Erica's Stitches

I've made a small folded flower quilt.  The flowers are from Rebecca Wat's "Fantastic Fabric Folding".  I made another mini years ago and tried another one with different flowers. This is the rose.  It is made by pleating the fabric and then swirling the layers into a rose.  It's more difficult than it appeared to be. This is the star flower and involves just folding.  I had to tack down the petals to keep them from unfolding. This small quilt was a nice diversion.  I've been working on a big quilt since last August.  I have finished piecing together the back - yards and yards of white cotton were spread out on my table and spilled down upon my lap.  I'm hoping the seams are straight and it lies flat.  And that it's big enough.  The batting is spread out on the guest bed to relax and the next step is baste the 3 layers together. So, this little quilt was a reward.  It's nice to be able to finish something quickly and it w...

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.

I was away for a few days!   As usual, part of packing includes a stitching project.  Something small that I can work on at the airport and during the evenings.  I carefully prepared small plastic baggies with floss, extra needles, cut up perforated paper and cheap cutting devices that can be confiscated by security and not cause me any grief. After all that preparation I did no stitching whatsoever.  I almost always manage to find time to stitch but on this trip I didn't.  Things where so hectic that whenever I got a spare minute I didn't have the energy to even look for my stitching. Where did I go?  Someplace exotic. Here's some bamboo I found growing along a wall.  There's nothing like this growing in Colorado, especially in February.  What great texture and patterns. Need another clue? Nope, not Egypt, although it would be wonderful to visit.  And there's more vegetation that doesn't grow in Colorado. I vi...

It's cold outside!  Low last night 6 below.  It is now 8 above, but that's probably just sun shining on the thermometer. The joys of an older house - frost on the windows. I love the curliques, swoops and other shapes. If I was going to stitch frost how would I do it?  I'm sure the finished work would be white on white.  Maybe a touch of metallic thread.  I wonder if I could find some pulled stitches that could mimic the frost?  I'll add this to the infinite list of projects.

My thrift store Christmas continues.  As well as the potholder kit, I also found a Candlewicking ornament kit for 50 cents.  I've heard of Candlewicking before, but I've never tried it so I grabbed the kit as well. When I opened it up I discovered the stitches where mostly french knots, with lazy daisies, stem stitch and padded satin stitches.   Nothing new, I've done all those before. A quick trip to Wikipedia revealed that Candlewicking is traditionally done on muslin with a thread that could be braided into candle wicks.  So, the name is more for the materials and style and not the stiches themselves. So, while the dog slept I started stitching.  I didn't get the ornaments completed, but I made a good start.  I'll get my ornaments for next year done early.  Maybe. Those are padded satin stitches and I've only done the first pass, so they will look better when complete.

Last Christmas during an ornament exchange I recieved one made in a technique I did not recognize.  I've been stitching a long time now and this doesn't happen too often.  I tracked down the lady who made it and discovered it was the Aztec Stitch.  Some quick googling revealed information and a free project from Piecework Magazine that I quickly printed out.  I didn't have the supplies on hand so it was put aside, but not forgotten. My EGA (Embroiderers' Guild of America) Chapter was looking for program ideas so I suggested the Aztec Stitch.  Patience paid off and the program was a few weekends ago but I had to miss it.  I picked up the canvas and instructions last weekend and dropped everything to get started.  This bookmark is stitched using 18 count canvas and #8 pearl cotton. Canvas threads are removed and the design area is outlined with nun's stitches.  Then the fun begins.  Alternating stripes of wrapped b...

Thing #1 and Thing #2 Last weekend was my monthly class at the local needlework/quilt shop.  It's called Art Journal and each class is a secret until we arrive.  Every month we get to play with a different technique.  So far this year we've done kool-aid dyeing. fusing, free-motion quilting, free-form embroidery, made fabric buttons, made layered fabric and others things I can't remember right now. Many of the these techniques I've seen in books and magazines.  They are the type of thing that I want to drop eveything and try but end up not doing.  All year I've had a few hours every month to just play with these ideas.  Last Saturday the teacher brought in scraps of fabrics, beads, yarn, threads, batting and a few examples.  We went crazy.  Each of us picked different fabrics and beads and immediently went to work creating our people.  No two ended up the same although many had really wild hair. On many class...

