Rickrack hairpin lace

I’ve made some small hairpin lace, the strips were only 1 cm wide. The off-white lace is made of a size 12 thread, the size is 2½ x 17 cm or 1 x 6½ inch. The green lace is made of a new thread I bought recently, DMC Cébélia. I used a size 1 crochet hook for both.

The strip for this hairpin lace was 2 cm wide. The finished rickrack lace is 5 x 35 cm or 2 x 13½ inch. The thread is mercerized knitting cotton. I used a size 2 crochet hook for this one.

Knotted buttonhole stitch

The TAST stitch for week 39 is knotted buttonhole stitch. The top row is done in perle 8. The bottom row is stitched in Stef Francis spun silk with flames.

The next 2 rows are inspired by my blue PLOS sampler. I alternated the knotted buttonhole stitch with the single knotted buttonhole stitch. The thread is Stef Francis perle 5.

A beaded knotted buttonhole stitch. The thread is cotton a broder.

Here I continued playing with 2 colors. On my TAST 2010 sampler I changed colors after the first buttonhole stitch. Now I changed colors after 2 buttonhole stitches, it looks much better! The threads are perle 5.

This sample is a variation on the buttonhole border I made in week 2. It’s just 2 rows of knotted buttonhole stitches with cross stitches to connect them. The thread is perle 8, but I think a perle 5 would have been better.

The last part of my sampler is inspired by Maureen, who wrote that the knotted buttonhole looked like the up and down buttonhole stitch. I stitched all 3 rows with DMC perle 5 color variations. The bottom row is knotted buttonhole stitch, the middle row up and down buttonhole stitch. The top row is a combo of both stitches, so I think it’s a knotted up and down buttonhole stitch. I like this variation!

My complete sampler is here.

Treeskirt

This is my 1000^th post! I started blogging on November 28, 2007, because I wanted to write about my quilts. Looking at my labels today, there are only 76 posts about my quilts and 502 about embroidery, time changes things! To celebrate this milestone I return to the roots of my blog and share the pattern of my treeskirt.

It’s a paper piecing pattern, but I stitched it by hand on foundation (vlieseline L11). I searched online to find some good tutorials. Here’s a video tutorial, and this is a written tutorial. I pieced my pattern 8 times, 4 normal ones and 4 mirrored ones. Then I pieced them together to form a circle, but left the last side open. There I added ribbons to close my treeskirt. I finished it as a normal quilt. You can find my pattern here, where you can print it at the size you need.

The Griffin

My 5^th book page for the swap at Fibre Fever arrived. This griffin is made by Juliette, she told me she enjoyed the hand painting with thread.

 I’m very happy with this page.

Work In Progress Wednesday - September 26

This week I started to quilt the background in a basket weave pattern. I alternated the horizontal and vertical weaves, it’s fun to see the pattern appear at the backside.

And this is the template I used to draw the pattern on my quilt.

More info about Work In Progress Wednesday at Pin Tangle.

Old knotted buttonhole stitches

The TAST stitch for week 39 is knotted buttonhole stitch. This stitch looks like 
2 buttonhole stitches tied with a chain stitch. My first sample is a progress detail with 2 colours for the different parts of the stitch on my TAST 2010 sampler. Take a look at my Flickr-page to see it bigger.

This is a seam on my crazy Pink ornament. The knotted buttonhole is stitched with Sulky cotton 30, the French knots with stranded floss.

My last sample is part of my spiked knotted cable chain for TAST 2010. It’s stitched with perle 8. I replaced the normal buttonhole part in this stitch for a knotted buttonhole stitch.

I’m glad the knotted buttonhole is part of TAST 2012, I had to look at my samples to remember it!

Heart for Anne

This is the book page I made for Anne, because she recently lost her husband. 

It has the same layout as the one I made for Ati with a different part of the background fabric. 

Drizzle stitch

The TAST stitch for week 38 is drizzle stitch. I added them to my grey linen sampler. The threads are Stef Francis perle 5, Caron Watercolors and cotton a broder.

This pink-orange drizzle stitch with Caron Watercolors is a variation. The cast on loops of the drizzle stitch reminded me of the first half of the double knot, a needle tatting stitch. So I made 2 different cast on loops, a normal one and a mirrored one and repeated that. This variation doesn’t twist, I like it! I tried to take some photo’s of the process, but it didn’t work this time. In the first 50 seconds of this video you can see the double knot in tatting, the move of the thread is the same as in my drizzle variation.

