365 Red Circles - Done

365 Red Circles, my daily stitching project for the calendar year is now all stitched and sewn together. The backing and quilting will come a bit later.

#362 - #365

365 Red Circles

I think when I started this I was hoping my infatuation with circles would diminish some, it didn't work, I still love circles. Although the next one will not be circles(more on that next post).

Although doing daily stitching has become a very integral part of my life now, I still know that for me to be able to do it regularly requires some planning and organization in the beginning.  The fabric is cut out and ready, the flannel I use on the back of each piece is also cut and ready. Threads are ready with an appropriate size needle with each one. Then everything is stored together in one plastic container. This is what the container looked like this morning when I finished.

I had a few leftover parts. On the right in the middle is a container holding all the thread ends, saved for yet another project. When I travel everything I need goes into a zip lock bag.

Indigo and Rust #289 - # 293

The Indigo and Rust container

This is what was left in my weekly stitching container

This is the container for the 2014 daily stitching

So far very neat and organized.

I've been appliquéing the vintage blocks and they are going much faster than I expected, there are nine done already.

I've also been knitting, I've finished two scarves.

Top one is mine, bottom one is for Don, and I have the first sock in my yearly pair almost done.

I've add a page of all the weekly stitching blocks, click the 2013 weekly stitching link on the top right side.

Now to get back in the studio and get next years projects ready to go.

Happy New Year!

Now linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Weekly stitching

I finished the last of my weekly stitching pieces this morning, I love what I've done and will probably miss working on these pieces even though I have something new in the works for 2014.

Week #52

Each piece is 6" square and completely finished. My original plan had been to sew them together, but I'm leaning more toward keeping them as individual pieces. The photo below is my original plan, they are just stuck to my design wall now, but this was my vision of them sewn together.

2013 weekly stitching

You can now see all 52 blocks on a separate page, click the 2013 weekly stitching link on the upper right side.

Here's a bit more information;

-The fabric is vintage linen and cotton napkins that were divided into three piles and dyed either rose, teal or yellow. 

- Each dyed piece was then clamped with a pair of plexiglass shapes, either a circle ,square or triangle and then over dyed in one of the opposite  colors.

- Each one has a piece of flannel fused to the back, this gives the fabric a bit more stability when stitching and also gives the stitches a bit more dimension. I do not use a hoop when I stitch.

-The stitching is all done with pearl cotton thread, most of it  #5 weight. Some of the threads were dyed with the fabrics, others are commercial threads.

-I finished each piece by pillow casing a cotton fabric to the back. The fabric was ice dyed with the leftover dyes from doing the linens. This is a sample of the backs.

- Each back has the week it was done written on it.

- I only used seven simple stitches to do all 52 weeks. Frequently I would combine different stitches in a block, here's how often those stitches show up.

    - Straight stitch /running stitch, 32 weeks

    - French knots and variations , 33 weeks

    - Fly stitch and variations, 23 weeks

    - Blanket stitch and variations, 13 weeks

    - Chain / lazy daisy stitch, 11 weeks

    - Cross Stitch, 6 weeks

    - Couching, 5 weeks

Although I've used the same stitches over and over each individual piece is different. I think I could probably just keep going with this but I think it's time I do something new. I'm still working out the details but it will definitely be a bit different than this one.  

Daily Stitching updates

365 Red circles #357 - #360 - only 5 more to go!

Indigo and Rust #285 - #288, only 78 days till my birthday!

    

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Vintage and not so vintage

A few posts ago I showed some vintage blocks that were given to me that I've decided to hand appliqué to a pieced background. The background is a mix of pale  pink, peach, beige and gold hand dyed cottons and some vintage silk drapery samples sewn into large four patches. I'm in the process of basting the vintage blocks onto the four patches and I thought I'd show some of the problems I'm working with. The blocks are all foundation pieced, the foundation is different on each one and sometimes it is pieced. Here are a few samples of the foundation, you can also see the background color of the four patches. The bottom one is thread bare flannel, the middle one is a seam from the original garment the fabric was cut from.

Some of the blocks are going to be quite tricky to appliqué because of the seam locations and fraying edges, like the corner of this block.

I've got about ten of them basted and I still am not sure why I feel compelled to do this project.

I've also  finished my 10' x7" piece for the SAQA trunk show "This is a Quilt". Actually it's the second one, the first one just didn't do it for me. I made pieces for the two previous shows, the first one was made with stapled and rusted silk, the second one was screen printed with sand. This time I used a paper towel that had been a dye rag, a chopstick wrapper and a piece of hand painted silk.

I like this one and enjoyed working with the paper towel. I have a rather large collection of dyed paper towels that are going to be used in upcoming projects.

Daily stitching updates.
365 Red Circles #350 - #356

Indigo and Rust #278 - #284

Weekly Stitching #51

Christmas Postcards

I've been making Christmas Postcards for several years now and this week I got this years edition in the mail. I wanted the look of hand stitching without the time it takes to do hand stitching. I stitched a tree shape with black pearl cotton on white fabric, photocopied it and made a thermofax screen to print the cards with.

Above are some of the parts; the original stitching, the screen made from the stitching, Timtex, silk fabric that will be fused to the Timtex and brown shapes cut out for the tree trunk. 

The fabric fused to the Timtex and the tree trunks fused down.

Lined up ready for the screen printing.

The printed tree.

Sixteen red french knots on each one, this took some time!

A star drawn on with a metallic pen.

The backing has been fused on and each one is being getting a satin stitch edge.

Waiting in a pile to be addressed and sent on their  way.

I forgot to take a finished photo, but I still have a couple so I may remember for next time.

Daily stitching updates

365 Red Circles #345 - #349

Indigo and Rust #273 - #277

Weekly stitching #50

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

I have a notion

I've finished December's notion project, so now the only thing is to put them all together. This is December's piece.

All 12 of them together.

Each piece has been completely finished, but I plan on attaching them all together with another notion. It just requires me to sit down and sew them together like this;

I've also been working on my Christmas postcards and will do a post later in the week on how I did them this year. I had hoped to have them done by now but failed to realize how much time it takes to do 16 french knots per card.

Daily stitching update
365 Red Circles #337 - #344

Indigo and Rust #265 -#272

Weekly stitching #49

I am really enjoying doing these weekly squares and am brainstorming ideas for next year.  The six in size will probably remain the same, lots of hand stitching will be involved, but I'm thinking of different  backgrounds. Incorporating paper is on the top of the list, but I have a few weeks to figure it out.

Now linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Daily Stitching and not much else

In the past week my visiting grand children spent more time in the studio than I did, although I did spend some time cleaning up after them.  I also spent time working on and finishing a project my son had designed.  My daughter, sons,  daughter in law, grandson and I did a 5k race on Thanksgiving morning, we had so much fun that it may become an annual event for us.

I've just started my fifth year of daily photos on my photo blog, to celebrate I'm giving away a 2014 calendar with photos from the past year to one lucky commenter. So go check it out and leave a comment.

I did get my daily stitching done.
365 Red Circles #330 - #336 (only 29 to go!)

Indigo and Rust #258 - #264

Now linked to "Off the wall Friday"