Slow Stitching - July 2025 - Week 5

With most of my social groups represented and an extra week in July I decided to add seed stitching to the background of this piece.

I used white floss so it only adds texture with not much visual presence to this piece.

It was a lot of work but slow stitching is always so enjoyable.

I have done this month's piece in advance because of the move with took place recently.

It adds some substance to the piece as well.

Upon reflection there a Flickr photography community that I have forgotten to include in this piece.

It has been a valuable experience to remind myself of these wonderful communities.

Slow Stitching - May 2025 - Week 4

K3N Cloth Tales Comfort Coverlet 2025 Slow Stitching project - May- Week 4.

I finished my Books square in the coverlet slow stitching project.   

I added the tiny fabric book that hold my favorite authors.  You can find the details in this post.

I added more vine along the top of the book case from the blue pot. 

I added texture stitching - tiny seed stitching around the book to hold together the tea dyed top fabric to the foundation layer. 

I chose neutral tones used in the piece itself. 

I love it!

Slow Stitching 2025 - March - Week 4

K3N Cloth Tales Comfort Coverlet 2025 Slow Stitching project - March - Week 4. "My Favorite Colors"

I am still working with my favorite colors. I felt the middle of the circle needed something else.

I decided to add 2 squares of white stitching to the center.  They were supposed to be less regular than they turned out to be. 

I then added a star of white stitching in the middle of the squares.  I have a really hard time making thing irregular.  

You can see that I decided to finish the seams along the 1 inch border.  I think I will be assembling these pieces with stashing with a backing fabric to hind all the stitching when all the pieces are done.  

Slow Stitching 2025 - March - Week 3

K3N Cloth Tales Comfort Coverlet 2025 Slow Stitching project - March - Week 3.

I continued to add stitching to the remaining bands of color. I stayed with my four colors and added yellow circles to the turquoise band.  

Then tight waves in navy on the yellow band.  Then wider waves in turquoise on the pink band. I used a scrapbook tool to mark out the waves onto the fabric. 

I then added a circle of tiny white rick rack couched down with pink thread. 

It is looking pretty good.
 

Slow Stitching 2025 - March - Week 2

K3N Cloth Tales Comfort Coverlet 2025 Slow Stitching project - March - Week 2.

I started slow stitching some texture to my 4 bands of color.

On the navy band I added Sashiko stitching with white thread.  I am happy with the consistency of my stitches.  

I really need a palm thimble to do much more of the beautiful stitching.  I have found a tutorial to my my own so I will move forward with that project and post it when I am done.

I plan different patterns on each of the colors.

Inktober 2024 - 25 Textures

 Inktober 2024 Challenge

25 - Textures

Sharpie UltraFine marker on Mixed Media Paper.

I created a grid below my title with pencil.

I just doodled textures that appealed to me and labeled them.

A piece to keep around as I work on future pieces when inspiration is waning.

Sewing Project - Tea Towels

I have been working on a sewing project.

I decided to make some beautiful tea towels this year.  I was fortunate to find several pieces of wonderful 100% cotton fabric this fall.  I wanted something with a bit of weight and texture.

These measure finished 20 x 28 inches.   With 3/8 inch fold over hems all the way around.

The Fleur de Lis pattern is wonderful, the botanical pattern gives a nice touch, and the ribbed texture will provide drying excellence.

Each of the towels got a twill tape corner loop for hanging and mitered corners. Super happy with these.   It was a real pleasure to work with 100% cotton.  It ironed beautifully. 

Allied Arts Council - Tantalizing Textures Show

This show was moved to on-line at the last minute because of the placement of further COVID 19 restrictions.

Title: Bright Sunflower
Size: 8.00 x 8.00 inches
Signed Photography Print
Mats: n/a
Frame: n/a
Print: 8x8 inches

This is a very abstract photo which started life as an image of a dried sunflower I took at the community garden.  I applied a solarize filter which gave it these wonderful colors. 

 

Title: Outskirts
Size: 8.00 x 12.00 inches
Signed Photography Print
Mats: n/a
Frame: n/a
Print: 8x12 inches

Another abstract image which started as a frozen puddle in the parking lot.  After processing I saw a town with the roads leading out from it in several directions.

 

 

Title: A River Runs Through
Size: 8.00 x 10.00 inches
Signed Photography Print
Mats: n/a
Frame: n/a
Print: 8x10 inches

This was condensation on glass i found on an early August morning.  I did add definition to the lines.  In my eyes it became a river.

Sewing Project - Quilt 10 - Appliqued Leaves Two

Another quilt finished but it took me a week!  There were a lot of challenges and mistakes this week.  Cabin fever?

Color was the first challenge which often happens with blues.  I tried yellow and blues but I finally settled with a textured cotton fabric in warm greens.

Challenge #2 was using leftover fabric which led to piecing.

Finished Size: 41.00" W x 49.5" T

Front: Appliqued Batik Leaves, Brocade textured cotton fabric in warm green. 

