Nine-patch mugrug

Today there was another birthday girl in my quilting group and I made this mugrug for her. I bought a cute birthday mug and used matching fabrics for the mugrug.

Cretan stitch

My second experiment with Cretan stitch. I used 4 different threads and added beads and French knots.

There’s a bigger photo at my Flickr-page.

Green collage

Another collage in my studio journal. I only used the green parts from photo’s. 
I just select a part and glue it at the first spot it fits. No thinking, just enjoying!

This collage is part of a series. So far I made one in red, purple and blue.

Zentangled mosaic inchies

This is a zentangle tile for one of my last swaps from last year. I cut inchies  and ATC backgrounds from different sheets of resist experiments (I wrote about them here and here). Then I glued 9 inchies on a 3.5 inch tile and added the tangles.

Joan made this pretty tile for me.

Cretan border

The next TAST stitch is Cretan stitch. I started with a Cretan border with some variations. The threads are DMC broder special and Rainbow Gallery Treasure Braid.

I made a selection of older experiments with Cretan stitch. This first one is part of my border sampler. I used the Cretan stitch to couch the organza ribbon.

This is a detail of an ATC. Stacked Cretan stitches and French knots with 
2 threads of stranded floss.

Another detail of an ATC. Here I stitched the Cretan stitch on top of the rickrack and decorated it with beads.

This is a detail of my ornament Flip Flop. I stitched the Cretan stitch with 2 threads of stranded floss and added some beads.

When I was looking at my photo’s, I discovered I don’t use the Cretan stitch very often. Time to change that and experiment a little more. To be continued.

Lace in my garden

Mother nature made her own lace.

This is a photo of the same Hydrangea last summer.

Log cabin mugrug

I made a second mugrug on my sewing machine for another birthday girl in my quilting group. She’s working on a project with black and white fabric and I know she has a log cabin UFO. Just teasing her!

Feather stitch again

Today I made the last feather stitches on my Aida. I choose this fabric to focus on my experiments with rows of feather stitches. I didn’t want to spend too much time selecting my embroidery threads, so I used a colour palette in my studio journal. My first experiment is stitched in purple perle 12 and yellow perle 8. I decorated the stacked rows with buggle beads.

From top to bottom: Stef Francis spun silk with flames, 2 threads of stranded DMC and perle 8. In the last row I alternated small and wide stitches.

An experiment with 2 threads of stranded DMC. The arms of the yellow feather stitches are different; the left side is half the size of the right size. Then I added the buttonhole stitches.

This is the same row after adding the buttonhole stitches at the other side.

A few days ago I showed the floral spray in my altered book. Yarngoddess asked me what I’m going to do with the back of the page. This is how it looks now. I secured the threads with tape, so there are no knots.

 I’m not sure I want to hide this when I glue the pages together, maybe I do something special with it so I can still see parts of it.

Old feather stitches

I’m still working on my feather stitch sampler and hope to finish it tomorrow. In the meantime I have a few older samples to share. The first one is a detail of my ornament Reply to Good Morning. I used perle 8 for the feather stitch and the twisted rope.

The second one is part of my border sampler. Two rows of straight single upright feather stitches in perle 5. The slipped detached chain stitches are stitched in perle 8.

A feather stitch with 2 threads of stranded DMC and French knots on this Crazy Monday block.

I made this feather stitch in perle 5 on my first block for Sharon’s Encrusted class. It's decorated  with cast on stitches in perle 12.

Mugrug

  

I made a mugrug on my sewing machine for a birthday girl in my quilting group. She likes Japanese fabrics and sashiko. I bought a 'sashiko' mug and used some Japanese fabrics from my stash.

Floral spray with feather stitch

It was still Monday in my part of the world when Sharon posted the third stitch for TAST 2012, the feather stitch. This morning I knew I wanted to make a floral spray in my altered book. I flipped through the pages to see which one had a matching background. This blue and green page got the same treatment as the last sample I showed in yesterdays post. Without the gesso it was easy to stitch on it with an old embroidery needle. I used stranded floss and a shiny thread that feels like plastic. The flower in the center is origami made of teabags, I made it many years ago.I used fly stitches, buttonhole stitches and straight stitches for the flowers.

There's a better photo of this embroidery at my Flickr-page.

