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