09 08 06 Sandie W.'s Heart arrived!

This wonderful piece of stiching arrived in the mail with a lovely note and some goodies...oooh the lace butterfly, and the gold one.........AND the piece of hand-dyed silk ribbon....thanks you so much Sandie for the work you put into the heart and for being so thoughtful to include little lovely bits!

I really am living among the angels!

ktj

09 07 06 Susan N.'s heart recieved!

Here is Susan Nixon's heart that i got in the mail today! Along of course with a wonderful note and some lovely bits and pieces.....especially mind boggling were the extremely small seed beads......gggggg....will have to look for a needle small enough and a magnifying glass big enough! Thank you Susan for this lovely treat!

09 07 06 Seam 001 -100 details in HOW may days(old post edited)

I am so late getting to do this....gggggggg, it;s more like 100 details in a couple of years for me....but here it is, the first one, from day one...





This is actually based on Sharon's 100 details, day one. If you look closely at it you can see that it really is a series of alternating tirangles, slightly off set because of the bead along the central line..... i drew out the basic lines so that i could go into my sewing room and still remember it! The thread i chose didn;t seem to go well with beads, although now that i have done the seam, i think that some small wooden seed -type beads in bright colors would have done very well. At any rate, what I did was stitch the central horizontal line in blue, add the triangle lines and decided to put a french knot in orangey brown where Sharon had a bead. Pearls just would not have made it here..lol....anyway, i then whipped the lines and the french knot disappeared visually! So of course, i had to find a way to bring it back out, so I wrapped the knot in purple round and round, putting a straight stitch on either side to hold the threads. ok, fine....what next???? Well, in place of the bugle beads(which I had EVERY intention of putting in the seam when i started it) i ended up with bullions. No heart beads, no candy colored flower buttons which i thought would be pretty cool actually, so french knots it was in bright yellow. I really was tired of the values by the time the bright yellow came round and it was a natural choice to brighten it all up...and then, because there there were so many colors by this time, i decided to add the extra line of yellow along the triangles. I think it works very well and looks like a folk art seam to me....so that is what i am calling it, folk art seam 001.

Sharon's day one seam treatment can be found here-just scroll to the bottom of the page!

Day One

ktj

09 07 06 Hearts recieved

When I first joined the COH Susie Watts sent me a heart without seeing anything I had embroidered. I love this heart, it is so quiet and peaceful..neat and calm. When I scanned the hearts not too long ago i put them on flickr thinking that they would get more exposure that way, but I have decided that they belong here as well....after all this is getting to be the real record of my stitching experiencec, and the swap is part of that.

This is Susie's heart for me.




TRhis next heart is from Belinda Sweeney and i think there is already a picture of it on the blog, but since i like to be organized( roflmao) i want to keep all the hearts i have recieved so far in a row.....ggg..this is the second heart I got and it was a surprise. WOW! Can you imagine getting this unexpectedly...isn;t it gorgeous?




The next two hearts I recieved on the same day...I opened the one from Norma Harris first, so i will show it first....i love hardanger, and this is just the perfect heart for me.. her work is so lovely...it couldn;t be more elegant in my book!




And this wonderful heart is from Kathleen Casey for whom i shall always have a soft spot.....look closely and you will see all the buttonholes stitch flowers behind the ribbon sunflower, and you will also see the other buttonhole on the right side. I think it is a fence, but what it REALLY is is a supreme effort to master a stitch and put something wonderful on a heart. I adore this effort, and i adore the end result.



If you like these hearts, please visit the sites of the gals that made them and let them know-

Susie W's site

Bear's Den

Norma's Blog

Not sure if Kathleen has a url for a blog or flickr account or not, am waiting to hear from her, so in the meantime, if you wouldlike, please comment under her picture and i will make sure she gets the compliments! OF COURSE they will be complements!

ktj

09 06 06 Paisley Challenge Begun

This is the begining of a 6 by 4 postcard of a paisley design challenge in the Stitching Post group. Sharon B. graciously allowed use of her paisley designs for us to embroider and interpret. The challenge is to take one of the three designs she posted on her blog and interpret it in any size and any technique. We can add design lines but not take any of Sharon's original lines out. This one has lines added, but i have a feeling that they will be changing as the embroidery progresses.

