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.

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.

hand made lacy fabric

Well, that's what we are calling it ...cuz we mostly do make it ourselves using FME (free motion embroidery) on the machine.... albeit on some base of scrim as lucky Karen gets to use...or in the case of us gals in Canada and the U.S. ... silly old cheesecloth...which is not nearly as nice to work on and it becomes stiffer somehow than the scrim too...

My own has some off white bits added and I don't care for it as much...plus, I think I've decided not to FME it so fully..maybe that makes things a bit stiffer as well.

I am using the piece I won from Karen to cut up and add to my latest endeavours with the pincushions and those are the hole-y areas... almost sacrilege to cut it ..but I am putting it to great use...at least I think so.

 I did a practice bit on the edge of the scrim and on my cheesecloth, and they did feel more similar when I used exactly the same bits of soft lace to add to it ..and did a bit less FME... it'll save on the reels of cotton too..hahhaha...the only thing I really know about FME is that is does use many yards of thread... bobbins actually ..already...

Okay, now I'm off to rummage in the storage area looking for my little walnut mice bits and pieces ....and also the origami ornaments to play with.  Must make some each year to give to folks.... always a new face that doesn't have one or two for their tree...
It's a perfect day to play inside at -17C  although, I must try to shovel a bit later...the drifts are huge and packed pretty stiffly...but, maybe I'll wait until the 60 kph winds die down a bit ... they are saying it is wind chill of -30C  ...brrrrr.....

I am NOT a morning person...

...and usually when I do try to be more productive by 'doing' too early, or if I try something that calls for the little grey cells to be more active than they usually are before 10:00..or need my eyes to see something before they are ready to do that.... ..... ...well, let's just say ..sometimes it isn't worth it.

This morning I took my coffee into my sewing room and was eager to put together my latest little pincushion.. even had the machine all set up and threaded, because I was also trying some FME on open weave fabric yesterday ....easy right? ...just change feet, raise the 'dogs' and sew around the 3 sides of my pillow.


acckkkk!  .....wtfajita???.. ........ .....    dammit!!!   No way!!  I'm not picking out those teensy tiny stitches...NOT!

Obviously I wasn't even thinking, period; never mind thinking clearly.  Stitched around the 3 sides of what is going to be my newest pin pillow alright ... ..... but, totally forgot to put on the silk backing ...and the piece of thin cotton that backs the silk..... what a nimno!  I took it off the machine and looked at it and it still didn't even register ...'til I thought... now how do I turn this? ... there is nothing to turn...what have I done? .... Sheeesh...... So.... either pick it all out ..which did not happen, because it would have ruined the satin-one-side-crepe-y fabric, I just know it would've.  Instead...I put on the backing material..pinned and stitched it as I was supposed to do in the first place ...just barely inside the other line of stitching... whew!  It worked.  Happy camper, me. Saved my lovely piece of fabric and embroidering..

So, I have a slightly smaller cushion..but, not enough that anybody would notice or care... because there is no regulation size, of course......

I particularly like this little area of webs and detached chain leaves.. peeking out from under the lace that runs across ...

Now...just to stuff, close and stitch around the outside ...and my first off white cushion is a reality...

working on something else.

....learning to do things with paper and fabric and FME and ...well, just about everything in Karen's latest class.  She's got us moving in all directions...  making sure the newbies taking a class for the first time know all the stitches and tricks  ..  ..and keeping us prior students interested as well... must be a tricky thing actually...but, she seems to manage it.

Making a page for my info/inspiration ledger...  I"m still trying to decide if I will give it a name or just put 'stuff' in it...hahhaha.... it's only for me really...and I know what it is and what's in there ...so it isn't that important...

Remember my fashion sketch? ... here is a rough one simulating the gown's bottom edge...  made to use for a page in my book  ...FME over bits of silk, organza and lace ..and the bits on the side? ..just some initial practice pieces and also... it adds balance to my page...

