Scary

Yesterday I saw Janet's first Halloween design and hoped I could resist it. Today I found a matching Halloween fabric and made the first stitches.

Zentangled G

This was one of the missing letters in my zentangled ATC alphabet. I made a G for Deeno . . . . . . and Debra made this G for me. I like the devils tail!

Groninger blanket finished!

It took me almost 3 years, but I finally finished my Groninger blanket. The border is 6 rounds of single crochet. My blanket has 8 rows of 5 knitted blocks in different patterns, which are crocheted together. The size is 120 x 200 cm (about 47 x 79 inch). All posts about this blanket are labelled knitalong. Just click on the photo to see it bigger.

Inchie Sunday 11

Last week I made a few new inchies. I have some doodle cloths to try new stitches, but sometimes I use them to make ATC's too. Some of the remains were just big enough for inchies. This first inchie is made of a sample I made for the Stitch Explorer challenge laidwork foundation, I wrote about it here.

Couched ATC edge

From time to time people ask me how I finish the edges of my ATC's. When I was working on my Homemade cupcakes, I took some photo's of the steps for this tutorial. I finish my edges by hand and mostly use a simple whipping stitch to attach some knitting yarn. For the back of my ATC's I use a piece of cardstock. I make holes with a perforating Pergamano pen at 1/8 inch from the edge, 1/8 inch apart. The first time I did this I made a template and I'm still using it. Put a pin in each corner to keep the template from shifting while you're making the holes.

I use double sided sticky tape at the wrong side of the cardstock. It will keep the fabric in place when you work on the edge. Here I used a wide tape, but 2 strips of smaller tape works fine. Make sure there's about half an inch left between the tape and the edge of the ATC.

Mark the size of the ATC with a pencil on the backside of the embroidery. On this ATC I used a piece of batting. I attached it with the beads, after finishing the embroidery.

Attach front and back together with the help of the drawn lines and cut the extra fabric. Here I made my ATC sandwich and cut the bottom and the right side.

Then it's time to decide which knitting yarn to use. You need about 15 inch.

Work your edge counter-clockwise. Fold the knitting yarn in half and start with the loop 6 holes from the corner. Start with a knot in your sewing thread between the front and the back of your ATC and make 2 whipped stitches in every hole, starting in the 4th hole from the corner.

Make 3 stitches in the corners, 2 on one side and 1 on the next side. Hold the yarn in place with your thumb.

Continue until you've stitched the first 4 holes at the last side.

Cut one of the threads halfway between the remaining space . . .

. . . and put the other thread through the beginning loop from the back to the front.

Pull the thread through and bring it to the right. Hold it tight with your tumb. Make sure the thread you've cut halfway is inside the big loop you just made.

Make the remaining stitches and cut the last piece of knitting yarn.

To secure your thread nearly invisible, put your needle under a whipping stitch and wrap the thread around the needle a few times. Pull the thread through while you hold the wrapping in place with your thumb.

Put the needle next to the securing stitch between the back and the front of the ATC and come up about an inch from the edge.

Pull the thread tight and cut it very close to the fabric, the remaining thread will disapear between the front and the back of your ATC.

This technique is also useful for other edges. I used it on my doorknob hanger and one of my embroidered ornaments.

Pinwheel

This week's zentangle challenge at I am the diva is called String Theory v. VI: Pinwheels for Peace. I printed Laura's pinwheel string slightly bigger and drew it in an angle in my sketchbook. Of course I had to use Pinwheels (from Suzanne McNeill's Zentangle 3) for the background.

Work In Slow Progress 17

This week I stitched 2 hours on my Gorse Fairies instead of one. I made a lot of progress, the flowers are finished! Next time I'm going to add the backstitches. Then I only have to finish the second wing of the girl in the upper left corner.

Zentangled E

This was one of the missing letters in my zentangled ATC alphabet. I made an E for Brian . . . . . . and Heather Jo made this pretty E for me.

White chicken scratch

It is so much fun to see the fabric change when I'm adding the lacing in the chicken scratch. The top part only has cross stitches and running stitches. This is my finished square. It's the opposite of my black chicken scratch square and only slightly smaller, because I stitched the cross stitches on the white parts this time.

And a little detail. The thread is white DMC 80.

Inchie Sunday 10

On this inchie I made rice stitches and French knots with stranded floss. At the edge I couched a dark green knitting yarn.

Chicken scratch sampler

Last Sunday I started a new embroidery. I already wrote about the first chicken scratch square here. It's a great excuse to stitch a few samplers and experiment! On this sampler I only changed the color of the threads for the 3 parts of chicken scratch and stitched every possible combination in black and white. The size is about 4 x 4.5 inch or 10 x 12 cm. I used DMC 80 in black and white.

There's a bigger photo of my sampler here.

Sagittarius

This week I swapped my last Bubble and squeak ATC with Yomeow. She has so many great ATC's for trade, but I fell for this lovely Sagittarius (it's my zodiac sign).

Love is all you Need

. . . is zentangle challenge #39 at I am the diva. I wanted to do something different for this special challenge and remembered I had some hearts left from my crayon experiments. Just glued them on the page and tangled around them. Of course I had to use Huggins!

Work In Slow Progress 16

It's been 4 months since I stitched on this embroidery. I promised myself to finish it before my birthday, so that gives me less than 3 months! To speed up the progress I'm returning to my weekly hour stitching on it. I don't think that's enough, I have to cram in a few extra hours every now and then.

Basket of Bloom 2

Almost 2 months ago I wrote about this quilt when I was halfway. In the meantime I sewed all 1.5 inch squares together by hand. I also added the green border at the bottom and now I only have to sew the other 3 borders. I hope to find a matching fabric for the second border in my stash.

Black chicken scratch

Yesterday I started a new embroidery. I want to build on the things I learned in Sharon's sumptuous surface class and see if I could mix it with the things I already tried. The first thing I stitched was a square in chicken scratch (2 x 2 inch or 5 x 5 cm). I used DMC antique effects for the cross stitches and DMC 80 for the running stitches and the lacing.

Black is difficult to photograph on a rainy day, it looks better in reality.

Inchie Sunday 9

Relief

I finished my second design for Sharon's class sumptuous surface embroidery. The size is 4 x 6 inch. There's a bigger photo of this embroidery at my Flickr-page.

Rust dyeing again

I was so pleased with the result of my second rust dyeing experiment that I wanted to use the tin box again. This time I used a blue fabric that I could use for an embroidery. I used the same fabric for a little fish, so I know it works nicely. I gave it the same treatment as I described here and this is the result. A detail of a part that I wrapped around a screw.

This detail looks like a little bird.

Of course I kept the tin box, maybe I can use it again.

Homemade cupcakes

I made this ATC for the July swap at Stitchin Fingers, but it's gone astray. So I'm going to stitch a second one for my swap partner. The cupcakes are inspired by the one I made on this crazy block. The bottoms are whipped spokes, the toppings spiral trellis stitch and French knots. There's a bigger photo of this ATC at my Flickr-page.

Paradox

. . . is this week's zentangle challenge at I am the diva. It's a great challenge to jump in again after six weeks embroidery class. I just kept going until there was no more space left on the page in my sketchbook. Somehow I was still under the influence of my embroidery, I gave my paradox a border!

Beads

I'm still working on my second design for Sharon's Sumptuous Surface class. Yesterday I added some beads to it. This green bead is attached with buttonholed straight stitches. Another green bead, tucked between some French knots.

A shiny bugle bead to add some sparkles.

And a bead surrounded by cast on stitches.

I hope to finish my embroidery this week. Then I'll share the complete design.