Finishing up and moving forward

I've been assembling  my 2013 weekly stitching blocks. Each one of the blocks was completely finished as I did them, now I'm using some small cube beads to sew them together.

The beads

The bead sewn in at the corners.

The back of the assembled blocks.

Now I've got to put a sleeve on it and see if it will hang correctly with just beads on the corners. The vertical rows are all attached and just the top horizontal row so the vertical rows hang loosely. At least that's what I hope they do when the sleeve is attached and it's hanging from a rod.

I'm really getting into my weekly leaf and will probably attach each of these blocks the same way, only I'll do it as I go instead of waiting till the year is done. This week I used my Gelli plate again, this time with a rubbing plate from Cedar Canyon Textiles

I used a mix of olive and brown textile paints applied with a brayer, then pressed the rubbing plate into the paint to make my image, then laid a light hand dyed fabric on the gelli plate and picked up the image.

Fused the flannel on the back and did some stitching.

The Weekly Leaf #5

Indigo and Rust #321 - #326

Line Dance #28 - #33

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

New Monthly project

My Mom did a lot of embroidery when I was young and even though I don't remember her teaching me how to embroider, I'm sure she did. I feel like I have always known how to embroider and until the late 1970's I did quite a bit of it. Now after a thirty year layoff you've probably noticed that I'm back at it. I have a box of my Mom's old linens that are embroidered and/or crocheted. Most of the ones I have left are either very worn or stained, but I've kept them. Recently I decided to use them in combination with some of my old jeans. My Mom never wore jeans and I almost always wear jeans, so my plan was to combine the two; her linens and my jeans. This was to be my monthly project for the year. I have spent most of the month struggling with how to combine the two, finally I realized that it just was not working.

Yesterday it finally hit me that my embroidery looks nothing like her embroidery. She always followed patterns or iron on designs and was very neat and precise. I on the other hand make it up as I go, generally with not so perfect stitches. So I've given up on including my jeans and I'm just using parts of her pieces, some plain cotton and my stitching, then mounting it all on an eight inch square canvas.

January, Mom and Me

I'm not sure if I'll do a whole years worth or just a few and then move on to something else. I'll just see how it goes. So far I like how my big chunky stitches contrast with her very fine delicate ones.

Weekly Leaf
This week I used a rubbing of a large (10"long) leaf tjap.

I did the rubbing when I first got the tjap using a black paintstik on silk broadcloth. Then recently while dyeing some threads I also dyed the rubbing.

I use a viewfinder to pick the area to use.

Fused flannel to the back and then added lots of stitching
Week #4

Line Dance #21 - #27

Indigo and Rust #314 - #320

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Vintage blocks all together

The vintage blocks that I thought would be a long term project are ready to quilt, I've finished the appliqué and have them pieced together. Once I got started working on them I just couldn't stop.

It's not a great picture because it's 75" square and I can't get a picture in the studio without a corner of the table.

Week three of the weekly leaf is done. For this one I used a hand carved stamp and two of the three screens I made from different sizes of the outline of the stamped image.

I've had these around for several years and haven't used them very much.
Week #3

Line Dance #15 - #20

Indigo and Rust #308 - #313

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday".