Annies Crazy World

 
 
 
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    This is Annie Whitsed's Crazy World a world where I stitch the joys and chaos of life into beautifull crazy quilts. email annie@loopylace.com
February 2007
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TAST Week 9 Cross Stitch – Details 180 and 181 February 28th, 2007

detail 180

I have stitched 2 of the ideas from my page of cross stitch sketches…The seam above is a row of Cross Stitch to which I have added Colonial Knots and seed beads…it is a simple effective seam treatment (much nicer than I had expected).

The seam below is 3 rows of cross stitches each row increasing in size…A bit dissappointing but it fills the space…I stitched the seam on waste canvas which gave me my stitch size but I think the first row of stitches is to small and if I repeat it I think I would leave out the first row of tiny stitches and do just 2 rows, I like the heart shape that is formed where the 2 different size stitches meet.

detail 181

TAST Week 9 Cross Stitch February 27th, 2007

visual journal ideas for cross stitchI will be interested to see what everyone else does with this stitch, personally I have found it quite a challenge as I have never thought about Cross Stitch other than cross stitch done on a grid to form a picture and initially I had no thoughts as to how I could use it as a seam treatment on crazy patchwork.

Sitting down with my visual journal I started by writing the word cross in little crosses and then drew a pattern, using crosses down the left side of the page, I then did some bigger crosses (because as a seam treatment I think that they will need to be bigger) and then I did different angled crosses and ones that didn’t cross in the middle and arrangeing different sized crosses together, I don’t know how they will translate into thread but at least they give me a starting point.

Block 11 – Detail 179 February 26th, 2007

feather stitch

visual journal pagefollowing on from feather stitch I played around in my visual journal with double feather stitch and it was one of those sketchs ( on the right hand side of the page) that I chose for this seam…I used a metalic thread and like the way it turned out.

and this was the last seam on the 11th block for my mum’s memory quilt.
11th block for mums memory quilt

Details 177 and 178 February 25th, 2007

seam on boxtop

Above is a seam on my boxtop below I have repeated it on a block for mum’s quilt…The herringbone stitch on the block below is slightly different because the threads didn’t cross properly so I added an extra little stitch at each cross to pull them into shape, other than that the stiches are much the same but just using different thickness threads and different colour combinations is enough to give each seam a distinctive look.

seam on block eleven

Repeating Seam Treatments – detail 176 February 24th, 2007

Cretan Stitch

TAST Week 4When I have a mental blank, as to what stitch I can do, I look at work that I have done in the past and pick a stitch that I like, which is what I did this morning when it was to early to think…this stitch is Cretan Stitch was my TAST week 4 Stitch.

Repeating seam treatments can be quite exciting as different threads and even slight changes in stitch length, spacing and angle can alter the look of the finished seam…it is a bit like a kalidascope in that you don’t know what you are going to get next but each pattern is as beautiful as the last.

TAST Week 7 – Details 173 to 175 February 23rd, 2007

overlaid feather stitchthis morning I was thinking about the different shapes that Fly Stitch can form.

visual journal 23 febuary

which led me to think that Feather stitch can make the same shapes and that I had never tried feather stitch with wide shallow V’s…when I drew it in the visual journal it looked so like Cretan Stitch I lost interest and started doodling other lines in which I saw a different pattern emerge when 2 rows were overlaid with the needle going down at the same point as the first row but coming up slightly above where it came up for the first row and this seam treatment is the result…

I think that I really like this one because I did it on a second seam. Done with a thicker thread and different spaceing this one looks more like my drawing…

detail 174

and then I did it on a third seam, for this one I used a stranded thread and trimmed it with beads.

detail 175

A Problem Solved February 22nd, 2007

When I started working again on mum’s memory quilt after it had lay dormant for more than 12 years I found I had a couple of problems, the first was that I had to change technique for transfering images to the fabric, as it turned out the T shirt transfers blend quite well with the old technique.

Visual journal layout for mum\'s quiltThe other problem is that the original plan was for a 20 block quilt but since then with births and marriages the family has grown and I now need 31 blocks, not a number that divides into a quilt layout.

This morning, when I was showing my sister the progress I had made, we discussed the pros and cons of the different alternatives I had thought of to reduce the images to 30 blocks, I also told her my plans to border it with a frame shaped border…As she was leaving she asked me when I wanted to have it finished by…my answer was that I want it to remain a WIP and get it finished this year but it can’t be before the birth of the next grandchild, expected in a couple of months, then jokeingly said that if I finished it before the birth I wouldn’t need the 31st block…or maybe I wasn’t joking because with thoughts of the frame finish fresh in my mind the light bulb went on…I could make just the 30 blocks and then add the new babys image as a photo poked into the corner of the frame…Problem solved…and if it works as I think it will, it means that I can include photos of the family home and the mango tree in the same way, as well as enabling future additions of great grand kids…

and the next block is ready for embroidery

block 11

Block 10 – Detail 172 February 21st, 2007

Up and down buttonholeI started this seam with a row of Up and Down Buttonhole Stitch. I trimmed the seam with beads stitched in place with fly stitch the TAST week 8 stitch, it is not readly recognizable but worked wel, I threaded a bead onto each stitch and then the tye down stitch held it at one end and at the same time bent the stem of the bead so that it looks more interesting then straight stems would have been.

And this was the last seam on the 10th block for my mum’s memory quilt, the image is one of mum’s grandkids, my nephew.

block 10 for mum\'s quilt

TAST Week 8 Fly Stitch – Detail 171 February 20th, 2007

Fly Stitch another very versatile stitch and once again I started by playing in my visual journal….I have used fly stitch in so many different ways it was hard to think of a way I haven’t used it before so while I was thinking I drew the different shapes that fly stitch can form and some of the ways I have used it, which includes decorating around shi shas, one large and 2 small fly stitches make a lovely heart shape and the legs of my spiders are fly stitch…

Fly stitch in the visual journal

…The shi sha thoughts inspired a bit of doodling with the circle shape but it was the fish that gave me a seam cover, when I drew the single fly stitch tailed fish (which I have stitched before) I looked at it and thought a second fly stitch would give it a solid tail and when I looked at that drawing I liked the tail shape and repeated it end to end which gave me the seam treatment below.

Fly Stitch

Detail 170 February 19th, 2007

combination of herringbone and twisted detached chain stitches

This stitch is a combination of herringbone and twisted detached chain similar to detail 143.