Work In Progress Wednesday - October 29

This week I patched block 6 for my Crazy White quilt, the size is 8 x 8 inch. 
Maybe you recognize the shadow work leaf in closed herringbone stitch which 
I made in August. I wrote about it here. The lace on the left side is special to me, 
I bought it at Museum De Kantfabriek. You can see how it’s made in this YouTube video, the lace at 1.20 is the same as the one on my block!

Work In Progress Wednesday is a support group to encourage people to complete languishing projects, Works In Slow Progress or UFO’s.

More info at Pin Tangle.

It's a Rainbow! - black

. . . is a series of colour swaps I’m participating. For this black swap I crocheted a black fig leaf from the book 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Lesley Stanfield. 

I appliquéd it to a piece of fabric and decorated it with beads. It was hard to photograph!

And this is the pretty mandala ATC I received for this swap. It’s made for me by Marion from Australia.

I enjoy these series, there will be 2 more swaps in gold and silver.

Work In Progress Wednesday - October 22

Block 5 for my CrazyWhite quilt is finished!

I added beads to the machine embroidered motif in the centre.

Then it was time to add a spider to my web. I looked for inspiration at Flickr, 

you can see them in my gallery Spiders on CQ. My favourite for this block was LouAnne’s spider dangling below the web. I used perle 8 for his legs.

The same spider in a different angle.

All I needed to finish my block was a bold button to break the seam at the bottom. Just take a closer look at my finished block here.

Work In Progress Wednesday is a support group to encourage people to complete languishing projects, Works In Slow Progress or UFO’s.

More info at Pin Tangle.

Kiko’s flower

TAST stitch 132 is Kiko’s flower. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, 

an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

This was the perfect stitch to add to my pretty fabric sampler. I used perle 5 for Kiko’s flower and 4 threads of stranded floss for the French knots in the centre. Just click the photo to take a closer look.

More selvage ATC’s

This is the new selvage ATC I made for Ruth to replace the first one that didn’t arrive. This time I stitched the selvage in a different pattern and embroidered a big shisha stitch in variegated perle 5.

And this is the gorgeous ATC I received from Ulla. She wrote a little story with the words on the selvages!   (just click the photo to take a closer look)

Thank you, Ulla!

Dragon ATC’s

For this ATC swap we all had to use the same vintage dragon image, dated circa 1790! First I printed him on glossy paper in the correct size. After cutting I attached the dragon and star sequins to an old painted book page with Mod Podge. When it was dry I outlined the dragon in black and added another layer of Mod Podge. Beverly, my swap partner, told me it looked like he's guarding a cave.

And this is the pretty ATC I received from Angie, a lovely collage.

She made my Ordinary day Extraordinary with this extra ATC. 
For me it represents the joy of swapping!

Thank you, Angie!

Work In Progress Wednesday - October 15

Last Wednesday I had no progress to share, but today I want show you what 

I added to block 5 for my Crazy White quilt in the last few days.

I added beads to the combo of herringbone and Cretan stitch.

The buttonholed herringbone stitch needed something extra, luckily I had some pretty beads in my stash, . . .

 . . . which I attached between the bows.

The last seam at the bottom needed this pretty flower ribbon, which I decorated with beads in the centre of the flowers. The charm just landed under the ribbon and it looked alright. I hope it doesn’t fly to the spiderweb!

Work In Progress Wednesday is a support group to encourage people to complete languishing projects, Works In Slow Progress or UFO’s.

More info at Pin Tangle.

Randje 68, 72, 73 & 76

It’s time for another update on my borders for Randje per week. These are the last 2 borders I stitched on page 3: randje 68 (bottom) and randje 72. Now I have to wait for a border that fits between them.

I continued at page 4 with a new colour combo. These are randje 73 and 76, 

I skip the borders I don’t like.

More info about these free patterns at Randje per week.

It’s a Rainbow! - brown

. . . is a series of colour swaps I’m participating. For this brown swap I wanted to do something with the name of the colour in different languages:

English:           brown

Dutch:             bruin

German:         braun

Italian:            marrone

Latin:              brunneis

I stitched them in cross stitch and backstitch in different alphabets on brown evenweave and decorated it with a wooden button.

Patricia made this pretty stumpwork owl for me for this swap, I like it!

I enjoy these series, there will be more swaps in black, gold and silver. Today I finished my ATC for the black swap, but I’m not going to share it here before it arrives at my swap partner’s home.

Old triple chain stitches

TAST stitch 133 is triple chain stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

This stitch was part of TAST 2010 and I’ve used it a few time after that. Of course I start with some details on my TAST 2010 sampler. The first detail is just a normal triple chain stitch in Stef Francis perle 5. It was the first time I used this thread and it’s still one of my favourites.

If you put the side chain stitches in the triple chain stitch in a different angle you can use it for the stem of a flower. The flower at the left side is done in perle 12. The flower is a buttonhole wheel with 3 rounds of trellis stitches. The stem of the flower at the right is done in DMC Jewell effects.

This last detail on my TAST 2010 sampler is 3 rows of variations on the triple chain stitch. The left one in perle 12 has side stitches pointing to each other to make a closed triangle. The middle one in perle 12 has side stitches pointing away from each other to make a zigzag. The right one in perle 5 looks like bamboo, I made the side stitches on one side pointing up and down. With each of these 3 examples I had to alternate with a chain stitch without the side stitches, because there was no space for them.

My next detail is part of the last sampler I made for TAST 2010 with lots of stitches. The last stitch of the triple chain stitch is secured with 3 pistil stitches. The thread is Stef Francis perle 5.

Here I used triple chain stitch on a seam on my ATC Keiko. I used stranded floss and decorated it with French knots.

My last detail is part of my fabric book page Afrika. The thread is perle 5.

There are more old samples of triple chain stitch from other participants in the Flickr TASTgroup.

Work In Progress Wednesday - October 1

Last week I finally decided about the layout of my Crazy White quilt. It will be composed of 29 blocks to make a 36 x 36 inch quilt. A great excuse to go 
shopping for extra fabric at a fabric market!

Today I want to share the stitches I made this week on block 5. The first detail was inspired by the beautiful first crazy quilt made by Pat. I used cotton a broder #25 for my web. Of course I will add a spider when all embroidery on this block is done.

I only had time for one more seam on the velvet below the spider web. I stitched buttonholed herringbone stitch (TAST stitch 55) in perle 5.

Work In Progress Wednesday is a support group to encourage people to complete languishing projects, Works In Slow Progress or UFO’s.

More info at Pin Tangle.