This little piece is silk with lace FME'd onto it... it ruched up like that.. probably because it was just a small piece and difficult to keep flat really.....but, wouldn't it look pretty as part of something to wear? ....

and, look at the back of my paper  ... wow... ....

stylized snowy trees.....aren't they lovely?

Christmas cards spring to mind........ sorry... somebody had to say it....

Cabbage butterflies...

... they are pretty little things... they like to visit my colourful flowers in the pots.

                                                                         




Wow!!  the middle of August already!  Where has the summer gone?  We had a pretty wet one and now?...really hot.  Yesterday we golfed in +29C .... and today it is supposed to be the same.... not golfing today that's for sure.  Not that I usually golf two days in a row anyway...how do the old farts do it?  Oh, yeh...I am an old fart, I should should know this one.... but, I don't.  Some of them must have a lot more oomph than I have, that's all I can say.

Still doing a bit of stitching here and there .... but, not regularly, and have taken a bit of a break from the wrapping cloth pieces.  I have decided to try my hand at making a little pin cushion...not showing til it is finished though....

However, here is a bit of the stitching I was doing on the wrapping cloth piece.... utility stitches...patching .. and just making things pretty ... we were making little squares but, this time folding the edges over on the working side..  I stitched one onto the hanky corner... added some knots and then thought about tucking one just under the corner ...

Then, I got to thinking it might look cute added on to the first little square on top of the hanky corner instead of underneath it... still deciding....

The lacy edged hanky is one my Mom gave me many years ago... it has been hiding in a drawer ...  as so many beautiful pieces usually do.  Karen's suggestion is...why not use it in our project.  Give it new life and enjoy it .... even if we have to cut it to incorporate it into our creation.  I'm betting my Mom would love the way it fits in with all the other pretty pieces I have gathered and used in my little project.  She was always our biggest cheerleader and supporter no matter what we attempted in our lives....I'm sure she would be thrilled to know I kept my hanky (well, not just this one either, ... ...but, all of them that she gave me over the years) and am now getting to use them like this.  She wouldn't be totally surprised at my keeping them in pristine condition ...that was always my way..... I had dolls and things I never played with...just kept and looked at and enjoyed in their new condition... I was a strange kid....

After I added French knots and a few other stitches to the square ...I turned it over and thought.... gee if I am going to leave it loose... you will see the messy under side... maybe I'll just cover the stitching with a piece of silk to make it look nicely finished ...

and.....so I did.  There now.... nice and tidy underneath as well.  Love and devotion, as Karen would say..... care and attention to detail.... always me anyway....... and, just like Karen, I'm kind of proud of that in me.  Sure, some folks find it strange... but, there you have it.  It's good to like your own quirks and foibles don'tcha think?

Hiya

Just wanted to show you a nice photo of some scenery along the Trans Canada highway.  Taken a few years ago actually.... click to bigify..you'll enjoy it more.... it's pretty out there ....



 .... because.....    all I have to show other than that ...is .... embroidery!!!!!!!!!!  hahahha...yeh....I know ... sorry, it is all I am doing lately other than playing golf...and I say 'playing' because that is all I am really doing....not golfing...just playing at it.  I'm a lousy golfer... but, I love going out there ...

anyway....today I am working on some thread wrapping and some French knots along one of the seams of my cloth...

There ya have it.... that's all for today.... not much I know....

continuing on...

...with Harley......the heart.... hahahha.....

I made it my love piece.  Smoooooches..... kissies.....


Added some little "x"s, French knots, and satin stitched hearts....

 ....moving on......to the piece of fabric directly above this one.  I'm trying some bullion knots along the seam.  First bullions on my cloth at all.  Just a minute, I lied.  I did a few around one of the cut work areas...but, they were in a tidy row.  Not doing tidy seems to be the problem.  I've been having difficulty making them look good to my own eye in any arrangement I've tried that isn't more or less perfectly ordered.  This one is ending up being almost criss cross ..instead of just higgeldy piggeldy .... (is that how you spell that?...looks funny...) .... anyway.... watch this space .... more to come.  You knew that.

not really cross stitch .....

