Enjoying a sense of peace one stitch at a time
Over the last two days I’ve managed to start and finish a small freebie called Coffee Break – such a cute little design, that’s for sure! It’ll eventually be turned into a scissor fob when I have a finishing frenzy weekend … some day …
“Coffee Break” freebie
stitched on 32ct Lambswool linen by Wichelt
with recommended DMC threads
The freebie is still available from Cross Stitch Happy blog here 🙂
I also managed to find my ornie photo on my laptop, so I can update with that too 🙂
It’s been a while since I contributed to the weekly Blue Monday photo meme … seeing as there’s no stitching happening over here, I figure I might as well try and post ‘something’! Here is my choice for this week’s Blue Monday – a blue-filled boat at Niagara Falls, Canada.
And here’s a crafty item for Blue Monday 🙂
Blue Monday certainly doesn’t reflect my mood today, as I am nowhere near ‘blue’ … today I’m off to my very first book launch by one of my favourite authors, Jeffery Deaver. After reading The Bone Collector I was hooked by his twisted tales of crime, and he’s now been commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the latest James Bond novel (Carte Blanche) – while my heart will always remain with his Lincoln Rhyme series, perhaps it’s time to branch out and try something new … and what better way to do it than to have a lovely lunch and drinks, then pick up a copy and have it signed … in fact I think perhaps I should call into a book store on the way and pick up a copy of The Bone Collector and ask for that one to be signed, seeing as it was my first Jeffery Deaver experience 🙂
I had planned to get acquainted with my sewing machine over the weekend, but the end results weren’t actually what I’d planned … for some reason I got a serious urge to get some of my finished projects sewn up into pillows etc – it ended up being an exceptionally productive weekend on that score, with 9 pillows and a scissor fob completed, along with a little mini-quilt that just needs the binding to be hand-stitched … plus I also made some minor amendments to a lovely wall-hanging that Sylvia gave me years ago. Anyway, here are the end results – I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:
This one just needs the binding to be stitched down 🙂
Sadly Sylvia’s lovely wall-hanging was folding up due to the high humidity, so I chopped up the hanger into pieces and stitched it in 4 places directly onto a pretty wee wire hanger 🙂
This is what first got me into “sewing machine mode” – the first month’s BOTM fabrics and instructions for my Piece and Plenty quilt … sadly it doesn’t come with any specific instructions for each block, and I’ve ended up spending a fair bit of time rummaging through my quilting books and online tutorials trying to work out how to do paper piecing – once I’ve got a bit more comfortable with my sewing machine I’ll be ready to start this one 😀
You will need:
1. First of all trim your stitched piece, and cut your coordinating fabric to your preferred length and the approximate width of your sewing project. In my case I have chosen to have my coordinating fabric at the bottom of my stitched piece, and I prefer to have the quilting fabric slightly smaller than my stitched piece so it doesn’t take too much attention from the stitching – I have, however, seen some stunning pillows with the stitching taking up just a small amount of room at the top of the pillow. The only difference is down to your preference, as the finishing process is exactly the same.
2. Pin the fabrics together, with right sides facing, and stitch a normal seam allowance (alternatively you may prefer to just a quilters 1/4″ seam).
3. At this point I cut off my excess fabrics on each side, and trim my seams to 1/4″. This is also the time when you should open up the seam(s) and give a quick pressing with the iron.
4. If you have decided to have fabric on both sides of your stitching (either top and bottom, or left and right) this you will need to repeat the above process a second time for the additional piece of fabric. Once you’ve finished attaching the coordinating fabrics, check the edges to ensure they’re all even, and give it a quick trim with the rotary cutter if needed.
5. At this point I add any seam embellishments to the pillow front. For this particular pillow I just wanted to add one row of matching ric-a-rac. This can either be attached by the sewing machine or by hand (I ended up adding this one by hand, as I didn’t have a matching brown sewing machine thread). This is also a good time to add any buttons or other trims you want to add, prior to constructing the pillow itself. Alternatively, you can add your ribbon at the very end once the pillow is finished, but just wrapping it around the pillow and tying a bow to hold it in place 🙂
6. Now you need to cut your backing fabric the same size as your finished article, and pin them together with right sides facing together (the right side of the stitching will be on the inside of the sandwich).
7. Stitch a seam allowance around the edges, but leave an opening at the bottom so that you can turn your pillow inside-out. I tend to leave about 1 1/2″ opening and that’s normally enough room to allow for turning.