You can see Sharon's designs

here

09 02 06 Fake Gold check on rr patch

This is a detail from a rr i worked on about 6 years ago...this was some fake gold check that i saw at some chain crafts store and had no idea what to do with it. What a major pain it was to couch down without having it completely flatten out.

ktj

08 25 06 Pink Jellyfish Photo

Uploaded to flickr by Antoni Albalat Salanova(Wuniatu)

This pic did not have a blog this button on it, so i wrote to the person who took the photo and got permission to blog it here....please do go check it out on his pages. In the meantime, you can click on it here and it will enlarge quite a bit. I know we are all always looking for jellyfish for the underwater/undersea blocks that we do and i thought that not only would this be a wonderful photo for reference on what jellyfish actually can look like, but that in general it was just an amzing photo!

ktj

Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon
Originally uploaded by pilotpix.

tak a very good look at this one and tell me how many movies are represented here.........lol...
ktj

08 25 06 Rhododendron Bud

Pink rhododendron head
Originally uploaded by photojenni.

Does anyone see this as anSRE project-wouldn;t it be great in silk ribbon?

08 25 06 Center Stitching on Small Bag

In Learn To Embroider, One of my Yahoo stitching groups,
LTE
we are making a small bag using black felt and simple stitches. The black felt is cut into a square and then put on point. You embroider down the central diagonal and then on each side of that line of stitching you do the same thing....when the piece is covered it gets fused to another piece of felt to stiffen it, then folder and sewn in such a way that you have a kite shaped little bag. Here is the beginning of mine. I am using worsted weight knitting yarn that is variegated in colors that i especially like and to me they look pretty great against the felt. I will definitely be making more of thee, but hope to find some heavier weight felt next time.

Let me know what you think.

08 21 06 Lemgo Germany(old post)

Lemgo, germany
Originally uploaded by Rainer Fritz.

I love Rainier Fritz photostream! He captures the most interesting things in his area...and of course his flower pictures are masterpieces. Please take the time to see his phto stream if you haven;t already. I love this carved and colored work. I wonder how old it is. How does the paint stay so fresh and clean?

ktj

08 21 06 Redcurrants

Redcurrants
Originally uploaded by Rainer Fritz.

Look at the transluscence in those berries, they seem to be ready to pop with juice! i would love to be able to do some embroidery that can refelct that quality! I love the composition of this shot as well. What bird would not be attracted to a dinner like this!

ktj

0-8 07 06 More Victorian CQ(old post)

<

08 07 06 Victorian CQ's(old blog post)

08 02 06 Fabric PC tutorial on Calidore's blog(old blog post)

Calidore's Garden Ramblings: Crazy Quilted Postcards Tutorial

You will find a wonderful wonderful tutorial on making a fabric postcard on Catherine of the Garden's Blog It is thorough, good pictures, simple to follow and full of good tips! Is there more you could ask for?

I am working on the Chain Stitch practice piece(see below several entries down)and getting ready to start a small project for the beginner list -

Learn To Embroider

this is not really a Learn to CQ list, or Learn to do this or that, it really is what is sounds like...Learn to Embroider...basic stitches, threads, fabrics etc etc....and there will of course be stuff about particulars -------gggggg...if i know any or any of the members know something particular to teach....although if you are that good in any one technique, LTE might be pretty basic....the sister list,

Stitching Post

might be a better place.

