10 25 06 Xmas Post card done!(1)

Below are the two sides of the First Xmas postcard i finished to my satisfaction. I am so pleased with it.lol.....
I fused the front and back to their own seperate pieces of heavyweight interfacing and then fused them together, then whipstitched the edges all around and added a puurely decorative buttonhole stitch to the front.

10 24 06 Re-embroidered butterfly

I have been going nuts trying to make fabric postcards that have a finished edge i can accept for myself....i like having a nice, neat edge with no little hairs or fuzzies....and i don;t mind at all having a nice machine satin stitch as long as it doesn;t end up all fuzzy............welllll.....it just may take me a long time to get that down pat with my machine. So instead of the fiber postcard i wanted to post, here is a piece of work from the past..........a re-embroidered butterfly. It's part of the weave of the fabric and i used single strand metallics and other threads on it.

Eve's Dragonfly scissors bag

Dragonfly scissors bag, originally uploaded by dreamdress2.

On the LTE we have been doing small bags and Eve is on a roll! This is her second one and i can see her doing these forever! They are very easy to make and the creative possibilites are endless, as Eve so well shows us!

ktj

10-22-06 More of Nikki's Work

This is some cross stitch and beading as a seam treatment that Nikki did on a round robin many years ago....isn;t it great!All of her stitching is such a treat to see.

ktj

Great Egret

Great Egret, originally uploaded by hearman.

If you enlarge this you will see just how silken the breast feathers are. I think this is an amzing image of these birds.

ktj

10-19 06 Nikki's woven tapestry

This is a tapestry done by my friend Nikki Y. from Canada. It is her first one. Everything she does is perfect. She is incredibly talented and pays attention to details like nobody else I know.

ktj

10-16-06 Kate L's heart!

Well, it has certainly been longer than i expected to get back to blogging ...
Here is a picture of the heart i recieved from Kate L. from Denmark....the scan really doens;t show how vibrant the green color is...and how wonderful the little oblong pearl-type beads look in the row..they are so soft and have such a nice sheen. It's a delightful contrast that you see in this block up close...the gold on the fabric and the shiny sequins....I am so happy to have recieved this heart!

I need to hurry up and make some more hearts!





happy stitching to all...

10 05 06 Tagged! 5 weird things............

well, I am tagged! Not once, but twice,
first

Jo from NZ

of paisley and sequin flowers fame, but also Sandie W. from

A Beautiful Craft

.
Hearing from

Norma

and she had also been tagged so those three are definitely out! So, what i decided to do was tag some folks that don't really know me from Adam but whose work i really like and whose blogs i enjoy seeing. I hope you agree with me that they are worth the visit!
First up is

Alma Stoller

who has such playful and delightful work...today she is featuring a tutorial on polymer clay. If you are at all interested, this is a must-see.


Next is

Annie W.

who is doing a tut of sorts on chickens...you'll just have to go visit and see it for yourself...and whiile you are there...check everyhting else out too!


I don't know how many folks know

Cecelia from Brazil

but she does some fantastic redwork and quilting...she is also crazyquilting and has some lovely seam treatments going!

Gail's blog

is a wonderful mix of things, but what i love the most is that everyone is smiling! She is SO upbeat it's a pleasure to read and she does awesome fiber ATC's. She even has a cool tut about them as well.

This is Gerry's blog

which is visually beautiful and chock full of interesting things if you take the time to read the sidebars and the entries....if you scroll down a bit you can see the links to last several years of Hoffman Challenge winners...that;'s some serious eye candy!



Now, 5 weird things about me....well, ummm....lets see.....how to pick....

well, my coworkers think everything is weird about me, from my name to my furkids names.... is that 1???

I have lived at my present home for about 10 years and have no rugs....most people would think that;'s weird, but it makes cleaning up so so much easier.....lol..and easy is what i am after!

Ok, here's number three....I am the only buddhist in my county....i think that is amazing, but maybe it also qualifies as weird....

I have one small mirror in the bathroom, a little hand held one to make sure my hair is not sticking out all over the place .

And....#5..I guess, speaking about hair, it's very very short...very very short....did I mention that it was short....and i cut it myself.Except for the ones that are bald, everyone I know has longer hair than me.

I would have loved to tag everyone I know.....

like Susan N.the traveller

and

Barbara C.

who has some really interesting things on her blog all the time.

and Julia C's blog

Camille's Place

that showcases some exquisite embroidery and hand dyed laces.

If I keep going...the list will be too too long....enjoy!

10 05 06 Moving things around day

What a total mess....am moving things around in theroom i use for an office and i can;t believe what an ordeal it is....running extension cords, putting in lightbulbs, which means finding the step stool, figuring out how to untangle the cables into the PC tower....moving the peripherals.....arghhhh....now all i have to do is the major clean up! I know you all wanted to know this....lol...

happy stitching.
ktj

10 03 06 Bonnard

Every time I see this image, I imagine it interpreted in french knots and silk ribbon...this is Bonnard's "Garden in the Midi", painted about 1943.

10 02 06 Frernch Knots and Dover Publishers

There was a small discussion on the Stitching Post list about french knots. These three images from some antique Chinese embroidery are what has inspired me to try to do french knots as well and evenly as i possibly can. It's not till you get to the detail image that you realize that the shading is not from shaded satin stitching but from french knots!

overview of the panel



A little closer



Closest





This work is all done in silk.Till I can do something anywhere near this, i consider that i don;t know how to do a french knot!
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Nothing new just a bunch of appointments all this week and squeezing in time for stuff is getting a little harder........but I will be posting a little bit of a tut on satin stitching....just a few pictures of beginning to cover an area.