Wyoming I started taking pictures in the 70's when film came in rolls with 12 pictures on a roll.  On a long family vaction of 3 weeks I might be allowed to use 2 or 3 rolls of film and it might be another 2 or 3 months before they where developed. Montana Sometimes I allowed myself 2 pictures a day - one of scenery and one of family.  Sometimes I would go crazy and take more.  Especially if we where someplace scenic like Yellowstone. Yellowstone Falls Old Faithful Now I have 2 digital cameras where I can take over 1000 photos on one memory card.  Oh, the luxury!  I can stroll through the yard on a beautiful day and snap 50 or more pictures.  I'll probably keep 10% or less of them, but it gives me the freedom to try different angles and perspectives.  And talk about instant gratification.  I can look at them right away, not when the memories of taking the pictures are a distant memory.

I believe this is the Mountan Mahogany.  There are several of these shrubs in our yard.  Every fall they get fuzzy, curly seed pods. Aren't these the coolest things.  They make the strangest shapes.  I'm sure that there's a mathematical formula to describe the curve, just like a chambered nautilus. These swirls show up often in nature - on grape vines, morning glories and peas.  But these seem the most unlikely to me. Swirls and curves are also popular design elements and often add a whimsical touch to samplers. 

Antique Samplers - Home I enjoy antique samplers. Unfortunatly I don't own to show. But there many pictures on the web, including the web site above. What do I like about these samplers? 1) Alphabets - Sometimes incomplete, sometimes with missing or extra (?!) letters, sometimes multiple alphabets, sometimes capitalized and sometimes in lowercase and they even show up in a variety of stitches. 2) Motifs - Samplers come with a variety of motifs sometimes without explanation or relevance to the rest of the sampler - dogs, rabbits, flowers, trees, birds, deer, crowns. I've even seen one with a lobster. 3) Houses - Featured in many samplers they are almost never to scale. They will be towered over by people, trees, flowers, dogs, etc. - see #2. 4) Sayings - the older the sampler, sometimes the more obscure 5) Personal Info - name, date, location (some done by extremely young girls who shouldn't have the patience for such an undertaking) 6) Vines - a border of a ...

The world is covered in frost.  The roads are too icy to drive on, so I didn't.  The ground is almost too icy to walk on, but I did.  I wish they would come up with a camera you can work wearing mittens.  My fingers are cold! This is my wild rose bush but it looks more like gumdrops.

Every fall I make some Christmas Ornaments.  Even though it is way too early to think about Christmas itself the changing of the seasons triggers the desire for more ornaments. This year I pulled out some red wool I dyed with Kool-Aid this spring at a local quilt store.  (No, I don't remember which flavor, I wish I did)   I took a spool of thread and traced on as many circles as I could.  I grabbed some green, white, pink and red flosses and started stitching.  This is another one of my random stitchings.  I didn't know what I'd end up with when I was done.  If I had some more red wool, I think I'd have made some matching stockings.

I was shopping in an area of town I'm not in that often and discovered a Salvation Army store that wasn't there the last time I drove by.  Naturally, I had to stop and see what I could scrounge up. I hit the jackpot in the frame section.  I often stop here because you can find great frames really cheap.  A lot of times they are of higher quality than newer frames, but you have to dig and be prepared to discard the framed item inside.  I bought 11 frames sized 5 x 7 and smaller.  One came with needlepoint and the another with crewel.   The remaining 9 where empty.   At 50 cents each I couldn't pass up the discarded needlework. Even though the colors are somewhat dated and the work may be sloppy in parts they are works of beauty that somebody at sometime put effort into and I had to rescue them.  The finishing is rather crude on both of them.  Sometimes I do my own hack job of framing but never like this....

When I went out of town last week it was beginning to feel like fall.  The goldenrod and aster had been blooming for weeks but it still felt summerlike.  Now that I'm back fall is definitely here.  I grabbed my camera and walked around the yard catching the colors of fall. Fall and spring are my favorite times of the year.  I love watching the birth and death of the forest.  The aspen is still green but everything else is turning gold and brown and drying out.