Little book

More like a booklet really ...it is just several pages.  With samples of my work to remind me of how I did certain things or things I want to try at some future point.


Anyway... here are a few of my pages.

Variegated embroidery thread.

I moved the white on white embroidery to a page with a bit of colour.   I wrote myself notes as you can see...for down the road when I'm sure to forget what things were.
Some day I want to do a pincushion with yellows and ruffles .. I still have some of the fragile silk hanky..just waiting to be used.......

The pale pink flower pounded fabric below is pretty but it never did become quite what I envisioned when I tried to piece it together so cut it into smaller pieces and have used it in my book.

I did a pincushion in taupes with a bit of another piece of flower pounded fabric and love it... I wish this one had worked out as well....but, it didn't and now...I'm just happy it's still good for something.

Wanted to show you my other flower pounding piece if you haven't see it before.  I posted it a while back. Lovely Olde Worlde tatting cut off a beautiful vintage hanky that I bought at a doll and bear show...for only pennies...I almost felt guilty.  I managed to buy 4 lovely hankies that day.  Thanks to that wonderful lady whoever she was.

Olde Worlde look ...

... I think it looks like something vintage .... and, it does have a bit of actual vintage on it...the tatted edge of a hankie that I bought at the local doll/bear show a month or so ago.  A woman had several silk hankies ..for 25 cents and 50 cents!  I snapped up most of them.

Of course, one does hate to cut into them....but, like Karen says ... why put them in a drawer and forget about them?  Use them on something else .. something that will be seen often.

What about a pin cushion?  Perfect.

The colour on the piece of fabric is flower pounding... using flowers from my garden.  I did it ages ago ...and stuck in in a bag with other fabrics... hahahahah...never to be seen again either really...... looks a bit like watercolour doesn't it?

Pssst... don't tell Karen I showed it publicly without damp stretching it...yikes!! It looks all wrinkly!
Almost as bad as showing your underwear in public....well, ...if you are over 30 that is.

I use my little pin cushions all the time .. some sit behind glass in a curio ... some have been sent away.... they get used and they definitely get looked at. No hankies in hidden places in drawers around here.

Egg-stra stitching..

.... oh, brother....I suppose I could go on forever with the eggy titles...but, I should quit...hahhaha.... but, why? .... it's kinda fun and ...funny to me..... good enough.

Doing some extra stitching on the scalloped edge of the lace on the top of this one.... Karen's little frilly dilly stitch...she calls it Frilly Picot.  I never know if I've got it quite right...but, it looks right to me and with the number 12 Perle cotton and if I pull each stitch pretty tight...I can get it tiny.  Click on the photo to "biggify" and you can see it so much better.  I love it.  And, I think it really enhances the flat lace.  Gives it more body or something... and makes it more interesting to look at.


See the four little tiny scalloped bits on the lace edge? ....  just above the umbrella looking machine stitched flower on the cotton fabric I used for the base fabric?  Those are my little frilly dilly thingies ..... with some French Knots above holding the lace in position.. until the whole egg gets a backing of white silk.




I'm debating what to use for trim on this other guy...and ... more or less leaning towards a bit of this lace on the top end of the egg......

Not much time to stitch today ....but, must do a few each day at the very least.........every little helps, as my Mum was fond of saying.... then she would add...... "said the little old lady who peed in the sea"....... must be an old English saying ..or ... maybe she just made it up .......

Hatching some eggs

I made up a second sheet of fabric in bright whites.  The piece with the flowers embroidered on it was sent to me in a fabric swap organized by the first group I took a class with.

If Lexxie visits my site... which I don't think she does ...she may remember this piece... look Lexxie!  I'm using it.  It is shiny and she loves shiny ... well, actually ...who doesn't? ..hahhaha... I think Magpie is the middle name of most women.

I did the same thing I did when I was making the pin cushions.  Seeing as I just can't visualize things finished without a frame to view it in....I viewed it with my newly made egg template.  Perfect.  Now, I can work away on it ...inside stitched lines...but, always with my viewer nearby.  Grab. Place. View.

Love it....