Acrylic paint

I'm still working on the backgrounds of the pages in my altered book Een stem van papier. Some time ago Sharon mentioned Caatjes easy peasy journal tutorials. I wanted to try acrylic paint for some time and this tutorial was just the push I needed to get me starting! I started with the second technique, the open and close technique halfway in the first tutorial. I used blue on the left page and red on the right. I just followed the easy instructions and this was the pretty result. Then it was time to try the first technique too, painting with an old card. I used an old phone card. After a few pages I wanted to try something different and used blue and yellow on the same page and spread them with my card. Part of the paint mixed in green, I like the effect of this. The right page is watercolour paint were I didn't use gesso to prepare the page.

My last experiment was on a page that wasn't prepared with gesso. I just added green and red acrylic paint . . .

. . . and spread them with my card. It mixed in brown, just what I needed to match the right page. I wrote about that page here.

It's almost time to decorate my pages, only a few more pages need a background.

Buttonhole stitch

Today I made some time to work on the buttonhole stitch. I used a blue fabric I rust dyed last year and 3 different embroidery threads: blue stranded floss, brown broder special and light blue Caron Wildflowers.

It was fun to watch the fabric change while I was stitching. The marks inside the brown buttonhole stitches are from a screw.

This is one of the 12 samplers I prepared for TAST 2012, they are 15 x 15 cm or 6 x 6 inch. I'm just stitching on the sampler that matches the stitch for me. For the buttonhole stitch I worked on 2 different samplers. I wrote about my buttonhole border here.

Undine

Zentangle challenge 53 at I am the diva is to use Undine, Laura's new tangle pattern. My string is part of a series of designs for my embroidery Relief. I used Undine, Shatttuck and Wigwam for this tangled version. Yesterday I made an embroidery inspired by Undine. I wrote about it here.

Buttonhole border

Today I couldn't decide if I should do some embroidery for TAST 2012 or draw a zentangle for the challenge at I am the diva. I ended up stitching a border inspired by Undine, Laura's new tangle pattern. My border is made of 2 mirrored rows of buttonhole stitches with cross stitches between them. I like the little bowties! I made a selection of older experiments with buttonhole stitch. The first one is a CQ seam on block 10 of my Crazy Monday quilt. It's made of 2 mirrored rows of buttonhole stitches, needlewoven with a golden thread.

Another CQ seam, this one is on block 13 of my Crazy Monday quilt. I couched some organza ribbon with a buttonhole stitch and decorated it with French knots.

This is a detail of my stitchery Hoera Quiltweer, designed by Anke. Here the buttonhole stitch is used to edge the clouds.

My last example is an ATC I made for a black and white swap. I used the buttonhole stitch to alter the fabric.

I wrote about my buttonhole sampler for TAST 2007 here. My buttonhole stitch file sampler is here.

Blue room

It's been a while since I showed one of my studio journal pages. This page was the result of cutting blue things from magazines. Then I randomly glued them to the page. I didn't see what it was going to be until it was finished. These exercises are so much fun!

Fly stitch again

This morning I drew some fly stitch experiments on paper. One of them was a filling pattern with a pistil stitch for the second part of the fly stitch. I stitched it on a black linen with white perle 8 and 12. I like the rhythm of this pattern.

My first post about the fly stitch is here.

Zentangled ATC alphabet

My zentangled ATC alphabet is complete! I enjoyed this series very much. If you want to see the ATC's I made, just follow this link.

Orts 2011

At the end of 2011 my orts jar was only filled half. I started it with the orts of the picot chain, the last orts were from my herringbone sampler.

I'm using the same jar again and stored the orts in a plastic bag, just like the orts from 2010.

I already used some of my 2010 orts in the cover of my first fabric book. My 2009 orts are in an Easter egg.

Fly stitch

Fly stitch is the first stitch for TAST 2012. I still have to prepare the fabric for my samplers, so I started with a small sampler for my stitch files. I made the same row of stitches with different threads. From top to bottom: perle 12, perle 8, Caron Watercolours, perle 5 and 3 threads of stranded floss. I've used this stitch many times and I share a few of them. The first one is a row of fly stitches on block 2 of my Crazy Monday quilt.

This is a row of flipped fly stitches with bullion knots on block 5 of my Crazy Monday quilt.

Stacked fly stitches in different sizes and threads on my ATC Contrast.

I wrote about my TAST 2007 fly stitch sampler here. To be continued!