Friday, February 15, 2013

Sashiko Challange

I took the challenge from my group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stitchmap/  to make a needle book with Sashiko stitching on it.  

This was a fun exercise just to get the juices flowing. I first drew a series of lines in white charcoal pencil on the dark blue fabric,this was supposed to be indigo dyed cotton but the dark blue homespun was all I had. I then stitched the lines in a running stitch in a heavy white thread trying to remember the rules for Sashiko and also trying to keep my stitches even. 
I then made a little flower in the Japanese Kanzashi style with my new Flower Maker from Clover and a pretty button and some beads.
 This is the back of the needlbookI think it turned out ok.

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Diamonds are finished

I signed up last year to swap 3 diamond blocks. At last they are finished and mailed out only 3 days late. That is a record for me. They were such fun to do and I am very happy with the way they turned out.
Here are all three of them together. Of course I have left a much wider frame around them but I pinned it back for the photos.

This is a closeup of the first one I finished with a pretty peacock in the centre block. The photos are not great as I had to use my phone. 
That is a tale in itself, I could not get the pictures to load into my computer so I could send them to my blog so after much swearing and cursing, yes I used the magic @#$% word, I finally worked out how to get the blue-tooth to work between my laptop and my phone. 
Not bad for an Old Gal hay!!!


This is the second one I finished  All the stitching is experimental either I am learning to do a stitch or I want to find out how a combination works. It often means a lot of reverse stitching LOL.



And last but certainly not least is this one more just playing around but I wish the photos came out better.

I have no idea which of my partners got which diamond because what I did was package them up with a little note and sealed the envelope. Then I addressed them, kind of like a lucky dip. I mailed 2 of this morning but I do not yet have my third partner's snail mail address so soon as I know that I will send it off also.

I do hope my partners will like their little diamonds as much as I have enjoyed making them.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Jacque

Another block finished; Jacque's Confidence Booster. This is a fun block to work on because we know what the finished product will be. It will be the bag to take to the casino.
With that in mind I stitched as much luck as I could into the bag by using Chinese good luck symbols and stitching in red, the Chinese lucky colour and then whipping the stitching in gold for good measure.
This photo does not do the luscious fabrics justice.
Here is a close up of the stitching, I hope I have the calligraphy right. I looked up on the net the characters then practiced them until they looked right. Then I drew them in pencil on the gold fabric, stitched them with red perle 8 thread and then whipped them with gold filament. I think they look OK and I hope any Chinese writers think the same but even if they do not I thought good thoughts all the time I was stitching so that must count for something..