Showing posts with label Down in the Garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Down in the Garden. Show all posts

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Summer Projects

My big project this summer has been to get my 91 year old father to stop working, and more importantly, to stop driving before he killed someone. It has required heroic persistence and patience, but I am glad to say that we have succeeded! I think he has finally accepted that retirement is not that bad.

With all that going on, I have not done that much sewing this summer. Brinton Hall has made very good progress, and I'll show you that on Sunday. When I had machine time, I'd put together a block or two of Allietare. The bright Kaffe prints are really invigorating to work with:


I love the red blocks. I am less sure about the black star blocks:


I have been so tempted to sew a few together, just to see how the secondary pattern will come out. But I do want to lay out and balance the blocks properly when they're all done, so I've held off. I only have about 10 left, and then the fun will really start!

I am not sure now if I will do Bonnie Hunter's mystery again this year. I have a colour scheme in mind already, but I also have so many other projects that I really do want to finish, and some to start! So, we'll see.

My box of Kaffe fabrics has been getting a good work out with Brinton Hall. While the fabrics were out I also made one lonely butterfly for Down in the Garden:


This butterfly was going to be gold, and I had the wings fussy cut 18 months ago already. But, I lost one! The one thing that became crystal clear this summer is that I have too many things happening at the same time, and that is hurting my projects. I have made new resolutions --

  • Fewer current projects
  • STICK WITH THEM
  • No more BOMs
  • More original work

-- and we'll see how that pans out!

But in any case, this new pink butterfly matches the purple and pink/orange flowers in the block surprisingly well too:


And I still have all the wings for the second butterfly:


Then I can get back to some stitching and finish the block. I had a lot more stitching planned for this project, but I've changed my mind and decided to fill in with some extra pieced blocks instead. It's time to move on!

I bought a couple of those adult colouring books this summer, as part of my effort to get my Dad refocused on something positive. No luck! "Silly stuff," he said. He used to draw well, but maybe colour was never his strong suit. My Mom did this nice one, though:


It is totally different from how I would have done it, which is very interesting! And better, I think. I was very impressed with her turquoise and green roses. I have to see if I can use this colour scheme for a future project.

I coloured a couple too:

Kaleidoscopic?

To me it seemed like a low-risk opportunity to try a more radical colour scheme. I've been obsessed with orange and green leaves lately. The one above is ok, but I like the second one better:


It seems like it could be a nice quilt, couldn't it? The round drawing is from Flower Mandalas by Thaneeya McArdle (New Design Originals, 2016), and the two square pages are from Magic of Flowers & Birds (Barron's).

There are two link ups on today. Please check out Ann and Cathy's Kaleidoscope of Butterflies right here. The brave Gwennie Medallion quilters are still at it too, right here. My medallion went to the basement at the end of June, and just came back up a couple of days ago. But, I've dealt with the road blocks on that one, and I hope to catch up over the next month. October 1 will be the final reveal, but I'll have updates before that.

Finally, for two days this summer we had a new lodger:


You can barely see the brown rabbit in the brown grass there. Hottest summer ever! This was right after a heavy rainfall, and the green comes back quickly. I was out checking the eavestroughs and foundations at the back of the house (still dry!). I turned around and he was right there, less than ten feet behind me. So still, he didn't even blink. Was he there the whole time? Hopefully he's moved somewhere safer now.

A week later I was taking the garbage out at dusk, and I noticed the neighbour had a new chimney. I looked again and there was not one, but two raccoons way up on the roof of the second level, with all four ears pointed straight at me! We are just grateful that they like the neighbours roof better than ours!

So, that is me mostly caught up now. As I said, Brinton Hall is well along and I'll post that on Sunday. I may need some advice...

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

March Butterflies


The Kaleidoscope of Butterflies continues this month, and I've been stitching all weekend to get my next butterfly block done.

I'm glad this link up came along! I've been feeling a paralyzing amount of angst about the fabric choices for this project. But, these stitched sections are all decided, so I can do them now, and worry about the rest later. And I have a feeling that once these are done, and I can put everything up on the wall together, it will be easy to see what's next. Or at least, easier.
This is Block 2 of Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt, Down in the Garden:


There was a lot of stitching on this one! And most of it yellow and gold. I seem to be on a yellow theme right now. But, given that this is the scene outside today...


 ...I think it balances out. No real life butterflies here! A spring green needleturn butterfly will have to be enough for now:


For more kaleidoscopes and butterflies, check out the Kaleidoscope of Butterflies link up, right here.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Butterflies


I know it looks like I've done very little hand stitching since my summer break, but it's not true! It's just that most of my hand stitching time has gone into my English Paper Piecing project, Texas Star. I'll be glad to see the end of that one!

