Annies Crazy World

Top row…Buttonhole Stitch with stepped arm lengths, worked with a varigated silk thread.

second row… Buttonhole Stitch with stepped arm lengths and flipped from side to side, trimmed with beads held on with a straight stitch that bends when threaded through the bead…3 strands of cotton floss.

third row…Buttonhole stitch with long and short arms flipping from side to side…Thread strands of cotton floss.

Bottom row…2 rows of Buttonhole stitch in groups of 3, flipped from side to side, the second row worked into the spaces of the first riw…Blue thread 3 strands of cotton floss, mustrard colour thread is wool.

For the smaller alphabets I looked at them in the book but when it came to stitching them I shaped them for myself which was easy because of the common shapes shared by letters.

Capital Letters…Back Stitch with 2 strands cotton floss.

Lower case alphabet…Back Stitch with silk Buttonhole twist thread.

Numbers…Back stitch with 2 strands of cotton floss.

The Box of threads on the right is my selection of The Take It Further February Colours.

The next thing that I have stitched on my Sampler is an Alphabet…The letters are easy enough to form on the spot but by having an alphabet to reference then it will be easier to space words for best visial effect.

This Cross Stitch Alphabet is from Simple Samplers by Yvonne Mathieson…I adapted a few letters where I prefered a different shape…All Letters are stitched with Stranded Cotton Embroidery Floss but each colour is a different number of strands making some letters heavier than others.

A to E has 6 strands
F to J has 3 strands
K to P has 5 strands
Q to Z has 4 strands

Bottom row…the Cups and Saucers are from an Ondori Book Cross Stitch 300 Motifs I adapted there tea pot so that it is short and fat rather than tall and skinny and the jug is adapted from the cups…these are stitched with 4 Strands of cotton floss.

The January Take it Further Challenge design Concept was ‘who do you Admire’ , the answer to that question for me is that I admire my Friends, on my post card I wrote the word Friends, for something different on my sampler I googled Chinese Symble for Friends.

The backing fabric prooved to be handy in executing this design, I traced a reverse image of the design onto the backing fabric and then using a single strand of black silk floss I backstitched the design through to the front which gave me a crisp clean outline which I filled with close rows of Stem Stitch.

Last week I decided to withdraw from the Take it Further Challenge…I hadn’t been real happy with my January post card and when came to interpretting my February design thoughts onto a post card I hit a brick wall, I am so enjoying my band sampler that I didn’t want to stop to think about other techniques needed to do a postcard…It goes against my grain to quit but I just wasn’t enjoying it and decided that the best thing to do was to withdraw.

A few hours later I rejoined when I thought of a way to incorperate the TIF challenge into what I am enjoying…For each month I will select threads and beads in the colour scheme and stitch 12 inches of my sampler with them and do a detail inspired by the design concept…

I have spent the last week doing a catch up using the January colours, below are the threads and beads I selected to work with and the image on the right is the 12 inches of sampler stitched with them…Working with the TIF colours is still a challenge particularly when they are colours that I don’t particularly like and would normally never use. The interesting thing though is that whilst I would never have chosen to use the January colours I do like how they stitched together.

Top Row…Buttonhole Stitch in the shape of hills, When you change direction at the top of the hill the buttonhole stitch can slip at the peak this can be overcome by sealing the top stitch and coming up in the same hole to start again for the downhill slope, on this seam I have sealed the top stitch with a Colonial Knot…Thread is 3 strands of cotton floss.

Second Row…Overlapping rows of Buttonhole Stitch…The light green thread is 2 strands of cotton floss the other 4 colours are silk buttonhole twist.

Third Row…Buttonhole Stitch Hearts…Happy Valentines Day…Cotton Pearl size 5 thread.

Bottom Row…These sweet cross Stitch hearts are from my Miniature Sampler, on the miniature sampler I worked the crosses over a single thread, for this sampler I worked the crosses over 2 threads…I have stitched them with 4 strands of Red silk floss.

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.

While embroidering Panel #1 I had a couple of problems with the fabric…firstly the threads of the weave (25 count linen) were to obvious to ignore and I couldn’t not count them which was difficult because my eyes arn’t so good any more…I also had trouble keeping the tension of my stitches, I don’t use a hoop and I was missing the extra bulk of the crazy blocks that I have done most of my stitching on.

When I mentioned the thread counting problem to Sharon she suggested and gave me some higher count linen which I can ignore the threads on and I figured that to help with the tension I could back the fabric with a light weight, loose weave cotton fabric which has helped with the tension as well as making it easier to start and finish the threads.

I am sure that the higher count fabrics will be nice to work on and I will use the pieces that Sharon gave me because I want to use different fabrics for each panel but being a bit contrary I am doing the second panel on a lower count (21 count Linen) fabric because when I pulled my Spanish Blackwork Tablecloth out the other night I remembered that there had been a scrape of the linen that was cut off to make the tablecloth square, what is quite amazing is that I was able to find that scrape whithin minutes of remembering it…I thought that it would be nice to Stitch on the same Linen as I used for the tablecloth all those years ago.

The first image tonight shows the back of the second panel with the linen hemmed, this time I used one of the threads I pulled from the fabric to do the hem stitch and the backing fabric.

I use lines of tacking to help in counting the threads and to keep the lines strait.

Top row is Buttonhole Stitch with alternating long and short arms stitched with a rayon thread and trimmed with beads.

Middle row is Buttonhole stitch with the arms stepped down, stitched with 3 strands of cotton.

Bottom row is another stepped variation of Buttonhole Stitch 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…