8. I use a chopstick to help push the corners into a nice shape from the outside – you just have to be careful not to force the seam stitching too much! Once you have turned your pillow inside out, it should look something like this. Now all you have to do is stuff it to your preferred thickness with your favourite stuffing.
9. I close my pillow openings with a ladder stitch – and the following is taken from a previous Christmas ornament tutorial, but is the exact same instruction for closing the pillows.
As you can see from the photo below, I start off by slipping my needle into the seam of the backing fabric, then coming back out about 1/4″ along the seam (about 3mm) and bring my needle out.
I then take my needle directly opposite where I just came out of the backing fabric and slip my needle into the linen and follow the seam along for about 3mm and bring the needle back out again.
I’ve left the stitches nice and loose in the photo below to help illustrate how the stitches follow along opposite each other, like rungs of a ladder.
When you pull the thread tighter, the stitches almost disappear into the fabric, giving a really nice clean finish – this is definitely my favourite stitch for closing up openings for that reason!
Once you reach the end of the seam opening, you need to finish off your thread with a couple of teeny stitches – I then bury the needle into the seam and come out somewhere about an inch way and bring the needle back out again – then clip the thread close to the fabric so that my thread tail does’t appear easily.
And here’s the final seam all finished off – see now nice and tidy that ladder stitch is in the opening? 
10. And that is the final step in your beautiful new pin pillow coming to life. Now all you need to do is to find somewhere to display it where it can be admired by everyone 😀
While I was finishing my wee pillows last weekend, I took a series of photos to create some basic tutorials. Here is the first one:
You will need:
1. First of all cut your coordinating fabric into equal width strips, and approximate width of your sewing project. In my case I have chosen to have two different fabrics on the front of my pillow, and have started with a narrow strip of bright rust fabric for the inner border.
Pin the first strip with right sides facing to your stitching (I prefer to start with the pieces attached to the left and right sides, but you may prefer to start with the top and bottom sections first), and stitch a normal seam allowance (alternatively you may prefer to just a quilters 1/4″ seam).
Once you have stitched the first seam, attach the 2nd strip of fabric to the opposite side of your stitching and stitch another seam.
2. At this point I cut off my excess fabrics on each side, and trim my seams to 1/4″ – I usually prefer to do this because I don’t trust myself to get things right the first time!
3. You finish with nice tidy edges, ready to attach the last two sides of fabric.
4. Before we do that, though, we need to open the fabric sides up and give them a quick press with the iron so that they sit nicely. If you want to you can also do a row of top-stitching to assist with holding the fabric nicely, but I don’t normally bother.
5. Now we attach the top and bottom sides in exactly the same way as we did with the first two sides. Once all sides have finished, I normally check the side strips to ensure they’re nice and tidy and even, and if not I give them a quick trim all round with the rotary cutter.
6. In my case I decided to just have a narrow strip of bright rust fabric as a contrasting focal point, then added some wider strips of fabric for the outside edges. These are attached in exactly the same way as the rust strips, they are just cut into wider pieces. You just need to remember to add the next lot of strips in the same order as you did previously, which was in my case left and right first, followed by top and bottom. Once I had ironed my finished strips I decided that little buttons would be nice in the corners, so I added these before adding the backing fabric.
7. Now you need to cut your backing fabric the same size as your finished article, and pin them together with right sides facing together (the right side of the stitching will be on the inside of the sandwich).
8. Stitch a seam allowance around the edges, but leave an opening at the bottom so that you can turn your pillow inside-out. I tend to leave about 1 1/2″ opening and that’s normally enough room to allow for turning.
9. I use a chopstick to help push the corners into a nice shape from the outside – you just have to be careful not to force the seam stitching too much! Once you have turned your pillow inside out, it should look something like this. Now all you have to do is stuff it to your preferred thickness with your favourite stuffing.
10. I close my pillow openings with a ladder stitch – and the following is taken from a previous Christmas ornament tutorial, but is the exact same instruction for closing the pillows.
As you can see from the photo below, I start off by slipping my needle into the seam of the backing fabric, then coming back out about 1/4″ along the seam (about 3mm) and bring my needle out.
I then take my needle directly opposite where I just came out of the backing fabric and slip my needle into the linen and follow the seam along for about 3mm and bring the needle back out again.
I’ve left the stitches nice and loose in the photo below to help illustrate how the stitches follow along opposite each other, like rungs of a ladder.
