterns and started filling in the areas with chain stitch. 99% of the surface on this piece is chain stitch and there is some long and short and satin stitch filling in. I did that not becuase i couldn;t have used the chain stitch but because by this time i was a little tired of doing it.......lol.....you can see how that might happen I am sure.

Next up for my exploration of the chain stitch is to use a larger diameter fiber.I know this will result in open spaces in the stitch unless i pull it tight or make short sttiches so one of the challenges will be to decide to fill in the open space or leave it as is.

Bloggere still has not fixed the comments thing so if you are so inclined...here is my email: katiejayinpaATgmailDOTcom

Seed pods of the Crow's Ash, Teak [flindersia australis]

Seed pods of the Crow's Ash, Teak [flindersia australis], originally uploaded by JIGGS.

01 13 06

One of the things I like to do bvedfore i get going for the day is check out the photos of my contacts on flickr...there are always some amazing images of things...from sttiching to stars...and there is almost always something i find that i want to translate into sttiching in some way. This photo is one of those..not only interesting in it's own right, but also all that texture!

...the photo is from Jiggs' photostream on flickr.

And now that i am awake ....lol......(after a night at the local crisis center) maybe my hands will stop being asleep I can do what i need to do and start sttiching sometime this evening!

ktj

01 09 07 FIT 001 Embroidery Done!

Here it is ! The embroidery is done on this block. i am determined tht i am adding nothing else to it..although i wassssss thinking about beads....lol.....
now all i have to do is make the fabric book and applique this onto the cover. I am vry pleased to have the embroidery done. I had no idea that i would be adding that much to it. I rmemeber the original intention of the cotton blocks was to make them simple and direct. So much for that.





this is a detail of the leaves that i ended up putting in one corner. I worked from a little booklet that showed the closed cretan stitch and used that stitch for them. The lighter green that you see are straight stitches inbetween the legs of the cretan stitch. While doing it all i could think of was that really the closed cretan could just as easily be called an alternating buttonhole stitch.




This is a detail of the heart motif. I added a straight stitch to the lazy daisy vine around the heart and i think it really added a little oomph. I like it quite a bit and am pleased with it!

Happy stitching y'all.