shaded embroidery, fabric scraps & vintage eyelet lace

If you love embroidery -- and I do! -- you must pick up this book:

Clare Hanham explains shaded embroidery so well with her wonderful pics and directions.

So after paging through this, a huge dose of creative inspiration surges through my body (this is when my family tries to quietly escape out the front door....)

And I start scrounging through my fabric scraps, embroidery thread and found pieces of vintage eyelet lace...

.And begin.

In her book she starts you out with very basic 3 shades of pink embroidery floss and simple long/short stitches to make this flower.

The piece becomes so vivid with just the subtle changes of colored thread.

I was pleasantly surprised --okay, shocked really -- with these results.

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Quite easy. Quite do-able. And when becoming so frustrated with having to count out stitches in a cross-stitch pattern, well -- this may be the answer!

And now I must figure out how to finish off this tiny piece.

butterfly in knots

Seeing a wonderful project involving french knots, I asked myself just how hard can it be to embroider a 'few' french knots!? Keep in mind that I had to get this done in about a week.
.
Ha.



And after about the billionth french knot -- and yes, I saw them in my sleep -- I swore I would never make another french knot. Ever. Who knew making these things could take soooooooo long! Phew.

~

Anyway. I do love french knots and got the delightful pattern from this book:

I used a little bit of a different color scheme -- love the periwinkles! Then raided my stash for some sort of complimentary fabric for the border. And finished it with machine quilting in a pearly meandering.

I purchased a ornate candle holder from the Dollar Store and had my husband clip off the candle
part of it and was left with this whimsical hangar. Because the candle holder was a dark burnished color, I aged it all vintage-y looking with white paint dabbed on with a sponge.

Whimsical and blissful. Even if the french knots were almost the death of me.....

birdhouse

The busy-ness of school winding down in our house has left all of us scurrying here and scurrying there trying to get. everything. done.
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But I can find time to sew. And even tho I seem to have this love-hate relationship with fabric lately -- ugh -- I love the picking out of fabrics. The putting together of complimentary colors, but oh, the absolute physical reluctance to sew it into anything -- it has become such a love/hate relationship for me.

So, I will stick to smaller projects. Projects that make me smile with ease and not cringe with overwhelmingness -- is that a word?

Choosing pastel prints and trying to think of something pretty to applique, I decided on a birdhouse. I merely drew this from my head onto fusible web and ironed it to muslin.

And what's a birdhouse without wild roses winding their way around the post?

A gift for my sister-in-law. Her entry way is decorated with so many birdhouses. You just can't have too many birdhouses welcoming your guests when they enter your house. Right? Well, I hope she agrees!

A bit of simpleness with a vintage, white button.

A birthday birdhouse for not only for someone who is my sister-in-law, but for someone who has become a dear, dear friend.

crazy for a purple pillow

I'm a bit crazy for purple. And it's funny -- I have found that others either love this color -- or hate it.

I love it. And I love embroidered flowers. And I love the sweet ambience & serenity of this English Country cottage.

I simply printed a pic from a computer image onto muslin that had been ironed onto parchment paper. So easy, although truth be told -> my husband would freak if he knew I was running fabric through our printer.

.

And then pulling a whole slew of purple fabrics, I built this crazy block by just adding & sewing & cutting & more adding & more sewing & and more cutting purple fabrics.

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Then the embellishment begins and ironing on vintage embroidery transfers, I 'planted' a thread garden.

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Someday. I will reside in such a place as this.

But for now, it will have just have to be a crazy pillow.

show some sewing love pt. 2

(ahem...no peeking, Harley!)


Hearts, cupcakes & puppies. Just the thought of all 3 of them conjures up 'sewing love' in some way or another.
~

This is part 2 of Dandelion Quilt's, Show Some Sewing Love swap.




The flowery, brown fabric looked so delicious -- like chocolate frosting on a cupcake -- that I just had to make a cupcake to go with her tiny heart quilt.

~

The cupcake pattern is from this yummy, yummy book.

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Said with a content smile -->'Definitely showing some sewing love.' I'm hoping she can feel that when she receives it.

showing some sewing love

(Disclaimer: If your name is Harley ---> Stop reading now.....

you'll ruin the surprise...)