I've been dying to get back to some embroidery, so when Ann (Fret Not Yourself) mentioned that she and Cathy (Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting) are doing a Kaleidoscope of Butterflies link up this week, I immediately thought of this project, Down in the Garden by Leanne Beasley. (Click here to see all the posts on this project so far.) Last spring I finished the four birdhouse stitchery blocks, and the large centre panel is also stitched. Now I have the four watering can blocks to do. I finished the first one yesterday:


The big hold up on these has been the needleturn applique butterflies. You can see that I fussy cut the wings from a variety of Kaffe fabrics -- Roman Glass, Millefiore, and Paperweight. So that is a little trickier, but the main challenge has been the applique stitch. I want it to be invisible, and after some trial and error I settled on ladder stitch with 100 wt silk thread in light grey. I can't do more than one butterfly a day. And then I wonder if it's worth the effort, and that slows things down more. But, now that I look at it again, I do think it's worked well.

Once the applique is done, it's a relief to fill in the rest of the stitching:


In some light it seems to me that the Tsukineko ink that I used to paint in the design is starting to fade. I don't mind, because I do want the stitching to stand out. But as I write this, I'm thinking that maybe it's just the white fibres in the Kona PFD fabric that are starting to get fuzzy while I stitch. I will say the fabric is really holding up well to stitching. I don't use a hoop, and it hasn't puckered at all.


Who knows? If the butterfly link up continues, I may get the next three blocks done too! Two butterflies per block. In the meantime, you can see a whole variety of butterflies in the Kaleidoscope of Butterflies right here. Gotta love that name!

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Summer Break

Now that all the birdhouses are done for Down in the Garden, I've been picking up a few of my other projects. Yesterday I finished up the piecing on this block of Best Friends Forever:


Although it's pretty cold today, on hot days it's nice to work on smaller, individual blocks like this, so I think I'll be doing more of them over the summer.

I also think that I'm going to unplug this summer, and take a blogging break. The last day of school was this week, and I've been reminiscing about how nice it was to look forward to a completely unstructured summer. I also remember that I used to go home with as many library books as I could! These days I'd rather stitch than read, but I still have a big line up to keep me busy.

Last winter there was steady, behind-the-scenes progress on Jacks and Cats:


All the wool felt pieces are sewn together, and I'm currently working on the back stitched lines for the teeth. The oval Jacks pumpkins will get their stems, vines and leaves once they are appliqued onto the blocks. I'd like to be well along on this by Halloween, although I doubt it'll be finished.

For Slow Stitching Sunday today, I'm going to put a few more stitches in this Dimensions Gold cross stitch design, A Kiss for Snowman:


This one will be finished soon -- just a few more stitches in the background, and all the outlining left to do.

In all the chaos with the basement flooding (we had three floods total last month), some of my new fabrics have been sitting on my sewing table, waiting for things to settle down. Tempting me. Eventually I started cutting them up:


They are the two new summer collections from Connecting Threads, Island Hopping and Batik Paradise. I thought they would be perfect for the cover quilt on Carrie Nelson's book, Schnibbles Times Two, which I've been wanting to make for ages. I put together a few rows, just to see how it works...


With the crosses and the Hawaiian-themed fabric, I'm calling the quilt "Aloha Kisses," The white fabric is from Northcott. Around here it is the same price as Kaufman Kona solids, and I actually like it better. It is smoother, the thickness of the threads is very consistent, and it has a dense, higher thread count that makes it stable and easy to sew. I am very happy with it!

And, of course, Down in the Garden still has plenty of work left to do. Here's the first of those dratted butterflies:


They're a trial, but I know they'll be worth it. They'll probably end up as the key feature of the whole quilt.

So, I don't think I'll have time to be bored this summer! But, I'm not going to schedule anything. And who knows, there may be more new projects as well. Like the kids, I'll be back for sure after Labour Day. If the finishes really pile up (she says optimistically), maybe you'll see me sooner. Our basement problems are half fixed, so there's still plenty left to do there as well.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great summer (or cozy winter if you are down under)! I'll still be around and answering email if anyone needs me. Take care!

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Honeysuckle House


Here's the last birdhouse for Leanne Beasley's Down in the Garden stitchery quilt. The curling vines and three petal flowers in the original design reminded me of honeysuckle. So, I chose a light yellow floss, and, after some trial and error, settled on these pistil stitch flowers instead. I think I left the best until last, because this one is definitely my favourite!


When you stand back, the birdhouse shape is dominant, which is what I hoped to achieve with the light-coloured flowers. This will be a wall quilt, so I want the structure to be clear from several feet back. Then you can step in to see the details:


Beasley has a great eye for line, and I really love the natural movement in all these curling vines!


