New projects

A few weeks ago I showed a piece of fabric that I had stitched and was ready to dye, you can see it here. I dyed it with navy dye, which on silk broadcloth comes out violet. Below you can see how it looked after I had taken out all the stitched resist. I didn't remember to take the picture until I started adding more stitching, that's the touch of yellow in the middle.



I've been stitching over the resisted marks with different colors of threads, and I'm about 2/3's of the way done. I plan on machine stitching the background.



That should keep me busy for a while.

I've also started another knitting project, a sweater. The owner of the yarn shop that guided me thru the socks, told me when I finished them I would be able to knit anything. So I jumped right in with a sweater!

"18 Moons" finished

Yesterday I finished stitching my indigo moons piece. It's all stitched by hand with pearl cotton, the blue thread is also indigo dyed.




I plan on entering this in a show called Deep Spaces, which requires a size of 18 x 45 in a vertical orientation. I usually don't care to work to a specific size and theme, but this one worked out well. I've also got another piece dyed with some stitched resist patterning that I'm also considering trying to finish to enter in the same show.

Stitching with crochet thread

My Mom used to crochet doilies and edging for pillowcases back in the 50's. I have a few of her doilies and some other very worn linens that she had done. When she died I brought a few of her things home with me; one of them was a plastic baggie with old crochet threads that she had saved. I've had them now for over six years, got them out a couple of months ago and have been looking at them in the studio everyday. Today I decided it was time to play with them and used them to do some funky hand embroidery on some hand dyed silk broadcloth.


I bet if they still make this, it costs a lot more.


This is my collection, some are Coats and Clark, some Star and a few Lily brand. A few of them say tatting and crochet thread on the label.



My Mom also taught me to embroider way back in the 50's, she would not be happy with my irregular blanket stitch - she was a bit of a perfectionist. I, on the other hand , prefer things a bit imperfect!

What I've been doing.

I'm not a big football fan, but I do watch the Super Bowl, mainly to see the commercials. So it always helps if I have something to keep me busy while I watch. This year I stitched concentric wavy circles on a half yard of silk, then gathered the stitching up and now it's ready to dye.



When I started this I had an idea of what I wanted to do, now I don't think it will work. Most people would do a sample first to see what is going to happen - not me, I've got four hours of work in this piece and no idea of what will happen next. Once I get it dyed I'll let you know.

I finished quilting the yellow quilt that I pieced from a bag of fabric swatches, just have about half of the binding left to sew down.



I've also got some valentines ready to go in the mail this afternoon.

Socks!!

I finished knitting my first pair of socks! They even fit!

A couple more pieces finished

I just came back from the post office where I mailed my SAQA auction piece. I'm done way ahead of time, the auction is not till much later in the year. The piece I made is another one of my black and white circle pieces. This one is white lutrador that has been etched with a heat tool, then fused to black silk. The piece was then stitched by hand with black pearl cotton. There is also a companion piece in the works to go with this(maybe next years donation?). The companion is the negative image of this one, white lutrador with a black silk circle.



A couple of weeks ago I also mailed off a small (8X8) piece for SAQA's "This is a Quilt" trunk show. It was also a white circle on black, bit the circle was screen printed with white sand on black silk noil. Also hand stitched with black pearl cotton. I forgot to take a picture before I mailed it.

I also finished another small quilt (15 x 18). This one is some fabric I rusted, stitched the background by hand and then beaded it. I actually did most of the work last summer, it just needed a few more beads and the binding.