~

I am participating in Dandelion Quilts

Show Some Sewing Love Swap

and this is what is on my 'design table' for that swap.

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What begins as a blank canvas turns
~

into -penciled in- ideas

& sewn paper-pieced blocks.

Add small stitches of embroidery

& those 3 simple blocks turn into

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a kitty-approved wall-hanging.
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(Fabric is bits & pieces from my stash -- mostly Hobby Lobby yardage
& the paper-pieced block patterns come from

Carol Doak's 300 Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks book.)

<3's for Lin

I have 'met' a beautiful lady, Lin and she is making me a sweet quilt and I -- in turn -- made this 12' x 12' quilt for her.

We had to somehow incorporate hearts in our quilt and I pulled this 'theme' from a girl's shirt that was on the cover of a flyer for school clothes that came in our local newspaper. I added off-white embroidery swirls to highlight the khaki background fabric.

And seeing knotgarden's glorious flowers (oh! you must go & take a look!) that she has featured on her beautiful blog, I decided to include a flower for Lin & crocheted this mum. Now, it's all boxed up and headed off for a very loooooooooooong plane ride. Destination: Thailand.

~~

Enjoy the <3's, Lin!

simple bird

~I heard a bird at break of day

Sing from the autumn trees

A song so mystical and calm,

So full of certainties,

No man, I think, could listen long

Except upon his knees;

Yet, this was but a simple bird,

Alone, among the trees.~

William Alexander Percy 1885-1942

This simple bird, hand-embroidered with appliqued flowers is now done. Phew. Took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but coupled with the yellow cabbage rose fabric -- I am SO pleased at how it turned out.

The bag itself was quite easy to sew. But thank goodness for the drawings because I am not someone who can just follow the written word. Draw it out for me and you got yourself one happy lady.

The inside of this bag is that aprony goodness that my GrAnna would have made and worn. Obviously no more explanation why that fabric went into this bag. Just one tiny draw-back about this bag -- it is too small for me to use. I tend to use a purse the size of a suitcase. My husband just looooooooooooves that.



But my girls DO like the smallness of it. And especially the wonky way the handle slides into the other handle as the closure. I just love the colors, the texture of the embroidery and the eclectic choice of fabrics. We'll see how well it does in the bag challenge.

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Edit: Dandy will have our pics loaded for the bag challenge by this weekend. You can go to All People Quilt and take a look at the bags.

birdy bag

Dandy asked me if I wanted to join her in this bag challenge --

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Hmmmm.........let's see -- it involves new fabric, a fun, fun purse pattern, fabulous floss & an excuse to sit & sew with a faraway friend -- believe me, my arm did not need too much twisting!

So she sent me swatches of the bag she made and off to the fabric store I went in search of coordinating fabric and I found these yummy fabrics -- and yes! I-want-my-entire-bedroom-wallpapered-in-this-flower-fabric -- (Sorry, dear. -- insert husband rolling his eyes-->here.)

The front panel of this bag will get this embroidered birdy. I'm stitching this little guy every chance I get because the split stitch and chain stitch is a little bit more time consuming than I thought. Okay -- a lot more time consuming than I thought.

And since this weekend is Labor Day weekend, I am hoping to carry this with me and prop myself in a lawn chair the eeeeeeeeentire weekend -- while my no-flowers-on-my-bedroom-wall husband will be grilling all of our meals on the outdoor grill & the kids will be cleaning up after him..... ahem.

apple blossoms & mushrooms

Remember this block? This block that caused such a stand-still in my little quilting world. Well, all of you were right! ----> I would go back to it...........

......after walking through our yard and spotting this on our apple tree -- along with oodles of them that have already fallen -- I knew that block for The Family Quilt must get done. Sheesh! If real trees are already dropping their gorgeous fruit, why can't I get some simple blossoms done on a simple block?

So the apple blossoms are now hand appliqued with hints of embellished embroidery.

And that got my enthusiasm so peaked! I am now putting together the next block -- and this one has to do with guinea pigs and mushrooms. Our kids have/had the cutest, little pink-nosed guinea pigs --adorable is such an understatement!

Here is the work in progress. But I am SO glad that I got kick-started into working on this quilt once again!

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Psssssst. tHaNk YoU to all of you who were there nudging me along!