Annies Crazy World

Now that Easter is over I have got time to record Easter on my Sampler or st least get it started…I started by drawing 2 eggs and outlineing them in black stem stitch, the black looked to severe so I overstitched it with a fine varigated matalic thread which has softened the edges.

These are our 2008 Painted Easter Eggs and below are detailed images of a few of them.

Lily used her cat, Tiger, as inspiration for this egg, In past years I have given her assistance cutting and glueing the ears and extra bits to her eggs, this year age 11 she did the entire thing herself. I love the cat’s tail, it is a piece of one of the skewers that we put the eggs on when painting them.

Lauren has used her life at uni for her inspiration dividing her egg into halves, one half for the series study at the Australian National University, the other half for the social life.

For her inspiration my sister used the same image of our mum that I used on mum’s memory quilt, under the Mango tree.

I also used mum’s memory quilt for inspiration (and continued a theme that has run through my work)…I Painted a cloths line on my egg…I put a post on either side of the egg and ran a line around each side, when I saw the magnified image I could see that it is not very well painted but at egg size it looks good…When you can hold the egg and spin it the design works well but it is the hardest yet to photograph.

Well I have taken Photos of our painted Easter eggs and have them ready to upload but every time I try and upload them I am getting an error message, that I don’t understand…I will try again in the morning and fingers crossed that it will fix itself overnight.

We have had a lovely afternoon painting eggs…I will wait till tomorrow, when I will have daylight, to take photos of the eggs.

It has become tradition for the Canberra branch of the family to paint eggs at easter..The following links explain how the the tradition got started, the eggs we have painted in past years and other eggy stories.

Scrambled Eggs for Breaksfast, Lunch or Tea

Painting Eggs – Its become a Family Tradition

A Rare Sight

Our 2007 Painted Eggs

Humpty Dumpty is sitting on the wall

I am not quite as organized this year as I was last year and still have to blow and undercoat more eggs but everything else is ready to go.

Today has been an Historic Day for Australia … Our new Government has said Sorry to our indiginous people … I have celebrated this decision in Stitches.

Top Row…Buttonhole Stitch, stepped and flipped from side to side, both purple and green are 4 strands of silk floss.

Middle row…’Sorry’ is cross stitch done with cotton pearl size 5…The date is Backstitch done with 2 strands of silk floss

Bottom Row is Buttonhole done with 4 strands of rayon thread and trimmed with detached chain stitch and colonial knots done with 6 strands of cotton.

As you can now see it is a sewing machine that I am appliqueing…It is finished but I am not going to show the finished block untill next month

This is the start of a hand appliqued block for a group quilt and for tonight I am going to leave you guessing as to what I am appliqueing…

The kit to make this Scissor Keeper was a Freeby on the cover of a needlework magazine, I started it when on holidays a few years ago…I found it in a box the other day, nearly finished, it didn’t take me long to embroider the flowers in the basket and stitch the 2 halves together.

The red flower petals are 8 to 10 straight stitches coming up and going down in the same hole…The pink flowers are buttonhole Stitch…A scattering of French Knots and Berry Stitch Leaves finish the arrangement.

Until I stitched around the edges and turned her right side out this little lady was a Scissor Keeper but I found myself not wanting to Stitch the front to the back across the bottom because I didn’t want to flatten the bottom of her skirt, I was seeing her as a doll rather than a scissor keeper…I went hunting around the house for something round to fit in the bottom to hold the round shape, I tried a cotton reel but the top showed as a ridge on the skirt, small bottles did the same, coins wouldn’t stay in place, the lid of a bottle might work but before I found a lid that fitted I found a metal hose fitting, perfect size and being smaller at the top there was no ridge and it has the added advantage of being heavy enough to stabilize her so that she stands tall, 4 1/2 inches tall to be exact.

I wrapped the hose fitting in the batting and a square of fabric before inserting it into the base.

I made the pink thumb pin cushion at Nowra Crazy Quilt Retreat and have had a couple of requests for the pattern, today I have got around to writing the instructions… I had to remember/work out how to make it and got the size of the square wrong on my first attempt, the gold one, and it is on the tight fit side…

I also realized that to illustrate it clearly I needed a fabric with a right and wrong side, that is when I chose the fabric that matches the work box I showed last night.

To make your own start with a 4 inch square of an even weave fabric.

Turn one corner to the wrong side as per the photo.

Fold the square, right sides together, diagonally with the turned under corner at one end.

Starting at the turned under corner, use a 1/4 inch seam to stitch 2 edges of the triangle, stopping a 1/2 inch before the end.

Clip the point to reduce bulk.

In the middle of the fold cut a 1 inch slit along the fold.

Turn right side out through the hole, pushing the unturned corner all the way through.

Stuff the central portion until it is firm.

Turn the edges of the slit in and whip stitch to close the hole… This is a little finddly and you may find that it puckers a bit as you stith it, Don’t stress if is not real neat as this seam is on the inside of the finished ring.

Wrap the long points around your thumb and use a pin to mark the overlap.

Poke the raw point into the turned under corner pin and test size…adjust until it is a comfortable fit…Stitch the ends together.

Happy Stitching.