I tried a bit of cross stitching on my new waste canvas that I got when Maggi and went shopping... Oh, but first, let me tell you.... at the same little shop I finally found some Coton a Broder, which 'til now I have been unable to find in Canada.  Woohooo ..   I was so excited, and wouldn't you know, I've lost Karen's list of colours and numbers and such...so bought a few of each.

Couldn't wait to give it a try.  It is totally different from the Perle cotton which I have been using ...or the DMC regular embroidery threads...which are 6 to a strand and a bit trickier to work with ...

But..... then, almost immediately, this happened@!!  Accckkk!

What a nightmare!  It took about an hour to unravel and fiddle and finally get it sorted.  I finally cut it in several spots of course...but, that's okay I wound it onto little plastic cards.












By that time I was ready for one of these...  and convinced myself that I could be careful.... and not have another disaster .... probably pushing my luck a bit ....but, it held.   Ahhh.... a lovely Blueberry Tea... of the cocktail variety.    Good thing Karen was away on holiday...

Back to my story about x-stitching.  I should have watched Karen's video again... but, didn't.  My mistake.  I did watch it initially, but it was weeks ago now, and ...I forget a lot more than I learn.  So, didn't really know what I was doing, but found a few heart shaped cross stitching photos on the 'net and decided to make a heart of my own.  However, I seemed unsure of where to put my needle and was it same hole as the bottom of the x on the top line or one more hole down below it or what?...

Needless to say ..it didn't quite turn out like it was supposed to  ... and then I saw some (online again) where people had put some stitches around the edge to sort of gather up their stitching and make it into more of a heart shape... which I did too.

In the end it looked kinda cute...or so I think.

I folded and ironed the little test piece of fabric I was stitching on... attached it with tiny stab stitching to a piece of fabric on the block I was working on....   then did some of Karen's frilly picot stitching around the edge, and all of a sudden it looked like a tiny framed picture.  I like it.

I'm slow with this...

and, I have excuses....which I'm sure nobody wants to hear ...

But... Friday was a busy, fun day... mostly out of town, but when I did get home, I had fun mail to open.

Dolores (a quilter in eastern Canada) sent me a big parcel of whites and off whites... thanks so much Dolores.... they are already being tested and tried in various areas of my wrapping cloth.  Wheeee, what fun.... I'm like a kid in a candy store with things like this!  some folks probably think I'm nuts...but, little things do make me happiest. As a matter of fact, my life is really just made up of little things...

I wish there could be a worldwide swap meet to trade our good stuff..... (besides that it would be fun to finally meet our blog and crafting buddies, wouldn't it?)   The perfect way to re-purpose our stash of stuff we no longer need and get the colours and other bits and pieces that we need now... this week..or for our latest adventures and endeavours....   you bloggers and crafters know what I'm talking about...I know you do!

My other fun piece of mail was this from Twiglet.  An ATC to mark the 4th anniversary of WOYWW...  What?  You don't know what it means?  What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday that's what!  For 4 years now the girls have been snooping into each other's lives and working spaces (not always a hobby room either).... at the urging of Julia Dunnit of Stamping Ground...  hahha...and, if you think yours is a disaster zone...you should see some of these fun places!  Check up on them sometime to see what others are creating.....maybe add your 'stuff'..... the group is growing every day.

 Gwendolyn said she wanted to help display my ATC.  As usual, don't be fooled by that face...she really does love it...honest Jo ...... (I myself have to laugh...or at the very least, grin, when I look at her.... that look...hahahhah.. oh, boy, I need to make another just like her for sure... )

See how gently she's holding it? ..... the model of perfection she is...   (She thinks she's still pretty hot, so I have to praise her all the time.)

  Twiglet works with tiny bits and pieces of lovely scraps just like I'm trying to do.  Look, embroidery too ...... she makes beautiful things.