This is a detail of block 4 for Karen’s class Embroider, Embellish, Create. It’s part of a doily I bought at a flea market, the grey satin stitches were already on it. I added the drizzle stitches with ecru cotton a broder.

Heart for Ati

This is the heart book page I made for Ati, because she recently lost her husband.

Zeemeermin

Yesterday Janny’s fabic book page for the swap at Fibre Fever arrived.

I like the texture of the mermaid.

I’m very happy with this page, thank you Janny!

Work In Progress Wednesday - September 19

Yesterday I bought a new quilting template for the background of my quilt. The pattern is called basket weave. I already drew it on my quilt with water soluble pen, it took me 1½ hours!

More info about Work In Progress Wednesday at PinTangle.

Old drizzle stitches

The TAST stitch for week 38 is drizzle stitch, one of my favourite stitches. This is the sample I made for TAST 2007. It’s stitched with orange cotton a broder, red stranded floss and yellow perle 5. The beaded drizzles were inspired by Elizabeth’s experiments. You can read how I added the beads here.

This is part of my woven trellis stitch sampler for TAST 2010. I added 3 drizzle stitches inside the flower. It’s stitched with Stef Francis perle 5.

This is part of my raised cup stitch sampler for TAST 2010. Here I added drizzle stitches inside the raised cup stitches. The thread is perle 5.

A beaded drizzle stitch on my embroidery Touch. The thread is ecru cotton a broder.

My last sample is part of my crazy ornament Flip Flop. The beaded drizzle stitches are done with stranded floss.

Pistil stitch

The TAST stitch for week 37 is pistil stitch. I already used a lot of different threads on my TAST 2007 sampler. This time I used wool. I added pistil stitches and French knots to my black linen sampler. There’s a bigger photo’s of this part on my Flickr-page.

I had more idea’s then stitching time, so I doodled them in my journal.

Sarah

A dear friend turned 50 so I crocheted a small Sarah for her. It’s a pattern from the book ‘Gelukspoppetjes haken’ by Annemarie Arts. My husband made her glasses from a paperclip.

Work In Progress Wednesday - September 12

I finally made progress again: I quilted 3 small hearts inside the vase. The fabric has lots of different colours and my water soluble pen was not visible on it. So I had to improvise. I cut the hearts from sticky plastic and put them at the right spot as an temporary appliqué.

Then I just quilted around it. I’ve used this trick before and the sticky plastic could be used a few times at different places.

Here I removed the sticky plastic.

And a photo of the backside of my quilt.

The hearts were not visible at the small photo of the front, so I uploaded a bigger photo to my Flickr-page.

More info about Work In Progress Wednesday at Pin Tangle.

Old pistil stitches

The TAST stitch for week 37 is pistil stitch. This is one of the stitches I frequently use, so it was not easy to decide which samples I wanted to share. This is part of the sampler I made for TAST 2007. Pistil stitches with cotton a broder and sequins. My complete 2007 pistil stitch sampler is here.

This sample is part of my ATC Mushroom. French knots and pistil stitches with stranded DMC color variations, a mix of 2 and 3 threads.

Raised cup stitches with perle 5 and pistil stitches with 2 threads of stranded DMC color variations. This detail is part of my crazy block ECQ1.

A detail on my crazy ornament Chasing butterflies, pistil stitches and French knots with perle 5.

This flower bud is part of the floral sampler I made for PLOS. The pistil stitches are done with Stef Francis perle 5.

My last sample is a floral stitchery I made for Tricia in June 2011. When I saw Sharon’s pattern, I knew I wanted to use it for a stitchery swap. I used backstitches for the stems, leaves and flower hearts. For the petals I used pistil stitches with DMC color variations. It’s all stitched with 2 threads of stranded floss.

Celtic Paradox

During my vacation last week I made another freestyle Celtic knot string. I tangled Paradox inside. I didn’t had coloured pencils at hand, but I found a forgotten golden pencil in my etui, perfect to colour my string.

Snowflake

This is the 6 x 6 inch fabric book page I made for Maureen. The outline of the snowflake is a Portuguese stem stitch in perle 5. The pulled thread inside the snowflake is double wave stitch in cotton a broder. I stitched Algerian eyes with 2 threads of stranded floss around it and attached beads to add sparkles. The edge is a looped edge stitch in cotton a border. It was 32° C when I finished this page!

There are bigger photo’s of this snowflake on my Flickr-page here and here.