When you pull the thread tighter, the stitches almost disappear into the fabric, giving a really nice clean finish – this is definitely my favourite stitch for closing up openings for that reason!
Once you reach the end of the seam opening, you need to finish off your thread with a couple of teeny stitches – I then bury the needle into the seam and come out somewhere about an inch way and bring the needle back out again – then clip the thread close to the fabric so that my thread tail does’t appear easily.
And here’s the final seam all finished off – see now nice and tidy that ladder stitch is in the opening?
11. And that is the final step in your beautiful new pin pillow coming to life. Now all you need to do is to find somewhere to display it where it can be admired by everyone 😀
Today I braved the surface flash flooding and pelting rain of a late afternoon storm and cleared out the PO Box, and was thrilled to see a little card in the box – ‘cos that means there’s squishy mail waiting for me inside the building. Sure enough, I was absolutely THRILLED to open the parcel sent from Marnie, as it contained my prize winnings from her recent prize draw. Unfortunately the photos don’t do this little beauty justice – this little vampire stitching case is seriously awesome! The finishing is absolutely stunning, and there is even the most perfect little pincushion and scissor fob tassel inside! All I need to do now is decide on the perfect pair of scissors to live in this beauty permanently, and it’s going to be on display all year round … I mean, seriously, could you put this away until next Halloween? I definitely can’t! 😀
Not only did Marnie provide the stitching case itself, but she also added a little vampire Pez dispenser (so I am no longer a “Pez virgin”) – alas, the pieces inside the dispenser didn’t survive the drive home, which was a marathon due to the surface flooding, as I scoffed the lot during the drive! Also in the parcel was a few really cool Halloween freebies, that I can’t wait to stitch up. I’ll be cutting up fabrics for them this weekend, and adding them to my Halloween “to-do-pile” for the coming weeks. Thanks again Marnie for an AWESOME parcel of treats – I love, love, LOVE everything! 😀
The other mail was compliments of Ann in Scotland having a stash sale – I’m now the proud owner of 4 Drawn Thread charts (Toccata 1, 2, 3, and Chatelaine and Scissors Keeper), along with some of the threads needed (plus the chatelaine fabric). I’m looking forward to starting at least one of these soon, once I’ve procured the remaining threads. They look like they’ll be really fun stitching a motif or two each night/weekend 🙂
And on that note it’s time to switch off the “fun” side of the computer, and switch on to the “work mode” side … things are beyond hectic at work thanks to someone’s oversight in another department at the 11th hour, and having an unstable test system … I’m days behind in my own work, so I’ve brought it all home with me tonight to try and get at least 1-2 hours done at home. I just have to force myself to keep away from the fun stuff on here, which is really really hard … 😛
BeckySC has offered a challenge to post as many Pumpkin finishes as we can until 25 November as part of her Great Pumpkin Challenge 2010. While I may not be able to contribute too many by the cut-off date, I’ve already kitted up a dozen or so potential designs to take with me on holidays, so I should hopefully get at least another couple of small ones completed by then. And it’s a great motivation to get some Autumn and Halloween stitching done (Halloween stitching would seriously have to be my all-time favourite theme to stitch, if I had to choose one). I have loads and loads of designs that include pumpkins, so this is a really fun challenge to participate in 🙂
While I’m not stitching pumpkins yet, though, I did find a Halloween stitch from earlier in the year that contains a wee pumpkin, so I decided to sit and finish it into a pinkeep today so I add another “finish” into the challenge. Don’t you just love the “Boo!” ribbon? We found this at a local craft show last year 😀 Unfortunately, I only own one Halloween fabric which is really crappy, so I haven’t shared the backing fabric with you … I really, REALLY need to order some Halloween fabrics from the USA, so I can do some more finishing! Plus I really need to turn some pinheads lime green! 😉
And now it’s time to get back to catching up on TV viewing while I potter around and do housework … and start packing for my upcoming holiday 😀
This month I took part in a private Autumn Exchange, and Lisa V was my ‘victim’ for some autumn goodies. I just heard from Lisa that my little parcel has arrived safe and sound on the other side of the country, so I can now share my finishes. As this was a no-extras exchange, my little postal box to Lisa contained two items … the little humbug REALLY wanted to stay home here with me, so I’ll just have to restitch this one for myself I think 😀
<
“A Very Merry Autumn” by JBW Designs
stitched on 28ct Antique Ivory Cashel linen
with Crescent Colours threads
“Hootzi Humbug” by Just Nan
stitched on 28ct Antique Ivory Cashel linen
with recommended DMC threads and Delica beads
I have absolutely nothing to show stitching WIP-wise this week, as I’ve been clocking some mental hours at work, with a few 12 hour days. My new all-time record was a 16 1/2 hour day yesterday – 12 of them in the office, then I came home and did the remainder at home, finishing at 1.30am this morning. I still have enough work to keep me going for one more entire day, but I thought I’d take a break for a bit – although I have a major deadline looming, so I have to do it over the weekend to get it finished in time for review on Tuesday morning (it’s a long weekend here in Sydney this weekend).
