I posted my stitch early today because I was going out tonight and didn’t know what time I would be home…I am just home now from Varekai by the Cirque Du Soleil…The tickets where a gift for my 5oth Birthday last year and I must say that I had no idea just what a treat I was in for…The circus performances alone would have been incredible but together with the lighting, the music, a touch of comedy and Magnificent costumes the show was truly Magical, A night to remember.
|
I have used Couching the TAST week 12 Stitch for specific purposes (The rocks under the light house on block 14 are couched ribbons) but have never designed with it and have had no creative ideas for it, in the mean time I have done this simple seam using fly stitch to couch the green chenille thread along the seam and finished it with detached chain stitch sealed with Colonial Knots done with a varigated thread..
|
This seam treatment is a piece of lace made up of pink hearts which I have further embellished with a row of stem stitch around the edge, a bead flower with detached chain stitch leaves in the centre of each heart and a bead between each heart…I have photographed a piece of the unembellished lace with this seam so that you can see how a little embroidery changes it.
Tip: at the right end of the seam you can see a bead that is loosly tacked to the block, this is so that the matching bead to finish the row is there ready to stitch into place after I stitch the blocks together.
|
This seam is wheat stitch which I illustrated on day 15 of the details and is the last seam on the 16th block for mum’s memory quilt.
|
In The Magic of Crazy Quilting by J Marsha Michler there is several seams which have a curved line along the seam and I used the curved line as my jumping off point for this seam…I chose stem stitch for the curved line and not wanting to get up from the TV show I was watching to find another thread I did the second line so that I could keep on sewing…Once I had the curved line I decided on the placement of the detached chain stitches and red beads and then filled in around them with colonial knots
|
 Inspiration for seam treatments come from many sauces, one of which is my own work, I found the above seam on a block and thought that it would go nicely on the current block.
To make it a little different I made leaves along the green silk ribbon using the loopy ribbon technique that I described on day 8 of the details.
The roses are done by tying a knot in the silk ribbon about an inch from fabric (a little more than an inch if using wider silk ribbon) and doing a running stitch from the knot back down to the fabric, when the ribbon is pulled through to the back the knot stops it going all the way and forms a nice centre for the rose…Tip for finer detail start with a tiny gathering stitch and make each stitch a little longer so that the bottom petals are bigger than the top petals.
|
I have pieced 2 more blocks, one is my newest sister in law the other is my niece.
Todays seam is another of my visual journal sketches of feather stitch the TAST week 7 Stitch.
 …It is 2 rows both worked from the bottom and the outside stitches of the feather stitch are shortened….I got the angles different to what I had drawn and it looks different to the sketch but the wonderful thing about designing stitches this way is that even when they don’t work as drawn they still work as a lovely seam treatment.
|
With images that I crop from a larger photo I can leave additional background to give room on the image for the space the embroidery takes but some photos like the one on this block have no extra background so I choose a seam treatment that goes on only one side of the seam so as not to cramp the image more than necessay…Detached chain stitch with beads is a lovley one sided arrangement.
The image on this block is on the small side and little off centre which resulted in the pink patch being somewhat bigger than any other patch on the quilt, to bring it back into proportion I have chosen a pretty lace motif that covers half the patch.
This is the 15th finished block which is the half way point, 15 Blocks done and 15 Blocks to go.
|
 Firstly tonight I would like to thank everyone who has commented that they like seeing my Visual Journal Pages and Apologies to my Visual Journal teacher (Canberra TAFE 1997/8) with whom I argued that I couldn’t PLAN crazy quilts, they just happened as I stitched, I was wrong, I didn’t understand Visual Journals…In 2002 Sharon explained Visual Journals to me when she said “Your the back of an envelope girl” (I still use the backs of envelopes which I later glue into the visual journal)…I still can’t plan out a whole crazy quilt, and wouldn’t want to, but I can use a Visual Journal to plan/think/test ideas and now with blogging and the feedback that people like seeing the pages, I find that I am using it more often and more effectively, so thank you everyone.
The image to the right is the first sketch/idea for tonights seam treatment…When I decided that I would use charms I expanded and expanded the idea in a new sketch…
 Below is my embroidered interpretation, it is freeform, has a disjointed perspective and is not to scale, it non the less does in an impressionistic way depict about 1 kilometre of the coastline… the only lighthouse charm I had was the wrong design because Ballina light house is atop a grassy hill with a seperate light house keepers house, I solved that by using tin snips to cut the house and rocks from the bottom of the charm…The 2 white crosses in the cemetry are in memory of my father and the brother in the image on this block, we miss them greatly but I do find comfort knowing that they rest in peace only a couple of plots apart in the outer row on the seaward side of the cemetry with a million dollar view looking out over the beach to the Pacific Ocean.
This seam finishs the 14th block for mum’s memory quilt.
|
The Pink Brocade Fabric is very buzy and would have absorbed just about any embroidery I did on it, on a different type of buzy fabric I might have tried a thick dark thread but any thicker thread would have damaged this fabric which is loosly woven and includes metalic threads….I decided that a nice piece of burgundy braid would finish it nicely and when I went looking in my stash I found this beautiful piece of beaded braid which works just perfectly and finishes the 13th block for my mums memory quilt.
|