And....I'm still stitching away on my own lovely bits and pieces given me by friends and acquaintances from around the world...thanks everybody again... I hope every so often when I show something you recognize a fragment here or there that you sent me.  This is going to be a special cloth.  Totally made from fabric given me to start a stash of whites and off whites so I can make several of these...and, hopefully one day as well...some dainty, tiny pin pillows as Karen calls them. Pin cushions to the rest of us....

And, one more little thing.... my flowers are blooming, the landscapers have gone away...the grass was ready for its first cutting and wow... a lot of little things really came together this past week.....yaaaayyyyyyyy.  Luckily most of the plants are perennials... it's been so wet I've only been able to get out twice to weed and tidy.  The landscapers sprinkled bark mulch on some growing things and I still have to dig them out from under...but, ..for now...it looks good in pictures... and the new bark smells great.  You can see the garden has been dug out a bit.... less grass and now, there is still more space to plant things...... ooooh....goody..... more little things... some plants and flowers next.
                                                                                 

big and little..

I was so happy to be able to get one of Karen Ruane's little pin pillows because it lets me see the stitching of a master.  Right up close and personal.

Her pin pillow on the right....my own block of fabric on the left....

Her photos of her works are amazing and she definitely gives all the information we need to complete beautiful projects...her videos are fun and full of detailed explanations...  and she does the best job of instructing, but, it still just isn't quite the same as being there.  How I wish I lived close enough to be there watching her in person and seeing the sizes, the fabrics, the textures .....  even watching her hands flutter daintily around her fabrics isn't enough to give perspective on size.... and, believe me, I've re-watched things umpteen times in my own attempt to copy her stitches.

Yesterday I did some buttonhole lace stitching ... "Karen size".... on one area that was perfect for testing it.  What a difference it makes in the overall appearance ... not that my original stitching is bad or poor or does't look perfectly acceptable on the size of the block....but, just to see some stitching done in the same size she does on my own piece produces a whole different look.

That unfinished edge of the broderie Anglaise, next to the ruffled ribbon, ..  just above the fan shaped bit of lace is where I am talking about.

I'll be using different sizes of the exact same stitch in different areas now....and of course, on the day I make my very own tiny pin pillow.... tiny stitching will be perfect...

Here is a sample of my original buttonhole stitching.... and below it...the new area of tinier buttonhole stitching  ....

See?  It looks like a whole different stitch doesn't it? ... and gives a totally different look to the edge.  I love it.

What I'm doing..

Still working with various techniques we are learning in Karen Ruane's Embroidery, Embellish and Create class....

Funky puffs... sorry, not for eating, Twig... but they do look good enough to do just that don't they?....
They are little circles, drawn up and stuffed.  One just has some French knots on the surface and the other has been cut away, some lace inserted, buttonhole stitch done around the cut area... so many possibilities with these little guys.  They are tiny, ...same size as my Chinese knots...and can be used on the surface of our wrapping cloth, or as trim around an outside edge...well, if a person made many more that is.....two won't exactly cut it as a trim...

I made Rosebud several years ago in a class that was about learning to do bullion stitch.  We each made our bears more or less outside class time..after learning the stitch... but, that's another story...

Let's just say, this class of Karen's that I am now taking is so much more than it was advertised... not at all like other classes I have done in the past.. if you ever decide to take one of her classes, you will be glad you did.  Worth every penny and then some ...and such fun too... especially ours.  It's been great.

The bullion flowers on little Rosebud were my inspiration... but, quite honestly?   I did have to refer to my A ~ Z of Embroidery Stitches to do the first two 'cuz I totally forgot how I did them back then.  I  did the third pretty much without referring to every picture of how to make it happen.. but, they are a bit tricky til you do a few...

My cloth is going to be all whites and off whites...and mostly whites for embroidery threads as well...but, have now decided to add some yellows and a lovely soft green...

Embroidered bullion rose...on the corner of a dainty, almost fragile, fine cotton hanky given to me by my Mom many years ago...I was only about 15... so....it's definitely vintage...hahahhahah....

Today, I'm playing with clay ... and Lin....I will try for legs for Ms. Goosie sometime this week....honest.........

She so busted me on the last post....