September Hearts

 My Free Form Hearts for the month of September 

For my  Straight From The Heart Quilt 

Week 28

A Crazy Quilt Patchwork Heart with Crochet flowers embellishments.

Week 29

Machine blanket stitch applique with hand stitched Buttonhole Bars edging.

Week 30

Metallic thread Kantha Quilted heart in contrasting halves.

Week 32

A cute 'fussy-cut' rose fabric heart, appliqued with small cross-stitches in a variegated thread.

I'm still trying to vary the techniques that I use on the hearts, and I think I'm still coming up with new ideas that I haven't tried yet. So much fun to be had in a haphazard free forming way.

That's my lot for September.

See you in October, lol.

Heart Crazy Quilt week 15

 Straight From the Heart Crazy Quilt 

Week 15

A stitched Mandala (not complete yet).

I have had another try at needle tatting. Still not totally got the hang of it.

Something got a bit twisted in the wrong direction somewhere along the line, and its all a bit uneven.

I shall persevere.

Sorry if I'm a bit short on photos this week.

I have actually accomplished a lot more than just these two offerings this week, but I am not able to show you my other things yet as they have to remain a secret for a little while longer.

One of the projects is going to be published in a book, and a different project is going to be a freeform mystery crochet along.

Watch this space for more details on these 'things' coming soon.

Happy Stitching.

Heart Crazy Quilt Catch Up

This week I am playing catch up with my Straight From the Heart Crazy Quilt.

Here are three weeks worth in one post (is that good value, or what?)

Week 11

Machine work - haha - something you don't see very often from me.

Playing (experimenting) with free-motion quilting and also practicing with metallic threads.

Pink and purple satin fabric, only the purple one is the shiny, slippery little devil.

Hand stitched to the black rose fabric with buttonhole stitch.

Week 12

Reverse applique heart with a fly stitch decoration and a fabric 'ruffle' flower for the centre.

Week 13

Two more 'ruffle' flowers (just because I was enjoying doing them) and a Suffolk Puff flower (I am English so that's what I call them, you may know them as Yoyo's).

The stamen are made with Cast-on stitch.

The Suffolk Puff looks somewhat black in this pic, but it is actually a deep aubergine.

I may add some hand stitched embroidery in places on this, I'll just have to see what time I have spare.

 Quilt Show Photo Album 

The quilt show photos that I mentioned last week are on Flickr - all 108 photos.

You can catch them here

....and don't be shy, say hello over there...

There are too many to post to this blog sorry, but here's a taster for you....

My CQJP Block for April

My CQJP Block for April

I am so pleased that I have now finished my April CQJP block.

And because I know you all love close up pics of the seam stitching here follows the seam treatment close-up photos each with a note about the stitching.

TAST week 19 - The Half Chevron stitched in two rows with a 'lozenge' shape back stitch in darker blue and a metallic thread Star cross stitched in the middle of each lozenge.

The Basque stitch is a chain stitch variation and was done last week. This week I added the Ribbon Embroidery blue flowers (possibly tulips?), the Fly Stitch 'stalks' and the beaded tops.

Three different techniques combined on this seam.

Bottom black line is back stitch. Lilac middle bit is Raised Buttonhole. Then silver and turquoise beaded semi-circles added to the top.

Mexican Wave stitch and a beaded edge.

The beaded zig-zag added to last weeks ribbon seam.

White beads added to last weeks Crossed Buttonhole (Blanket stitch)

Not sure whether to call these beads or buttons, but whatever they are it is lovely.

They are acrylic and see-thru with a 'glass millefiori' (sp?) look to the flower in the middle.

I added a row of silver (metal) chain to either side of my wrapped chevron for something a little different and unique.

The sage green braided chain from last week also got some more stitching added to it.

The purple thread is a wrapped back stitch with a pale lilac back stitch outside of that.

The irregular turquoise beads are held down with lengths of crystal seed beads.

I love how this Mandala just grew itself here.

The variegated green is raised buttonhole on a spider wheel.

Lime green is French Knots.

Pale blue variegated is two rounds offset Half Chevrons

Aqua bugle beads and silver seed beads

I was rather surprised that the round of beads fitted the mandala perfectly without having to 'jiggle' the spacing at all. Sometimes things are just meant to be.

And here is my butterfly for this block.

I hope I can carry on inventing "new species" of butterflies to complete my 12 blocks by the end of this year.

I give you an angled shot of the block here so you can see the textures of the beads and stitches, and also see the crocheted ruffle better.

Well that was a fun stitching week for me.

CQJP for March - Yes I'm late.....

CQJP for March - Yes I'm late..... & TAST Stitches Update

I have managed to get quite a bit of stitching time to myself this week.

Here are my latest TAST stitches that are on my CQJP block.

Stem Stitch

Nine rows of stem stitch in two colours stitched next to each other.

The black thread is two strands of cotton floss,

and the green thread is something silky that I found in my stash (oddment with no label)

French Knot

Five rows of French Knots in graduating colours from lilac to blue.

Detached Daisy's for edging.

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CQJP WIP

I am rather late getting my March CQJP block done but here is the progress on it so far.

The Naked Block

I made this block last Monday in my quilt colour scheme of black, white and anything in between.

Detail 1

French Knots & Detached Daisy's on left.

Braided Chain on right.

Buttonhole and Cross Stitch above.

Detail 2

Seam treatments being developed here. Lots more stitching needed, and then the beads.

Detail 3

I was having a bit of Whipping fun with this seam treatment.

You can just see on the left, in green, a detached buttonhole row.

Detail 4

The black semi-circles on the left are in Stem Stitch with Detached Chains and Ribbon Petal Stitch in them, and Seed Stitch done in DMC metallic silver thread.

On the bottom right is a new seam combination being nurtured.

This week I have been experimenting with new combinations for the seam treatments as I have been feeling a bit restricted with the TAST stitches and I'm longing for something a bit more challenging.

This coming week I shall add beads and hopefully finish this block as I need to start on my April block to catch up, but as I've managed to do all the above stitching in one week, I think I might be able to catch up soon. With both of my boys back at Uni again after the Easter break, and my older son gone back to his own house, I should have more daytime for myself.

It has been great having them around, but sometimes I would like to just sit and stitch without having to make (yet another) pot of tea or put the dinner on (why do they never stop eating and yet remain a healthy weight?).

I need to create another butterfly for that centre fabric patch, probably in stumpwork again as I like how the last one turned out. And I will crochet a piece for a specific area when I decide which area needs a bit of traditional lacework.

TAST Week 2 - Buttonhole (Blanket) Stitch

TAST Week 2 - Buttonhole (Blanket) Stitch

My experimenting with this stitch was good. Tried a couple of new (to me) variations, and I'm well pleased with the result for my journal page.

Stitches include - back-to-back buttonhole, 4 variations of wrapped buttonhole, V-buttohole couching, alternate sides buttohole couching. slanting buttonhole, length pattern, layered and graded buttonhole, outline buttonhole, wheel, ridged buttonhole, bar (or detached) buttonhole.

I have two favourites from above - the orange detached buttonhole flower was great to work on, and the wrapped buttonhole variation on the very left at the bottom of pic has an interesting look to it I think.

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