I decided to make several ...    in the same style as my cushions.

 Here is the first one so far.

I'm egg-cited....

I dreamed up something else to do with my special fabrics and trims.   Egg day is not far off.  So.. I thought... why do pincushions or hangings have to be rectangle or stocking shaped? ..  and drew myself an egg shape too.

Look how cute an egg will be when made from a piece of the fabric I made using narrow strips.  The sheet I got busy and made and then had nothing to do with it once it was done... hahah... except for using as test pieces and perhaps on a page or two of my stitching journal......but, now.... I want to get busy and make me some eggs!

I just want to do some stitching...

hiding...

...in the house.
It's pretty brisk out there ....-24C and the wind is blustery at 25kph ... that means it's ..uhm, .... cold.  Too cold to go out.  The snow isn't conducive to building snowmen anyway..

Pinned a silk backing to my pouch.

Stitched around 3 sides and a portion of the fourth and then, turned it through that opening.  Now I need to close that opening by hand... stitch a portion of the folds closed and stitch all around the outside edges  ... buttonhole around the edges.... ... hmmm... still quite a bit of stitching to do really.  But... happy to get this done today and see how it is going to look... still haven't decided exactly where it will fold over... and..... it's a pretty large pouch...hahhahah...

The back in this folded configuration.... who knows if it will stay like this... maybe it could even be overlapped and have buttons or toggles or ties.... We'll see.

Laugh a little....

Here's a good one that goes along with yesterday's post and several other blog posts I've done in the past...

Perfect!



"The secret of success is to go from mistake to mistake without losing your enthusiasm".

Anonymous.





Enthusiasm and perseverance ..   I've got those......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday I was playing with  my gauzy square and trying to get a pretty piece of FME (free motion embroidery) out of it.
It's much easier to stitch on than my cheesecloth for sure ... and look how it gathers it up between the stitching... tiny puckers and lovely areas ... I added some bits of tulle type lace and some edges of trim here and there to see what each looked like..... just a fun time of playing....

A page..

I cut up my fabric that I've been playing with ....and decided to make an opening on my page to display a portion of it.  It will serve to remind me of what I did with this particular piece... how I stitched it ... how I manipulated the bits of lace and silk... the actual stitches I used...

In this particular case..it will also serve as a reminder never to stitch a piece directly onto my page!!  Wow!  What a tricky thing to try.  Why didn't I just use double sided tape like everybody else?  Oh, no..not moi.... I figured it might be just as easy to stitch it onto the paper.  Wrong!   the down stitches were just fine, but the ones coming back up again?  from beneath paper and several layers of fabric? ... arrrgghhh!  I couldn't see the holes even when I held the page up to a bright light... and ended up having to poke a needle through each hole from the topside... guide my sewing needle to the exact spot and withdraw the top needle and carefully poke up with the stitching needle.  As you can guess ... the air was particularly blue at several points during my ordeal.  And, yes, it was a bit of an ordeal.  Next time...play with paper stitching and just enjoy it ... .. tack on fabric later...

Oh, and... I also did the unthinkable.  Stabbed my finger a good one and bled on the paper before I even realized it.  Luckily, I also licked the bloody area immediately...  and then had to lick again because it just smeared... ... and then, luckily ... I was able to blot it off easily with paper towel.  Whew.
Saved the page after I had worked so diligently with my stitching...

I was having some fun with FME also... onto a gauzy square with a few little embroidered flowers on it.  I'm not sure what it is ...perhaps a table protector of some sort... too big for a hanky ...  not really a doily... too small for a scarf...... Maggi found it for me...

I love how the FME looks on it...I'll try a bit more and try for better photos of it...  I cut a bit of it and added it to this smaller piece of the fabric...

some embellishment...

...and some stitching too.  And, I even managed to adjust a few things on my editing program... to make my photo appear nicer.  More lightness to it than the original for sure ..and more definition... thanks Karen.

I found a use for a beautiful small piece of very fine silk sent to me by one of the girls in my first stitching class all those months ago.... I ruched it a bit as I was stitching it into position and added some French knots and bullion knots here and there.....

