Erica's Stitches

My latest project has a lot of yellow in it.  I think this is the most yellow I've ever used in one project. Don't worry, there will be plenty of other colors when it is finished. The project is called Colorado Collage by Caela Conn Tyler.  When finished it will be a map of Colorado.  There is a complicated array of graphs, charts and instructions.  And for once, I think I will be following them faithfully. I haven't done canvas work in a while and had to find my helping hand.  There it is up there holding down my canvas.  As I get back into it, I'm having more and more fun.  Each county uses different flosses and stitches.  It's almost like a Clue game.  But instead of "Mrs. White did it in the Lounge with the Candlestick" you have counties, stitches and floss.  I just finished Baca county (on the lower left).  Next I will be working on Weld county (upper right of the area stitched so far).  A quick look at the chart te...

Quilted ... check Binding attached ... check Hand sew the binding to the back ... the first 2 feet ... check OK,  I've got a ways to go and this is were it starts to get tedious.  From now on, when I feel like stitching I MUST sew down a threads length worth of binding before I work on any other project.  After all, I'm only half way across one of the short sides. Mostly I'm looking at the back of the quilt (and I really like the acorn print I found).  But, every once in a while I catch a tantalizing glimpse of quilt underneath and that keeps me going. Every once in a while I look out the window and it looks beautiful.  I want to put the quilt aside and go outside.  But, the temperature is about 20 degrees cooler than it looks and a crazy wind is howling through the trees making it rather unpleasant out. So, maybe I'll sew another foot or so of binding down and hope for warmer weather tomorrow.

My 35th anniversary sampler is now competed and hanging on the wall. I quilted it by hand using pearl cotton #12.  Each stitched square is quilted with a running stitch. And each seam is quilted with a different stitch, crazy quilt style.  And there is stitching along the border. I like this corner the best.  The ochre and blue fabrics were both used in a quilt I made years ago.  I enjoyed putting them together again. Disclaimer:  No supplies were purchased for this sampler.  Everything was found in my closet. So, the pearl cotton colors are not ideal. I would have liked something that stood out a little more.  From a distance you can't see the stitching.  But, the good news is you can't see any mistakes either.

117 bookmarks were donated yesterday! And here is my mini cross-stitch electric guitar (with french knot tuning pegs). ©2011     Erica Cannon

It seems like I've been making bookmarks for months now. I've blogged about the 1st four before.  Now I've finished another 5.  I was going to stop at 4, but ... My EGA chapter is collecting the bookmarks for "Literacy for All Children" and is hoping to donate 100 bookmarks.  Last count they had just over 80.  So, I kept stitching. At a sale I ended up with a length of one inch banding in a package of fabrics which is perfect for small bookmarks. I kept these bookmarks small and simple using the requested themes.  It was fun trying to come up with simple designs and I spent time looking at pictures of electric guitars on the Internet trying to figure out how to stitch one only 6 stitches wide.  I think it turned out recognizable. I'll be dropping off my bookmarks on Saturday.  I'm hoping there will be over 100. Now I can get back to some other projects.

I've been a member of Stitchmap for a while and I finally got to take my first class in Fabric Weaving.  I've written classes and mentored, but this was my first chance to relax and take a class.  And I also won my first challenge (which is detailed in their blog). I went overboard and made 3 different woven fabrics and three journal covers.  I didn't plan on it.  It just happened.  The directions say to use batiks so I started with batiks.  But, there were some prints I liked too, so I decided to do one with a print too. So I started thinking about why we were using batiks.  Probably because they are more tightly woven and shouldn't fray as much and probably the designs on many prints would be lost after the weaving.  Thinking about fraying fabrics reminded me of homespun plaids.  After that, I just had to try one with plaids to see what would happen.  In reality, they frayed as much as the batiks and it wasn't an issue (I did use...