What's on my needles?

I started a new knitting project, the Hitchhiker shawl. For now I can knit with normal knitting needles, but when it gets bigger I need to switch to a circular needle. It's fun to watch it grow and it's very easy to knit.

Live Laugh Love

This beautiful ATC was in my mailbox yesterday. It's made by Jeannette for the April swap at Stitchin Fingers. She made a gorgeous bullion rose.

Plos fabric book

My fabric book of the samplers for Sharon's class Personal Library of Stitches is finished. This is the front of the cover. I made layers of linen, Mistyfuse, the orts of Nefertiti, Mistyfuse and organza. That way Nefertiti is part of my fabric book too, as I also stitched her at the back of the cover. At the edge of the organza I made 2 rows of opposite buttonhole stitches. The curvy lines are stitched in Portuguese stem stitches. All stitches are done with perle 5. Page one, my border sampler. I temporary added a piece of felt to the inside of the cover to hide a personal stitched message.

Page two, with a quote to remind me of this article.

Page three, I called this sampler Birth.

Page four, a sampler in Chevron stitches with 17 different threads.

Page five, a sampler stitched on felt.

Page six, stitched on dark blue linen fabric.

Page seven, another border sampler.

The last page, I appliqued it to the back of the cover.

I stitched Nefertiti to the back of the cover in a Portuguese stem stitch.

The spine of my fabric book.

It was very difficult to take good photo's, so I made a video while I was flipping throught the pages. If you want to know more about my samplers, just follow this link.

Dragonfly

This is my ATC for the February swap at Stitchin Fingers. The wings of the dragonfly are woven trellis stitch with 2 threads of DMC satin and 1 thread of DMC Jewell effects. His body is a padded satin stitch with 1 thread of DMC antique effects. I used spun silk and rayon for the feather stitches, the French knots are just 2 threads of stranded DMC. At the edge I couched a knitting yarn. There's a bigger photo of this ATC at my Flickr-page.

Happy Easter

Tree of Hope

I made this ATC for the April swap at Stitchin Fingers. For the crazy background I used quilting fabric, tulle and linen. The tree is made of perle 5, 8 and 12 in different shades of purple. The leaves are detached chain stitches in a pink perle 8. I used the tree I made on my ECQ2 as an inspiration, I didn't look at the tutorial at Shawkl this time. At the edge I couched a boucle knitting yarn. There's a bigger photo of this ATC at my Flickr-page.

Leaves in my studio journal

This is one of my new gesso pages. I made a print in the gesso with this leave. It was part of a Christmas decoration.

This is the same leave with the gesso on it. I liked the effect of this, so I added some more gesso to cover the red at the top side.

When it was dry I painted it with the same watercolour paint as I used in my studio journal.

Then I took lots of detail photo's and played with them on my computer.

With a detail of the last photo I played a little more.

I printed them out to play again in my studio journal. These could be very nice patterns!

EGGZZZZellent

. . . is the zentangle challenge for this week. I tried 2 new patterns: Santo and Floatfest. The others are Keeko, Lacy, W2, Gingham and 'Nzeppel.

Square eyelets & French knots

I added a few more stitches to my raised stem stitch band this weekend. It was time to try a few new stitches from Sharon's stitch files. I started with 2 square eyelets with perle 12 in 2 different shades of blue. Then I added French knots with 2 threads of DMC color variations and Stef Francis spun silk with flames. There's a bigger photo with lots of detail here.

Pulled thread

Today I added some pulled thread stitches to my raised stem stitch band. First I made waffle stitches. Then I made an eyelet inside the loop of the raised stem stitch band. I used a perle 12 for both.

This is how my casalguidi looks today.

Plos fabric book cover finished

This week I stitched the last 6 inches of French knots to finish the outside of my cover. Then I stitched some personal notes at the inside. Today I sewed both pieces together. Of course I wanted to see if everything fits, but for now I only show you the backside of the cover . . .

. . . and the pages inside. I only have to cut them to the right size to finish my fabric book.

