Annies Crazy World

I didn’t do very many of these Eyelet Buttonhole flowers, I love how they look but I realy do not enjoy doing Bullion stitch…On the few I did do I tested out different thread types…The dark pink flower is a fine silk thread, the light pink flower is a soft cotton pearl twist thread, the gold flower is a Rayon Pearl twist thread.

On My Box top I did a cluster of 3 eyelet buttonhole flowers and finished them with detached chain stitch leaves.

or Easter I used the knotted buttonhole stitch as a needle weaving fill to make a basket….I cut the eggs from a CD, drilled holes near the bottom to stitch them on below the line of the basket and painted them with acrylic paint.

below is knotted buttonhole stitch on done on my boxtop.

These are my Portuguese Border stitch Variations.

The third band is what I was trying to do in the second band but instead of doing the second colour nwxt ot the first colour I found that I had to put the needle over and then under the thread of the first colour (see image below).

The third band has the foundation stitches with alternating narrow and wide spaces (see image below).

for the bottom band I did alternating foundation stitches as 2 smaller stitches.

To use this stitch on a crazy quilt I have done it on a Beret that is a slow work in progress.

When I was starting this Panel a friend showed me sorbello stitch so I used it to hold down the hem of the panel and to stitch the P of panel.

For the row of Beaded Hedebo Edge I have to thank Smockerytast….Instead of doing 2 rows side by side I did one row of the base stitch and then added a second cross on top of each long cross, you need to be carful when taking the first stitch, that you catch just the threads of the top cross after the first stitch the rest stitches up the same as normal, I liked the way this worked and used this variation on my Box top

Again after doing variations of the stitch that seemed obvious to me I had a look around the blogs linked to Sharon’s comments and found a few ideas that I liked.

I found the top detail on Doreen’s blog.

I found 2 Blogs who saw fish in the knotted loop stitch and was interested in how differently they used the stitch to make there fish skeletons. both stitchers have also used the knotted loop stitch to make seaweed with there fish.

The fish on the right is a Stitchinwomen skeleton fish

The fish on the right is a Caro-Rose-Creations fish skeleton

I saw similar variations to the bottom detail on several blogs and it is the variation that I have used on a crazy quilt.

I am partisipating in TAST II That is Take A Stitch Tuesday round 2.

Week 1 is Diamond Stitch

I started with a size 5 cotton pearl thread.
Then tried it with a size 5 Rayon pearl twist thread.
Still using the rayon I elongated the distance between the stitches,.
Then using a size 8 cotton pearl I worked alternate stitches wider to get a zig zag edge.
With a size 8 Rayon Pearl twist thread I not only alternated narrow and wide stitches but used a longer stitch at the edges of the wider stitches.
I like this stitch but don’t much enjoy doing it because it is realy hard to keep an even tension on the loops so for the bottom row, still using the size 8 Rayon, added a bead to the thread before doing the left side loop and then went through the bead again to connect the diamonds, it was a little easier to work but it was still difficult to keep an even tension.

To use Diamond Stitch on a crazy quilt I have done a seam on my Box Top.

I have pulled my box top out again and am aiming to do at least one seam a month which means that it could be done by the end of the year

It was meant to be Thorn Stitch (a variation of feather stitch) but as I got near to the end of the seam I looked at the instructions again and found that I had been doing something different….

And so to my sampler, the first thing to notice is the change of colour, I have decided to change the colour every month with the alternate months being different colours.

the top band is the stitch as I did it on my boxtop

the second band is how i reinterpereted the instructions

but still it didn’t look like the picture, another look at the instructions from which band 3 was done.

the instructions I was following where some I had printed at a very small size (to make them handy to carry in my sewing box), me thinks now that they were to small, after referring back to the full size intructions the 4th band is Thorn Stitch.

What did I learn from this stitch?…I learnt that miss reading instructions can be a good way to come up with different stitch variations.

the short seam on the left is raised band feather stitch.

Last night I said “At this stage the cream oval looks a bit wonky but lace will smooth out the top edge” and that is just what happened tonight when I stitched the lace on around the top of the cream oval.

I added beads to the lace for a little sparkle.

I cut the base fabric for my box top into 5 odd shaped pieces and tonight I have stitched the third join, I have photographed the back because it shows where the joins are more clearly than the front does.

At this stage the cream oval looks a bit wonky but lace will smooth out the top edge and I have a crazy quilted heart that will overlap onto the cream in the bottom left corner that will cover the irregularity of the piecing in that area

Last night I did a beaded detached chain stitch on my sampler, tonight I have done the same stitch on my box top.