Pieces:
6.25" Squares for leaves
3 inch soft suede sashing
Warm Green textured cotton fabric rectangles 10.5" tall x 11" wide

Accents: Appliqued Batik Leaves

Backing: Warm Green floral print fabric 100% cotton. The 2 pieces were not wide enough so the gap had to be filled with a piece of cotton. I  chose a warm teal piece of cotton.


Batting: Flannelette Sheet leftovers
  
Thread: Grey thread on a cone dispensed with my Christmas gift.
Binding: Warm Teal cotton fabric cut to 2 5/8 inches wide and 200 inches long.
You can check out this
Fool Proof Quilt Binding video for how I now do this.

Binding stitching: Stitch in the ditch.  I pinned very closely and had near perfect capture of the folded edge on the back. Used grey thread

Quilting: I assembled the quilt with Mom's Quilt As You Go method starting on the right hand side. quilted the Ginger Fabric panels with 1/4 inch top stitching. The quilting the rectangles was done with a grey thread.

Lessons Learned: 
Using leftover fabric brings some challenges.  Having pieced the backing I decided to off set the column of blue to the other side of the leaves on the front.  When I came to quilting this presented a problem because I did not want to cross the blue strip. Should have been both on the same side.

The flannalette I used as backing was in several pieces.  I should have created a layer of flannalette before I put in between but I did not. Bad idea.  I just pinned it but ended up with a pin stuck between the layers.  I did have to open a seam to get it out.


I had the flannalette bunch in between the front and back layers.  I can't tell the hours spent getting it back in place so I could quilt the squares.

Silky thread - Bad Idea - I chose it because I thought it matched the green pretty well but because it was silky and shiny it stuck out like crazy.  I had to rip it all out. Sewing tired and late at night is not the best practice.

Bent straight pins - really!  I bent several straight pins while pinning the binding.  This warm teal cotton and the textured cotton seemed to be too much for these.  You can imagine my fingers if the pins look like this.

The textured cotton did not seem to have a right and wrong side.

The warm teal worked better with the backing than the front of the quilt so I would have preferred using the soft suede from the front.  I should have tried using to piece the back as well.  I may not have enough but it would have been worth checking.   It is what it is.

Friday Hunt 1.18

I took some shots on my walk this morning with Friday Hunt in mind.  The prompts are

Starts with R

Favorite

Texture

This is a Ram on the front of a really nice blue Dodge truck.  I love the silver and blue contrast and the graphic quality of the image.
I'm glad it's pretty clean but I have to admit I didn't check closely before I took the shot.

There were several pigeons on my walk but this one stood still long enough for me to get a good shot of it.  I love the way the eye stands out with it's orange coloring.

I love the way each stone block has texture but also the combination of many of them together in this wall also has texture.  The pine spruce boughs also provide a contrast in texture next the to the wall.


Submitting these to Friday's Hunt hosted by Teresa at Eden Hills.

Sympathy - One Layer Geometric

After checking the challenge at Less is More a little more closely it suggested that the card should include geometric or pattern. 
I designed a new card which meets the challenge more closely.
I chose several Stampin Up digital images.
Classic Dad - Diamond background
Wonderful Wings - Butterfly 2
Teeny Tiny Wishes - With Sympathy
Punch Shapes - Modern Label Punch
I chose Certainly Celery for the diamond pattern background and Night of Navy for the butterfly, sentiment and Modern Label punch.  I put the diamond layer on the bottom half of the Whisper White card. I placed the butterfly above the diamond layer and the sentiment onto the label punch shape onto the diamond pattern.  I placed texture with a scored line around the card edge.

Submitting to the Less Is More - 271 - One Layer Card Challenge. 

How To: Distressing Map

I cut the map piece to the right size before I crunched it into a little ball as part of the process of distressing it.  Once it was sufficiently wrinkled I opened it up and flattened it with my hands. I rubbed it with an ink pad to highlight the high areas.  Some of the edges had tears as part of the crunching process which added to the overall effect. I used a glue stick to adhere it to the card front which allowed me to just press it down with out flattening any more keeping the texture.

Photos into Art

I took some time recently to play with photo editing software to see what I could do with  my photos as far as making them more like paintings.  There a many filters and it takes a lot of time to figure out what pieces play in the process.

The photo, the background and foreground colors, the filter and how many times it is applied as well as the layering of filters all go into the mix to produce a result.

I found that I liked to apply a base filter which seems to breakdown the image into small pieces which then will be affected by any other filter I apply.

Some of my favorite filters were watercolor, palette knife, paint daubs, and dry brush.  The textures were great but I was unhappy with the level of repetition in the pattern which was very visible.

Picking the right photo is challenging as well. Some just did not work at all.

I was working on this to produce a handmade gift for our family gift exchange this year.  Check later for the final project.

Cards - Cherry Blossoms

I've been using these Cherry Blossoms which I cut with the Cricut back in September. I've used them for incentive and card club. These cards are going into card kits for my sale next Saturday.