Check them out and join if you are interested...the more the merrier, and of course you know you are welcome!

ktj

08 01 06 Stumpwork in the Stitching Post Group(old post)

Celeste Chalasani of

the Stitching Post

has graciously and energetically created a beginner project in stumpwork for the group. She has posted the first lesson, which is the suppllies list and the diagrams for the background embroidery and the detached slips. Because this project is Celeste's own creation just for the Stitching Post, she is making available only to us! That means that it won;t be posted on the blog for the group, only pictures of the completed projects. If there is anyone at all interested in learning this age old and beautiful technique with a short and small piece, this is is the time. It is suitable for beginners to embroidery, and beginners to stumpwork! Please consider joining the group(all group guidelines apply) and taking part in this wonderful oppportunity!

ktj

07 30 06 Thank YOU SO much!(old blog post)

Thank you very much to all of you that commented on the Pathfinder block.Your comments mean a lot to me, and I appreciate them very much! Here are a few letters from a very nice alphabet. I hope thatyou can use them in your stitching in some way!
ktj

07 29 06 Here It is

Here it is finally!
This is the block for the Chains of Hearts quilt that will be raffled as a fundraiser for Pathfinders. PAthfinders is an organization in England that is helping to match service dogs with those who need them. Pathfinders can be found

here.

If yoou click on the block it will open to a large sizze. I still hate that (&*) dog, but not enough to spend a week dealing with taking him out, or applique-ing over him at this point.

Let me know what you think!

ktj

07 24 06 Two Stitch Challeng Pics(old blog post)

Here are two pics of some very small embroidered "tiles" using crochet cotton. One variegated and one white. This was for a stitch challenge on the Yahoo group-The Stitching Post(my group. The idea was to use only the two stitches-blanket and chain with only two colors and just play around with how the stitches interact. The background had to be a medium blue.We could use as many different types of threads as we could, but i found that i simply enjoyed using the cotton.

The simpler piece is just the two stitches and works pretty well i think. There is one place i would lilke to add a bit of white, but other than that glaring omission(to me) i think it is done done DONE!

the second, nore complicated piece was a lot of fun, but more troublesome. I kept wanting it to be done and it woudn;t stay finished! Every thing i did led to the percieved need to balance it somewhere else which...and on and on......finally i realized that it really needed were dots and lines...and so i added french knots and straight stitches. So much for being able to stay with in the challenge guidelines!

Let me know what you all think, ok? Negative is ok, tactful is good.
ktj

07 24 06 Events of Note (old blog post)

In my hands is the July August issue of Piecework Magazine, published by

Interweave Press.

It is one of my all time favorite magazines because of the variety of needle-techniques that are showcased. This issue is no different.

There is a wonderful article on blue and white counted embroideries of Szichan China. The design incorporates a little bit of cross stitch and a lot of what we would call blackwork. It is executed in double running stitch(Holbein)and the article gives us a chart for the design, another chart with the thread paths, and a lot of history!

There is also an artcle on the color mauve and the discoveery of aniline dyes. The article is accompanied by a full color full page photo of a piece of antique silk kimono fabric. It is quite different from what you might be imagining.In the same article it shows a picture of a section of a crazy quilt. While not mentioning that it is a crazy quilt, look for yourself and see what you think it is...lol. At the end of the article is a list of resources for dye-ing fabrics, and some recommended books.

Earthguild

Jacquard

Dharma

AlJoDye

Prochem

As I went through the magazine i noted a great diagram on the cretan stitch, an article on Mountmellick Embroidery, along with a project to try,and three articles on embroidery from other nations and other times.

Last but not least is the list of events that are calling for entries....
here are the urls to those events- there just may be one of interest to you........and if you get into Pittsburgh for one of them, drop me a line and maybe we can meet up there!

Fiberartinternational

QuiltNational

plus there are a few places that have what look to be fantastic exhibitions! Wish I could go to all of them-

In Berkely,

the Lacis museum

is having an exhibit on Dress into the Jazz Age...that ends on the firstof August. Not too far away!

Closer to home here, in hartford Conn. through August 13th is costume exhibit called"Revivals,Costumes for Song and Dance"at the

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum

.

There are more listed and i guess you'll just have to check out the issue to see where they are if nothing else!

happy stitching..ktj