Work In Slow Progress 14

When I was organising the photo's on my computer, I found a photo of the layout of my quilt Safari. I started it in August 2008! In Januari I sandwiched it and now I'm halfway quilting it. As you can see I just quilt an X in every square, except for the one's with a zebra. I'm not sure what to quilt in the border yet.

Zentangled V

Before I knew that Mooka would be the zentangle challenge last week, I used it on my zentangled V. For the letter I used a Chevron variation. Yesterday Janine told me it had arrived . . . . . . and this lovely zentangled V arrived in my mailbox.

Debra also made a zentangle tile for me. It has a great 3D effect.

Casalguidi again

I try to visit Stitchin Fingers every day to see what people have been doing. Yesterday this lovely casalguidi reminded me of my first raised stem stitch band. I made that one 2 years ago for the Stitch Explorer challenge. Lyckily I knew where it was hiding, because I used the same doodle cloth for my Contrast ATC. The fabric around my raised stem stitch band was just enough for a small ornament. I still had some of the thread I had used for it and made a Portuguese stem stitch border. To be continued!

Altered Hedebo

Last Friday I watched this video about waterclolour paint on zentangles. I wanted to try that, but didn't want to wait until the pen was completely dry. So I used an old tile, my first Hedebo tangle. I was playing with watercolour paint in my studio journal and used the same colours for this tile. After painting I used a damp sponge to remove some yellow paint and stamping it into the open spaces. I like it!

Work In Slow Progress 13

I continued working on my Gorse Fairies every Wednesday. I missed 6 stitching hours during Sharon's studio journal class, so there's not much progres since the last time. I'm stitching the last strip of 45 stitches wide at the left side.

Blue flower

I've been experimenting with gesso in my studio journal, I just started a new journal for this. I have so many idea's and want to try them all. This time I mixed gesso with dark blue watercolour paint. There was some gesso left when I finished my page, so I put it on an inchie. When it was dry I added the brown watercolour paint to turn it into a flower. I just put a big drop of paint in the centre and made marks with a wooden cocktail stitck. I like the result! This is part of the blue gesso in my studio journal. It was still wet when I took a photo. My oldest daughter gave me a marble and told me to make marks with it in the gesso. We keep inspiring each other the last few weeks, but she turns her idea's into digital art.

This is the marble when it was dry. My daughter wanted it back, so I took a few photo's of the details. There are some lovely patterns on it and I'm sure I can use those in my journal again.

When the gesso in my journal was dry, I added some brown watercolour paint. I like the effect of this.

Plos fabric book cover 3

A few days ago I finished Nefertiti on the back of my cover. This time I only stitched the outlines in a whipped backstitch. Today I finally knew how to finish the border at the right side to solve the problem I wrote about last week. I added 2 rows of two opposite rows of buttonhole stitches with French knots between them. This is the bottom right corner.

I'm almost finished, only 6 inches to fill up with French knots!

Mooka-licious

I just had to make another Mooka for zentangle challenge #16. It's the same size as the first one. I hope I can resist the temptation now, I have an embroidery to finish!

Mooka

. . . is the zentangle challenge at I am the diva this week. After watching the YouTube video it was easy to start. I made my zentangle in my A5 sketchbook. It was so much fun to see what happened on the paper, my pen just knew which way it had to go!

Batik curves

Curvy lines kept returning in my studio journal. I already wrote about the ATC and the zentangle I made with this idea last week. But I wanted to see this in fabric too. I appliqued the batik on a piece of black fabric. The size is 23 x 30 cm (9 x 12 inch). I have some different idea's how to finish this, so it's hanging on my design board for now.

Red

This link on Pintangle triggered an old cherished memory. When my daughters were little, they were learning the colours and how to handle scissors. I covered 2 shoeboxes with paper in red and blue, their favourite colours at the time. Then I gave them some magazines and let them cut the red and blue parts from photo's. I collaged them on the boxes for them. Now I made a red page in my journal in this technique too. This was fun!