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
April 2007
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Thank You Elizabeth – Detail 255 April 30th, 2007

Up and down buttonhole

Tonights detail is another stitch that I have had in mind for awhile just waiting to find a seam to do it on.

For this Stitch I have to thank Elizabeth, If you havn’t seen Elizabeths blog of Quiter Moments it is worth a visit, she is doing really exciting things with the TAST challege…This seam is inspired by her first sample on 17th march. What I liked about her Stitch was how the Up and Down Buttonhole is enclosed by the tear drop shape.

The tear drop shape is held in place by small holding stitches, on the counted thread background these are done before slipping the thread under them to form the loops, when I tried this on the crazy block I couldn’t get the stitch length or even spacing for the holding stitches and I found it easier to do the holding stitches last, I used a pin to hold the thread in place while I worked the stitch.

using a pin to hold threads in position

Detail 254 April 29th, 2007

block 22 nakedAnother block pieced. I have used mostly plain fabrics in this quilt but when I found this stamp fabric in my old stash of quilting cottons I thought that it would be nice to represent all the letters that family has written.

As I get nearer to the end of a project I look for what it needs to keep the whole thing balanced/united and as I used some laces and ribbons in the first 9 blocks I need to use some in the rest of the blocks.

I illustreated how to do this Loopy Ribbon on day 8 of the details last year. For this seam I used a very narrow satin ribbon, made the loops small and gently zig zagged the loopy rosettes back and forth across the seams.

loopy ribbon

Back to Basics again – Detail 253 April 28th, 2007

Double Feather Stitch

The stitching on the first 9 blocks of this quilt, which were the UFO Portion from 1994, are mostly the basic stitches, with the influence of TAST the stitches I have been doing on the later blocks has become very varied and every so often I feel as if I should throw in a basic stitch to blend the 2 blocks together…with this in mind I had a look at all the seams that I have done and realized that I hadn’t yet done a seam of the basic Double Feather Stitch so Double Feather Stitch it was today.

And here is the 21st finished block for mum’s quilt

Block 21

A Wide Seam – Detail 252 April 27th, 2007

Up and down buttonhole

This Photo gave me room to do a wide seam so I chose this Up and Down Buttonhole Stitch which is one of my TAST week 11 visual journal sketches.

TAST Week 17 – Running Stitch – Details 249 to 251 April 26th, 2007

Running Stitch in Visual JournalFor a technically simple stitch, Running Stitch is quit a challenge to use as a seam treatment on crazy quilting.

As I drew thoughts into my visual journal, I realized that I was being influenced by having been a quilter and was thinking of running stitch as used for quilting patterns.

So will they translate into a seam treatment? only way to find out is to try one.

running stitch seam treament - not

Well that didn’t work…If I had done it straight onto one of the blocks for mum’s quilt I would probably have pulled it out but as this is a sampler block I thought What If? What if I laced another thread through the running stitches to make them a continous line…

Running stitch seam treament

The lacing produced an eccentric looking seam which I liked enough to do on one of mum’s blocks. The lacing on the first seam pulled the fabric in a lot so the second time I was careful to keep the running stitches loose to prevent the pulling…I finished the seam with a couple of bugle beads in the enclosed spaces (I couldn’t decide wether to use dark or light beads so used both).

Running Stitch an a crazy quilt seam

I used waste canvas to get the spacing for this next running stitch seam…It works OK but was a lot of bother and I don’t feel inclined to copy it.

another seam with running stitch

Thank you Maureen – Detail 248 April 25th, 2007

block 21 nakedFeeling better today I got another block pieced.

The seam I have stitched is from a cross stitch sample by crazyQstitcher on 28th feb, thank you Maureen, This pattern appealed to me, I made a note of it at the time and it has taken me this long to find a seam to put it on.

I used a narrow strip of waste canvas to get the spaceing for the cross stitches and bars between them.

seam from maureen

Looking for ideas – Details 246 and 247 April 24th, 2007

I have had a back ache and generally not feeling well so even though I have found a couple more photos for mum’s quilt, I didn’t get to the machine to piece another block but I have been looking at some old unfinished blocks to get some different ideas ready for when I do get more blocks pieced…I found these couple of seams with cute little silk ribbon flowers which I think will make a nice seam on one of the blocks.

Pink silk ribbon flowers Blue silk ribbon flowers

A Bat and Ball – Detail 245 April 23rd, 2007

Firstly the block that I finished last night, I left it till today because I get a better photo when I take them in daylight…This is the 20th block for mum’s memory quilt.

20th block for mum

I need to choose and chase up a few more photos and while I do that I have started to think ahead to the family memories that I want to represent. One of those is backyard cricket and for it I have carved a cricket bat from a piece of icy pole stick, I cut it roughly to shape and then refined the shape with sandpaper, for the handle I coated it with PVA white wood glue and wrapped it with silk thread.

Miniature Cricket Bat and Bead Ball

Woven Fans with Purl Trim – Detail 244 April 22nd, 2007

Woven fans with Sardi Embroidery

I described how to do these Woven Fans with details 219 and 220, but have given this seam a different look by using a less dominate pattern between the Fans and putting a different dangle at the bottom of the Fans…I used Purl Thread for the flowers and linked them with the Fans by using the same bead ringed with Purl for both and then using the Purl for the dangles on the Fans.

What I am doing tonight April 21st, 2007

visual journal page for 4th seam on block 20Tonight I am visiting friends and taking my stitching with me but won’t be home to post what I do so here is the visual journal page for what I want to do…I will show you tomorrow what I actually do.