Playing with placement of a piece of a bit of FME fabric that I made a while ago.... haven't decided where I'm going to put it yet.....

Buttonhole lace edging around the edges to tame some wild straggly bits.  I'm going to double wrap the three cross threads.... the threads I wrapped were only a few threads on cheesecloth... pretty delicate and fragile.... it maybe needs bulking up a bit ....

a page..

I've begun a ledger in which I am documenting stitches and information ..  all the girls in the classes seem to be doing it ...and ...Karen has some doozy pages in her ledgers... just check out her blog sometime ... and, well, I didn't want to be left out I guess.

Haven't a clue what it's all about really...but, I'll be having some fun doing it.  From what I've seen, just trying to put a cohesive and beautiful page together is a feat in itself.  Mostly I'm sure mine will be sort of fly-by the-seat-of-my-pants .... or, as my younger sister always used to say ... "fake it 'til you can make it"......and she had some dandy jobs back in the day even though she had never attempted anything remotely resembling the positions prior to applying.

I think I'll even make an attempt at making some small journals.  I found some tutorials online.  Meantime... in my big spiral bound art book.... this is my page for this week... because heart day is approaching ....

French Knots on paper....

There is more to do yet... more French Knots; some paper pricking ... and some more embroidery ...

Utility stitches .....

...taking some photos of my tiny stitches on my blocks.... talking out loud of course, to anybody who would listen.... mentioning about utility stitches and how the women of old used them so neatly to piece things together and make them look pretty, and how they were the basis, really, of our stitching classes with Karen... etc.....

Here I've done tiny stab stitches
















Here, a tiny running stitch along some silk edges..

They may, or may not, be finished with just the little utility stitching...but, I'll wait til I get all the blocks pieced to make more decisions on that.


All of a sudden.... Mr. BV was beside me .... holding something.... and saying he had "something that I could practice my utility stitching on" ....

I looked up from the fun stuff and discovered this ....

.....a button had totally broken in the centre and come off his slacks...... sigh....yep...that'd be utility all right.... right back to basics.


One of the few things that I could do for years.... stitch on buttons and hem slacks and dresses by hand...seeing as I didn't have a machine and...didn't know how to use one anyway.....  some days I got lazy and took them to the cleaners and had them stitch hems...but, they got to be over $12 each pair and I got penurious.... especially when we were saving for this house.

Thinking about it.....

Karen stopped in to see if any stitching was happening in between snow shovelling...and, well, ...it wasn't, of course.

It's already been almost two weeks since somebunny decided we had to tear the drywall ceiling down in the finished tv room and replace it with a suspended ceiling.  Mostly because of some wiring ..  ... and, well, .. you know how it goes....   it does take time, effort, and lots of work, to get things back together again.  Now that he is back at work after the Christmas break... he only has such a few hours each day to work on it...

So, the room still looks like this...plastic protecting the other half of the room... drop cloths covering the carpet, tools all over the place and lots happening overhead..

Moving some pot lights and re-arranging wiring, etc...

However, my stitching buddy came for tea on Monday ...  and, although we didn't actually do any crafting or stitching...we did discuss what we are going to make in 2014 and that got me thinking 'bout stitching..and that lead to looking at stitching stuff later in the day, and that ... you get the drift............................

I've decided to make a pouch with the completed blocks from the first stitching class I took with Karen. It was going to be a wrapping cloth...but, since doing the little pin cushions and loving them...I decided to turn these into a smaller project that I know I can and will finish.   I do like the joy and satisfaction of completing a little project and being able to look at it and say..." I made that".  Maybe it sounds almost arrogant, but to me it's more just a bit of slightly smug satisfaction in knowing that I worked diligently and carefully on something; actually finished it off, and am happy with my project.  I like that feeling.

Here is the placement of my blocks...it could be a smallish wrapping cloth, I suppose ... or I could make a few more blocks and make it somewhat larger....but, no...I've decided a decent sized pouch that I can use for bits of lace, or pieces of fabric, or something like that, will be better.  Useful and still pretty ... just what we were striving for actually, if we were going back in time in our minds and hearts while stitching away on our treasured little bits of fabric and trim........