This is from the Dover Sampler series, which you can get mailed to you each week from Dover Publishing. The link is on the sidebar and what happens is that every week they send you a selection of titles and samples from thsoe books. Some of them are pages of text, but many are illustrations. They are free to download and Dover even includes the download instructions with the sampler. It's a wonderful way to not only actually get some graphics, but also to see what is out there. Dover Publishing is one of the places that artists and craftspeople can count on for affordable sources for designs and motifs.

happy stitching

ktj
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10 01 06 World Peace Day

Today is a major Buddhist holiday..it is World Peace Day,when Buddhists of many countries have special ceremonies in conjunction with sitting zazen.

This is not an image I have made, but to me it says peace and tranquility.


I wish you all peace, serenity, and a way out of the dark places.
ktj

09 30 06

Nothing new, just uploaded a nice nostalgia image to print, or use as inspiration.Even if i have no embroidery to upload here, i will almost always make sure that i change the Motif A Day image. And of course i try very hard to add more links every day from the interesting places i come across.

Janie-----i have just gotten up(late late late) and will have to get in gear to take that little walk.

OK JANIE! i did, it;s pouring rain here now so i am glad that i got it in before it really started, although it did start pouring while i was out...that;s ok, at least i got some in> Thanks for doing this with me.

By the way, for anyone interested in fibromyalgia, the best website on the net for information is The Orgeon Fibromyalgia Foundation. The link is on the sidebar.


ktj

09 29 06 Me and Janie J.

What a nice day for me...i actually got things done. I finally decided that I actually must do some excercizing and walking if I am going to get the fibromyalgia under control...and that's what i have ben doing for the past couple of days. Nothing major mind you, and i don;t walk very far and certainly not very fast but it is being done.Janie J. and I have decided to check in with each other every day and make sure we are doing what we need to do to keep our health from spiralling down.So, Janie.....yes! I did it ......gggggg.

Maybe one of these days I'll be able to walk, exercize AND go up and down the stairs a few times before getting worn out.

Anyway, nothing on the embroidery front today, have spent the dayso far doing chores and having a lunch with an elderly friend at the local family restaraunt chain.

ok, back to work!
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09 27 06 Can she get any more ladylike??

Took this one last night and dl'd it to the computer a little bit ago...i was struck by the easy elegance of this pose.....she is SUCH a lady.

09 27 06 Redwork Piece

This is a piece of redwork I did several years ago for an overseas friend. It is an adaptation of a plant illustration from a coloring book and because it was so detailed with so many small areas it got done in maroon sewing thread...one good thing was that i didn;t worry about running out of the thread!It was 8.5 by 11.

09 26 06 WIP small embroidery

A small embroidery for the fun of it...lots of shapes and textures.There are some things that will look very different in the finished piece. In the oval empty spaces near to the right side i want to do some stitching that will be reminiscent of leaves. The purply blob on the left needs something to make it less.ummm. aggressive in the piece, but not sure what i will do.

09 25 06 100 details-002

When I finally did the first one, I had to laugh cause it ws so late in the game, and right after I got this one done, the scanner and the computer decided to quit talkiing to each other(AGAIN!)so now it is even later........but here it is. The same folk art colors and this time i did add a little wooden seed bead.


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And just because they are so much fun, here's another color swatch.........



and another color block...lol....

09 24 06 Sunday Already

It seems like just yesterday that I was wondering if i would get anything done this week...and now i know....and the answer isssssssssssssssss..not much..unfortunately!

Of course playing around on the computer doesn;t interfere at all!



Having so much fun doodling in Paint.


The M.A.Day is a line drawing of a grey scale image that has been posted previously. It is two birds on a very leafy ranch. It is copyright free.

Happy stitching.

For 09 23 06 Two Paislies on M.A.D. and Mija pic

Here is a picture of my female pup. She is so incredibly sweet. She is far more eager and willing to please that her brother Sin Huevos and wags her tail ALL the time. Both she and her bro have beautiful smiles and maybe one day i will be able to capture them.



And here is another of the two of them. i have this terrible feeling that now that i have a digital camera i am going to end up one of those people that just has a million pics of the babies and shares them at the drop of a hat....lol...........




Also, on the Motif a Day page (under "collections" in the sidebar) there are two paislies. They are adaptations of paislies from a Dover collection.If you read the sidebar on the M.A.Day Series you will know that the previous entries are deleted when the new one goes up.

And finally...more of the Easy Share software...i love it...it allows you to edit a picture(or graphic) in "coloring book" mode............which means it makes black and white outline graphics of pics....this is a great feature.You can easily begin to embroider a photo of...oh, let's say my dogs! Here's one from the bunch of photos I took this evening.



Some of the lines need to be darkened but otherwise this is just a great thing. I did this as well to some color vector clips i had of birds and the outlines are dark, sharp and clear. I don;t know if you can get this software without buying the camera, but if you can, and it is not exhorbitantly priced, this feature is just the greatest!

I have been having a lot of fun with my programs as you can see, so i thought i would share another color swatch..these are more fun than jelly beans........lol.....so here's "golden glow" for want of a better name.