Seeing as I don’t have any WIP updates, I thought I’d go ahead and post the exchange I posted off last week. I haven’t heard that it’s arrived, but it should be there by now 🙂
You will remember that I shared the ‘back sides” last week, well here are the fronts. I was very sad to see these ones leave home … I think I just may have to repeat this exchange all for myself – love, love, love the colours – I just hope my recipient likes it too!
Freebie from My Aunt’s Attic
Stitched on 32ct white Belfast linen
with DMC 4030 thread
(homemade tassel & cord also in DMC 4030 thread)
Freebie by Le Petit Monde de Vavi
Stitched on 32ct white Belfast linen
with DMC 4030 thread
And seeing as I have nothing else to share today, I’ll end with this week’s Photo Hunt, as I ran out of pre-published posts last week and have to think of this one from scratch. Alas, no future themes are out yet either, so I guess next week’s will be from scratch too…
This week’s theme is ”Public” and I went with the following dictionary definition:
“Definition:Open to common or general use; as, a public road; a public house.”
In saying that, here are my choices for this week … Here I am waiting for a bus at the public bus depot in Nadi … during a flood (and no, I have no expectation that a bus will really arrive!).
Or perhaps a public road at Edfu markets, Egypt…
In my overflowing mailbox this week I received an exquisite exchange from Elaine in NZ (this was an exchange hosted by the StitchNZ Yahoo Group). I’m absolutely thrilled with this exchange – I really adore hardanger, although I still haven’t kicked myself in the pants enough to get back into it myself again … and this one is just gorgeous! Elaine made it into a stitching pocket so I can hold my needlework tools and supplies – and sent along a matching wee pincushion (so gorgeous!) and packet of needles. I’ve taken loads of photos so you can share in the beautiful stitching detail of this piece – while photos never do stitching real justice, I’m sure you can imagine that the finished piece is even more exquisite! Thanks Elaine for a wonderful exchange! 😀
My exchange piece unfortunately left a little bit late (actually a whole week late, ahem!) … thanks to not being able to get to the Post Office. As I’m pretty positive the recipient doesn’t read my blog, but perhaps I’d better play it safe and not post details about it yet … I’ll tempt you with a photo of the ‘backside’ in the meantime, and will post more when it’s received 🙂
What’s next??? Oh yes, yesterday I sat in the lounge with Katie watching Dark Angel DVDs, and doing a teeny bit of finishing – I managed to get the Christmas Ornament tutorial photos completed (very basic ornie) which also means one more ornament off the finishing pile, my Just Nan Ladybug Santa is now in its little Whimzi frame, and I completed the Periwinkle Promises January Sampler Accent into its little pillow, complete with little corner tassels (I ran out of silk for the backing fabric/joining, but luckily had a skein or two in my stash that I was grab to finish this one off).
As for my WIPs themselves, I’ve done very very little stitching over the last week or so – I managed to put a handful of beads into Chatelaine’s Egyptian Garden Mandala (3 nights of beading and I’m still not even halfway finished the one band of beads – the row on the edge of the lotus flowers) – it doesn’t help that the beads don’t sit nicely with that poxy fabric that I’m using, so I’m having to squeeze the beads in and offset them every 6 or 7 beads:
Then yesterday I managed to complete some more of the border of the Quaker Huswif, and am now working on the bottom quaker band. Once this section is finished, I’ll be flipping the design upside down and unrolling the scrollbars to work on the final two sections at the other end – I think at this point in time I’m pretty much sitting on the halfway mark of this piece 🙂
And that’s pretty much it for now … not sure what I’ll be stitching on this week, if anything … I’ve got some big deadlines at work over the next fortnight, so I may be putting in some longer hours, which means less mental/physical energy for stitching …
PhotoHunt
Feather Stitching 