For some reason, even though I didn't measure any block....they all turned out to be exactly the same size across.  How strange is that?  They are not  the same length.  I may add a bit of lace or some trim here and there to change the centre as it might look like a seam down it.  That may look just fine.  I won't really know 'til I have it stitched down.  But, if it looks strange, or I don't like it  ...I can fix that .... we have ways.   I'll decide later.  Probably much later.......

If you come to the blog sort of regularly, you may remember seeing some of the embroidery and embellishment, but if not..here are few shots of the areas. I tried to incorporate most of the techniques that Karen was showing us in the class.

Today I'm still trying to get somebody to buy my sofa and loveseat... because, Monday some new ones are arriving ... who wants a really nice sofa or a  loveseat, traditional style...exceptional shape...for next to nothing? ... Anybody in Calgary reading my blog? .....

It's Christmas all over again at my house!!!

woohoooo....!!  I did a trade with one of the ladies in my stitching group... and both of us were getting pretty down in the mouth, because her pincushion to me went astray.  It's been in transit since early December and ...well, ... should've been here long before now, so we figured somebody else got a nice present .... but, it's arrived today!!  and...it is beeeyoootiful!

Soft creams and ecru colours with bits of greens and some pearlized seed beads.  Such beautiful attention to every little detail.  Click on the photos to biggify and see things better.

I don't recognize the stitch along this corner of the edge.... but, now confirmed... it is crochet.....

So many little corners to look at over and over again...tiny stitching and details to check out ... I'm back and forth between windows with it to look at every aspect of it in really good light.

I loved it in photos I had seen of it before I got it....and it is even more beautiful "in person" .... oh, what a fun day today is!!

And,  now...into my curio cabinet with it.... so no grubby hands will touch it.  Yes, you can look at it..but, from behind glass.......... so it will be a treasure well protected ....

Show and tell..

Finally!! I've had to keep it under wraps 'til now because my stitching buddy Maggi hadn't yet received it ...and she does check out this blog every so often... I didn't want to spoil my little surprise.

Remember the 'master sheet' of fabric I made from various bits of other fabrics?  Well, here is something else I decided to make from it..instead of just pincushions.... a little Christmas stocking.

I cut a design in light cardboard and moved it around over various parts of my sheet of fabrc..to decide on the best area to begin.  Tried bits of trim and got a feel for how it might look when finished.  Of course, it always changes midstream...but, that's fine... it's mostly just to find a great place to start.

See?  It did change ...I decided on a totally different area, but that's fine.... I'm sure nothing is ever set in stone when doing handwork.

I figured out a little bell in cross stitch and used some seed beads for a clanger... made some gold stars and tried a few French Knots with single strand of thread...  that was tricky...the gals on our stitching Flickr group heard about it and offered suggestions to tame unruly gold threads.... thanks ladies!
An edge of buttonhole lace on the real piece of lace on the heel, and a few green and red threads for holly and berries.. and, as they say....et voilà!
I did find a perfect ribbon instead of the cord to hang it ...but, no, I did not remember to take a final photo of the finished product.  Too eager to get it on its way to Maggi's house.... ...

I love my own little rendition of some Christmas bells....  here you can see them close up before I added the lace to the heel.

And, because I was so pumped with my finished stocking...I just had to do another ...and it was easy to finish on time as I had already done plenty of hand embroidery on what I thought would be another pincushion....but, for some reason...I was having big trouble deciding what to put on the left side of this piece of stitchery...total mental block it seemed....... .until...I looked at it through my "stocking" viewfinder instead of this "pincushion" block ... ...hahahha....all of a sudden.. a stocking it became!!

The three large rose looking flowers are actually bits cut from the piece of lace fabric I won from Karen a while ago.... I added some bullion stitches around them...and of course, had a lot of my favs...tiny Forget-Me-Knot flowers....

Once I decided it was becoming a Christmas stocking I had to add some gold stars to mine as well... copying the first Christmas stocking... and found a bit more ribbon to hang it ....

Directly onto our tree it went.