Connie's having a Give Away!

We all love those give aways, and the bloggers & crafters who offer them.

Rush over to http://cwkalina.blogspot.com where you'll not only find information about how to win these fabulous goodies, but also enjoy the great eye candy on Connie's blog.

Baby blanket

Just when I was establishing a comfort zone, I've broken away from it. The first baby boy our family has expected in 57 years will be born to my eldest niece in August, so as a first-time great-aunt I felt it was my duty and pleasure to make him a baby blanket.

I was inspired by a wonderful Australian needlework magazine aptly named Inspirations. A photo of my hand-traced pattern for the needlework is shown . The instructions call for using long and short stitch on the bears but because I have no experience with those stitches I decided to needle punch the bears. I did manage to do the long and short stitch on the boy bear's t-shirt and I've started the cupcake. The hibiscus flowers are a pinwheel buttonhole stitch. I have a long way to go. Good thing Baby isn't arriving til August!

Back to CQ'ing!

I finally found the nerve to play with color. Well, I guess perhaps it's not that nerve-y, for most, but admittedly I am still afraid of my block and the use of color. With good reason - on another seam on this same block I stitched some red lazy daisies which turned out a bit...erm, 'out there' shall we say?

Here I laid down a gold ribbon with a green cast to it and a perle size 5 thread called Color Variations Monet's Garden by DMC. I made tiny running stitches between the gold embroidered shapes in the ribbon.

When I've figured out what to do about those bright red, too large lazy daisies, I'll share ;).

I 've also finished piecing my 2nd (ever) block. I ran into
a bit of a quandary on this block because one of the pieces is too large. Not having a piece of fabric that would do for that corner, I decided to use one of my doilies to off-set it. I'm hoping once the block is embellished, it will look like that was the plan from the beginning.

Bronny

I have been practicing my stitches but don't have pics to show you yet, so I think this is a good time to introduce you to my furrbaby. This is Bronwyn, aka Bronny the Bonnie lil Lass, Beazie, Puppy Face and apparently 'Blue' as well because I just said the word 'blue' to the DH and she came running. Bronny is a red-headed tri-color Pembroke Welsh Corgi and she'll be 3 years old in May. She was born at T-bar Kennels in Prague, OK and is our 4th Corgi. My first corgi was a rescue named Bingo but I changed her name to Angharad (Annie) and she liked that much better. After all, a Welsh dog needs a Welsh name! She, too, was a red-headed tri. Our second corgi was Andrew, aka Drewie the Magnificent Corgi (a lovely sable), and our 3rd corgi was a foster Cardigan when we lived in Australia. She was a beautiful Blue Merle named Lara. When we moved back to the US life was no good without the thumpity-thump of a fat little corgi feet, so we got Bronny when she was 9 weeks old.

See the shawl like pattern coming around her shoulders toward her chest? Welsh folklore has it that those are the reins by which the fairies hold on when they ride the backs of the corgis. The black saddle on the backs of the tris and sables are the reason why I love the bold colored corgis best. The reds are pretty, but I adore the bold colors! Oh - please don't think badly of me for having her chained up - it was only to take her photo. She's a little escape artist so I had to secure her or these photos would have been of her bunny bum heading into the wide blue yonder.

Whooo hoo, new stash stuff!

Any crafter knows the delight of opening a package with new goodies in it. Today I received my order from Joann's and first thing I did was scan it to prove to you I really CAN use other colors than purple, lol. Well, I haven't used them yet but at least I bought them and I will use them on the new block I'm piecing. I promised you that you wouldn't have to look at purple forever and I intend to keep that promise ;)

I also bought bought 2 yards of muslin, much needed Chenille needles (sizes 18 and 22) and a set of looped needle threaders. Not sure how these work - I'll let you know. I decided to try these because I have a hard time handling the typical sized needle threaders. They are so light my fingers can't feel them and my eyes are not good enough to thread the needle threader....doh! But - such is life and we have to figure out a way around these obstacles.

I'm still looking for friends who are new to embroidery. I seem to have two types of friends - those who don't embroider at all, and those who have been doing it for many years. It'd be fun to have someone to share the trials and tribulations with.

Thanks for stopping by,

Di

My block is becoming a sampler

My block has no real rhyme nor reason to it but as it's my first block and I need to learn to embroider and embellish, I suppose it doesn't really matter. Just sort of wish I'd followed MamaDi's suggestion to use less lavish fabrics. It would have been easier and cheaper to use cottons. Here are a few of the stitches I've applied to it recently:

Top photo: From upper right-hand corner: Silk Ribbon Embroidery white spider's web rose and pulled ribbon floss; lower down on the right of the basket is a meandering chain stitch and above that is a double chain stitch, fly stitches (in green) on the vertical seam above that and to the left of them is a free style combination of detached chain, lazy daisy and straight plus back stitches and above that are fly stitches.

Bottom photo: Upper right at top-Fly stitch, variety of straight and detached chain stitches, straight and fly stitches in metallic (this is supposed to be a spider's web...guess I better practice more!), then a basket of fuschias in silk ribbon embroidery, a few French and Colonial knots around it. To the left of the basket on the bottom is an interlaced running stitch (using pearl cotton and ribbon floss) with beads; and above that the tete-de-bouef stitch.

As I was doing these stitches I started hankering for more thread colors so I took advantage of a great sale at Joann's and ordered a really big variety. You won't have to look at purple/purple and purple much longer. ;) I already have many 6 strand cotton flosses and overdyed 6 strands but I love the ease of using the pearls. It's easier to wield the larger needles thicker threads with my arthritic hands. They (the hands) just don't want to work with the smaller gauge threads...matter of fact, I can't even 'feel' them between my fingers.

I hope if you're new at embroidery and crazy quilting that you will join me in not giving up when things don't look as splendid as you'd hoped. We just need to keep practicing!

Til another stitch,

Di

Heart with Silk Ribbon Embroidery

This is my first attempt at silk ribbon embroidery. I've scanned the heart cushion and squished the flowers but this will give you an idea of what I've been doing.

I find silk ribbon embroidery more forgiving as a newbie embroiderer but am determined to learn to do both, well.

I used a combination of silk ribbons from Ribbonsmyth, Hand-dyed-fibers.com and Bucilla. Mostly utilizing the 4 mm width, which I find easiest to control so far.

And finally....back to it!

A few days after my post in November 2009, my husband fell ill, first with pneumonia then his lung collapsed twice. He has only one lung, so this was extremely serious. He was hospitalized for extended stays 3 times from Thanksgiving week '09 thru May '10. He's doing much better now and I'm finally able to get back to learning CQ and embroidery. I am so glad to get back to it. I'm not as afraid of the fabrics and silks, and threads as I was before. Maybe because I faced the most trying time of my life these last few months and now I know I can handle just about anything, LOL

For Valentine's Day I made a heart shaped cushion for my mother, on which I did a bit of silk ribbon embroidery. I can't show a photo of it because I don't have a camera and I can't figure out how to scan it to my laptop. My desktop computer has a virus (sigh, it's always somethin').

Some of the stitches I learned on Youtube. If you go to Youtube.com and search for 'silk ribbon embroidery' or 'how to make a silk ribbon rose' and use search phrases like that, you'll find a huge amount of helpful tutorials.

My needles are calling my name....