A man, a dog and a Beatle

There were some nice ATC’s in my mailbox the last 2 days. The first one is made by Jodie, a lovely groovy green Beatle.The other 2 funny ATC’s are made by Lela. She took the pictures from a comic book and made zentangles around it.

Old TAST-stitches

I finished the last 2 old TAST-stitches I had to try! The horizontal rows are embroidered in the chained bar stitch. I used blue perle 5 and a fantasy knitting yarn with a cotton variegated thread. The third one is a piece of ribbon with light brown perle 5. At both ends of the ribbon I made a French knot to secure it. The vertical rows are embroidered in the Spanish feather stitch. I started with the pink perle 5 on the left. The top half of it is wrong, but I left it to see the difference. Then I made a row with the variegated cotton thread again.I learned a lot of this challenge and I’m looking forward to the next TAST (Take A Stitch Tuesday) that starts Tuesday March 2. There will be a new surface embroidery stitch every Tuesday until the end of the year. Read more about this challenge on Pintangle.

Little Lulu

This lovely pattern was on my computer for a long time and now I found the perfect project for it. I wanted to make a bag for clothes-pins for my daughter. I stitched little Lulu in backstitches and gave her some highlights in her hair by whipping the backstitch with a slightly different yellow. Then I sewed the bag on my mother’s 50 year old sewing machine, because mine doesn’t work any more! This machine only has a straight stitch, but that was enough for this project. There’s a bigger photo of little Lulu on my Flickr-page.

Reversible triangles

The crocheting on my daughters blanket is done. I only have to weave in the threads, it took me 2 hours already and I’m not halfway yet! Every row (there are 14 of them) has about 60 threads to weave in, so to keep me sane, I did some knitting on my Groninger blanket again. I used block 3 of Carla’s blanket, because I finished all the original blocks I wanted to make. Now I have 38 blocks finished, another one on my knitting needles and one more to think about. Time to weave in more threads!

Berry stitch

. . . is the next TAST-stitch I embroidered. This stitch is a variation of the detached chain stitch, it’s a double one. I used it to make flower petals. I added some green detached chain stitches to represent leaves and a seed bead for the heart of the flower. The thread is stranded DMC, just 2 threads.

Orange zentangle ATC's

In November I made my first doodle ATC’s. Recently I found another word for it: zentangle. The style is a bit different, but it’s very addictive! I received this orange zentangle ATC a few days ago. It’s is made by Heather.For the same swap I made this orange zentangle ATC for Lindy.

This zendala was the inspiration for the card I also sent to her.

TUSAL & TAST

Time to show you my TUSAL-jar with lots of new orts. On the bottom are the threads of a flip flop ornament I made for a birthday. I also tried out 5 TAST stitches: Pekinese stitch, chain braid stitch, knotted cable chain stitch, thorn stitch and pistil stitch. The last 2 stitches are on the picture with my jar. The rest of the orts are from the label I made for my Sunbonnet friends quilt and my Gorse Fairies.The pistil stitch is a variation of the French knot. I tried different threads for this stitch: red perle 5, orange organza ribbon, 3 threads of stranded DMC color variations (pink 4190), variegated green Sulky cotton 30 and orange DMC broder special with yellow sequins. The sequins were not my own idea, Deepa wrote about it here.

Sophie's First Crush

This lovely ATC made by Digital Misfit was in my mailbox yesterday. She also makes great embroideries, just take a look at her amazing embroidery ‘Relatively Speaking’.

Work In Slow Progress 5

This little quilt is a very tiny one, it’s only 15 x 15 cm (about 6 x 6 inch). The tulip was a kit I bought at a quilt show. I pieced it years ago by hand on a foundation (Vlieseline L11) and I added a border from my stash. I also found the fabric for the back and the batting. This morning I embroidered the label on the fabric for the back. The batting is a kind you iron between the front and the back, so it only needs a binding and a hanging sleeve.

My first embroidery

A few days ago Annette left a comment that my stitches reminded her of the samplers she did in her school days. That made me think about an embroidery bag I made at primary school when I was about 8 years old. We all had to use the same patterns on the edges and the back and we had to make our own cross stitch design on the front. I think the embroidery is done in perle 5. The edge has a pink running stitch and blue and green cross stitches. Our teacher stitched the lining in the bag on her sewing machine.I used the bag at school for the project I was working on. That’s why we had to embroider our name on it. I shortened my name when I left primary school.

This is a close-up of the stitches on the back. I’m very happy I still have my first piece of embroidery, it’s a real treasure!

Work In Slow Progress 4

A few weeks ago I wrote about my Gorse Fairies and I want to show my progress every month. The girl has some more hair and I embroidered her eye in backstitches, because her face was so empty. There are 3 different brown colors in her hair. I never used an embroidery hoop for this embroidery, so I continue working without it.

Harassment

. . . is the name of block 17 for my Civil War Diary quilt. I used a foundation (Vlieseline L11) to make it in 5 parts. There are 45 pieces in this 6 x 6 inch block.

Knotted cable chain stitch

These last few days I managed to finish the squares for my daughters black blanket, I made 14 rows of 16 squares. I also finished one side of the edging. The picture is not great, but today is a rainy day.Then I needed something colorful! Time to try the knotted cable chain stitch. So I made a cup of coffee and embroidered a few examples. I used orange DMC broder special, 2 threads of blue stranded DMC and a variegated cotton thread.

Sunbonnet friends

I finished my first WISP (work in slow progress) yesterday! I wrote about this lovely little quilt here and here. Saturday I stitched the last backstitches for the text on my label and Sunday I appliquéd it to the back of the quilt. I also made a hanging sleeve. The size of this quilt is 33 x 45 cm (13 x 17½ inch).