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....

TAST Week 22 & CQJP May Block

TAST Week 22 Knotted Cretan Stitch

I didn't have much time to spend on this stitch this week as I've been in 'Digital Designing' mode.

But that is a story for another blog post. I'll keep you in suspenders (haha) until later.

So here are two test samples for Knotted Cretan Stitch.

With the pink floss I was just playing with different stitch lengths, widths and stretches.

And with the green, well, it was meant to be a circle but I got distracted when one of the dogs decided it was time to throw an old shoe at me "oh come on mum, it must be playtime now".

CQJP May Block

I have got this block to a reasonable stopping point for now, and I'm calling it temporarily finished.

I need (at some point in the near future) to add something more to the left side because I can see that all the "weight" of embellishing is on the right, and the block is not balanced and not to my liking.....yet.

Detail pics......

Silver ribbon stitched to create a ruffle, and turquoise seed beads scattered around the folds.

Blanket Stitch half wheels in two strands of blue variegated DMC floss.

I've no idea what this is called, lol. How about "noughts and crosses".

A bit more added to my "V" exploratory seam. I like the effect of the turquoise/teal raised threads going from one 'knot' to the next. This stitch was one I made up. I think it may be something similar to the Scroll stitch, but this one is stitched differently.

Black cotton crochet scalloped edging lace, and a very short seam with detached chains, silver beads and blue French Knots.

Freeform Mandala with a shiny gold Shisha in the middle.

And my usual centre patch with a butterfly. Not one of my better butterflies I think. It looks more like a hawk-moth to me, probably because of the chunky bead body. 

I may 'frog' the green thread lines on the top as it just doesn't look 'right' to me.

So that's all for now sweet friends.

Back to work on the digital stuff for a day or two before I will allow myself to relax with needle and thread.

TAST Week 19 - The Half Chevron

TAST Week 19 - The Half Chevron

I thoroughly enjoyed this stitch.

Definitely one to add to my list of "go to" stitches. I shall be coming back to this stitch again in the future as there is plenty of scope for experimentation with it.

Here are my experiments with Half Chevron stitching I have completed this week.

A seam treatment double row of Half Chevrons with 'lozenge' shape additions in the middle, and metallic thread stars in the centre's of those.

A Mandala motif on my CQJP 

(It just grew)

Variegated green is Raised Buttonhole on 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.

Shisha & Half Chevron FUN

An extra little challenge was suggested on the Tuesday Stitchers group as a few members wanted to have a go at Shisha stitching.

It has been quite a while since I have done any Shisha work (years in fact) so I thought I would join in on this stitching adventure too.

I have a bag or two of the small round Shisha mirrors that are the usual item to stitch onto fabric, but I know my supply of mirrors is in the shipping container that I call my "Craft Box" which is outside next to the 'man-cave'. I was too impatient to go and search for it so I used what I could find on hand in the house.

So this is the Half Chevron addition to a fun 'experimental' Shisha piece.

The 'mirror' is actually a metal, screw bottle top (no, really!!) from a bottle of Martini Bianco that I just happened to polish off the night before. (Again - some things are just meant to be).

I had to get the hammer out and smash the poor bottle top flat so that it could be stitched in place, but hey, "all is fair in love and stitching".

And a slight angle photo to see the texture of the shisha stitches and the height of the hammered bottle top.

Oh yes, all for the sake of my craft.

I had fun.