Merry Christmas

I wish you all

and a creative and healthy 2015.

Randje per week - more borders

It’s been a long time since I wrote about Randje per week. Lots of progress on 3 different pages. This is randje 83 in red and yellow.

It was the last border I stitched on page 3.

Randje 81, 82, 84, 45 and 88 in terra cotta and blue.

They were the last borders on page 4.

Randje 38, 86, 87 and 89 in brown are the first borders on page 5.

I stitch my borders in the order they appear on the blog Randje per week, but added a few borders I skipped in previous weeks. I didn’t want 2 bold borders next to each other, so I stitched randje 85 at the bottom of page 5.

This is my last update for Randje per week for this year. Next year there will be a new Randje per week SAL, so I just keep stitching pages with pretty borders.

More info about this SAL at Randje per week.

Christmas ornaments

I participated in 3 different Christmas ornament swap in the last months. The first swap was for a cross stitched Santa ornament. The pattern for my skating Santa came from an old pattern sheet without info. I think it’s from the seventies.

 I used DMC Jewell effects for his skates.

Luckily there was a matching fabric in my stash for the backside.

Barbara made this cute sleeping Santa for me in a 3 inch hoop.

In the second swap it didn’t matter what kind of material you used. I crocheted a star, designed by Brenda Smits. The pattern came from the book  Kerstballen haken.

Aletta made these pretty ornaments for me in papier mâché.

The last swap was fabric related. I sewed a 5 inch stocking on my sewing machine for Marja.

And Marja made these cute boots for me. Love the snow on them!

Thanks Barbara, Aletta and Marja!

TAST 135-136-137

TAST stitch 135 is beaded fern stitch. I used cotton a broder and 2 mm beads for this seam on my CQ fan.

TAST stitch 136 and 137 are knotted buttonhole band and beaded knotted buttonhole band. I stitched my sampler on 14 count Aida. From top to bottom the threads are perle 5, 8 and 12. In the bottom row I also put beads on the foundation row.

TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, and embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

Christmas cards

This year I participated in the Christmas card swap at Fibre Fever again. 

Helinä made this pretty card for me with crocheted snowflakes.

And this is the card I made for Margreet. I used the scraps from the quilt I made last year.

TAST stitch 134 is fern stitch, which is perfect to represent the branches of a Christmas tree. I used perle 5 and decorated them with beads.

Chevron stitch in perle 5.

Feathered chain stitch in 2 threads of stranded silk.

Star stitch in 1 thread of DMC satin.

I secured the ribbon with red beads . . .

. . . and finished my card by addding a charm.

Just take a closer look at my card here.

Gigi giraffe

Many weeks ago I promised to share the finished crochet of my youngest daughter. She crocheted this cute giraffe for her best friend’s baby girl. 

My daughter is left-handed and she wanted me to teach her how to crochet. 

She learned crocheting right-handed, I'm a very proud mum!

We both crocheted the same pattern. My giraffe is for another babygirl, born last week. It’s the new granddaughter of my sister in law.

Here you see our giraffes side by side. We didn’t use the same yarn, so mine is slightly taller.

We had to adapt the tails to make it safe for a baby, our solutions were different.

I found the pattern for Gigi giraffe on Ravelry.

Work In Progress Wednesday - November 26

This week I started stitching the background of my Phoenix. First I tried a few pulled thread stitches on my doodle cloth. I decided to use coil stitch again, it’s the stitch in the bottom left corner.

Here I stitched coil stitch at the top of the left wing, the thread is a variegated cotton a broder #25.

And I stitched coil stitch in perle 12 at the right side of the head.

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.

Work In Progress Wednesday - November 19

There wasn’t much time for stitching this week, I’m working on a knitting project for a little girl that will be born soon. So there’s not much progress on my Phoenix this week. I finished the outline in Portuguese stem stitch and marked the border of my work in yellow tacking thread. I don’t stitch a border, because my daughter want her phoenix framed.

The next step will be pulled thread. I already gathered my books . . .

 . . . and some of my old embroideries for inspiration. I took a photo of them together, because I’m sure many of you never saw my older work. The oldest piece on this photo is my dragon, I made it for the Stitch Explorer Assisi challenge at Pin Tangle in March 2009. I only used stranded floss for this ornament, you can read more about it here. The first time I tried pulled thread is in my Casalguidi tree, which I made in May 2009 for another Stitch Explorer challenge. You can read more about this tree here. Nefertiti was the last embroidery I made in Sharon’s PLOS class. You can read more about my Nefertiti here. I made the last 2 embroideries for Sharon’s Sumptuous Surface class in 2011. I wrote about my sumptuous pieces here and 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.

Work In Progress Wednesday - November 12

This week I started my new WIPW project, a sumptuous surface embroidery 
for my youngest daughter. The phoenix is designed by my oldest daughter. 
I transferred the pattern to my 28 count linen on a window, . . .

. . . framed it in my new SuperFrame (17 x 17 inch or 43 x 43 cm). . .

. . . and started the outline of the phoenix. I stitched Portuguese stem stitch in 2 threads of stranded coral red floss.

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 77-80

Slow progress on my borders. This morning I finally finished randje 80, a very time consuming border.

More info about this SAL at Randje per week. Today they published randje 91 & 92.

Work In Progress Wednesday - November 5

Today I want to introduce a new project, my Crazy White quilt will be on hold until it’s finished. A few months ago my youngest daughter moved into a new home. I already made a quilt for my oldest daughter, so I thought this would be perfect timing for a quilt for her. We talked about fabric and layout, but when she visited us she saw my Assisi dragon and fell in love with it again. She wanted something like that! We talked a lot about the design and she decided it should be a phoenix in yellow, orange, red and blue. With that in mind I created this collage in my studio journal.

We spent a few lovely hours to make a colour palette in thread and beads. She was very specific about the colours she didn’t want me to use!

My oldest daughter designed the phoenix, which I’m not going to share yet. 

I bought a nice linen evenweave and my fingers itch to get started!

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.

Triple chain stitch

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

Sharon’s triple chain stitches on her band sampler inspired the seam on my CQ fan. I used Stef Francis perle 5 and bugle beads.

To get the spacing right, I added a bugle bead after stitching each pair of side arms of the stitch.

Take a closer look at my triple chain stitch here.

Halloween

I’ve been planning a Halloween post and then there was no time to blog! So here it is, just a day too late. I made this ATC for a Halloween swap, I used this pattern to crochet BOO.

This is the pretty ATC I received for the same swap. It’s made by Kathie.

And I made a Halloween collage in my new altered book Rooie, just finished it this morning.

There will be a post in the next few weeks to tell you what happened to my first unfinished altered book Een stem van papier.

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.