Cross Stitch: Squares, Lines and More

This flower is from my "Antique Flowers" Sampler. It is very similar to another flower in my "Les Fleurs des Bois Sampler".

Whats similar? The flower shape is identical. What's different? Color - the antique flower is stitched with a dark muted purple. The contemporary flower is stitched in multiple brighter purples. The stems are very different. The antique flower stem is stylized and made exclusively from cross stitches. The contemporary flower uses a few cross stitches with some backstitches and half stitches thrown in. It is more delicate and realistic.

A few simple choices drastically changed the look of the flower. Whatever shape I design, either simple or complex is shaped by many decisions. Color affects the mood - pastels, brights, darks all have a different look. What stitch do I use? All cross stitches? Do I add backstitching or not? The half stitches are more work but they smooth out the edges so the design isn't as boxy.

A lot of detail can be placed in a simple design that can be surprisingly realistic. And not just in Cross Stitch. One of my favorite websites http://www.conceptistech.com/ has logic picture puzzles (and number puzzles too) called Pic-a-Pix, Fill-a-Pix and Link-a-Pix that are made of simple grids. Most of just two colors - black and white. But they do some with more colors. I've never tried cross stitching any of their designs but you certainly could. Some of their designs are more ambitious than anything I've ever tried to fit into a grid. Some succeed brilliantly and in others you have to lean back, squint and try to figure out what the design is. It didn't strike my until recently that perhaps the reason I enjoy these puzzles so much is that they is so similar cross stitch.

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It's about time - the big reveal

My bright quilt was finished in June but I wanted to wait until both were done before sharing the pictures. Quilting the blue quilt didn't take long but finishing the binding sure did. I did procrastinate a bit as it was too warm to have a huge quilt on my lap for most of the summer. After this, I'll probably do all the binding on my sewing machine (and stick to smaller quilts). Notice the cut-out corners? That was a challenge. I found instructions here and it looked easy enough but I wished I had practiced some. After a lot of finessing I finally got good miters but I could have done much better. The cut-out corners allow the quilt to hang nicely over the edges of the mattress and it's a perfect match for a full sized mattress. But, the top edge isn't even close to the pillows. I wonder how the quilt fit on the bed it was made for. Here, at last, is the original quilt that I was copying. I just noticed - all of the baskets are

More Wildflowers of America

Since I have framed the stitched Bleeding Heart from Curtis Boehringer's Wildflowers of America I decided to track down the other 3 wildflowers that had I stiched earlier. I chose these flowers because they reminded me of the forests of Ohio where I grew up - Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Wake Robin and Bloodroot. The Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Wake Robin where both finished with fabric frames. This was a favorite finishing technique of mine for a long time. On the back they are dated 1999 - that was a while ago. I remember the quilt store where I purchased the fabric, but not its name. It's gone now but it was in an old Victorian house in Old Colorado City. The turrets where lined with bolts of fabric and hey had a great selection of plaids. I had never heard name Wake Robin before and it means nothing to me, but the flower is definitely a Trillium. Back then, I dutifully followed the pattern. Now I would have used the name Trillium or omitted the letters altogether. I do miss

Diverted by Dorset Buttons

I learned how to make Dorset Buttons yesterday at our monthly EGA meeting . These little buttons are so much fun to make! We only got three rings so that's how many I made. If I would have gotten more I'd probably be still making them. One nice thing is that they are very forgiving. I made countless mistakes on my first one and you can't tell. A quick google revealed lots of websites with historical information and tutorials on how to make them so I'm not even going to try to describe the process. Some people made their buttons with yarn, others used perle cotton. One of the examples had beads on it, so once I got home I had to find some beads to sew on. That's it for now. I'm going to be keeping my eye's open rings to use. I'm also going to have to go through my yarn stash. Using yarn gives a totally different result and I want to try some yarn ones too.

Erica's Stitches

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