Over the winter I seriously considered changing all the birdhouses to applique, and skipping the vines, but I am glad I stuck with the easier path. Now all four birdhouses are done:


Next up will be the four watering can stitcheries, which have some wickedly difficult applique butterflies. I guess I can't avoid them any longer!

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Slow Sunday Stitching


Today I'm linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy's Quilts. With all the disruption here I feel like I've earned a quiet day!


As you can see, the third birdhouse from Leanne Beasley's Down in the Garden stitchery quilt is now complete. Since all the birdhouses are the same banana cream colour, I've been naming them by the colour of the flowers instead. So, this is the "blue" birdhouse.


I was careful to "book" the green variegated thread around the window. I pulled one strand of floss and stitched it from the bud up to the centre flower. Then I pulled another strand from the same length of floss, so the variegation would be the same, and stitched it up the other side. It was also important to do this around the outer edge so there would be no obvious breaks where I had to end the thread. But otherwise, I let the colours do their own thing.


Today I will work on the fourth and last birdhouse. The flowers will probably be this light yellow:


On this one I will do the vines first, so I doubt I'll get to the flowers today. That's not a worry, because I really love this green floss, DMC Color Variations 4050. None of my photos do it justice. I think there must be some ultraviolet dye in there that doesn't show up, either in my camera or on the monitor. It glows! My belief is that when you are stitching narrow lines like this on a quilt, the floss should either be dark or bright, so this has been perfect. Quilts are usually viewed from several feet away, and if the stitching is too pale, it disappears.

Anyway, enough chatting. On to some stitching!

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

WIP Wednesday


Isn't this Jolly Jungle fabric cute? I just adore it. I remember that the local quilt store where I bought it sold out very quickly, so I know it was popular.

I know I have been MIA for the past two weeks. I had volunteered to take over WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network, but then that weekend our basement flooded, again, So that resulted in a quick change of priorities, and I had to bow out. We've had two more floods since then, so I think that was a good decision! We have a big job now to get it all fixed. But, I am happy to report that my stash is still ok, thanks to the plastic bins I use for storage!

I've had very little time to sew, but today I finished assembling all the rows on my Collector quilt, and I joined the last three to make the bottom corner:


What a relief to get back to some sewing!

My original plan was to make the setting triangles out of solid black. But, when I went to my stash the solids were way at the bottom, and this new colourway of Kaffe's Millefiore, "dark," was sitting on top, so I used that instead. I think it is better. Weather permitting, a couple more days of sewing should get it to the flimsy stage.

I'm also still plugging away at the hand stitching on Down in the Garden (DitG). I took a photo last week after I finished all the flowers on the "blue" birdhouse:


To me, the flowers look like butterflies! The vines are nearly finished now, so hopefully this one will be done soon too.

My resolution to stick with one hand and one machine project at a time is still working. I'm very keen to finish them so I can start something else! So that's motivating. And, I think the balance is also working well, with one "quick" project and one slow. After Collector, I have one more quick UFO to finish up, or maybe two, and then I may start something new!

Thursday, May 28, 2015

DitG Pink Birdhouse


Here's the second birdhouse stitchery from Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt, Down in the Garden. Now that it is summer it so nice to be able to take things out and photograph them in the sunshine. What a difference!


Although it is not this obvious in real life, you can see in the photo above that the green Pigma micron pen that I used to mark the stitching lines did run a bit when it was painted over with the pale yellow Tsukineko ink. I have read complaints that the blue Pigma pen tends to run as well. I assumed that there was some chemical in the Tsukineko ink that was to blame, but maybe it is just the blue Pigma ink that is unstable. Anyway, I don't mind it here, I think it adds to the atmosphere a bit.


The flowers are simple chain stitch lazy daisies with long anchoring stitches, and the buds are also short, round detached chain stitches.


I really like the curling vines on these birdhouses. It's a lot of flowers! But I made a push last night so I could get it in just under the wire for WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network. Why? Because this week will be Monika Kinner-Whalen's last week running it, and next week, I have agreed to take over! Yes, another Monica. I am excited, because I have a lot of ideas for it.

Out in the backyard, our young lilac is putting on its best show so far:


And, while I was out there taking photos, this butterfly came to visit:


Lucky shot! Except for the blog name (and resize), the photo is completely unedited. Don't you love that combination of lilac and sky blue?

Thursday, May 14, 2015

DitG Block 5 finished!


We've had some beautiful, clear sunshine today, and I was finally able to get a good set of photos for this block. It's the centre, Block 5, of Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt Down in the Garden. Yes, I know it's wrinkly, but I don't want to iron it until I'm ready to assemble the quilt.

 

There has been quite a lot of "let's see what happens" so far, but in the end I'm well pleased with how it came out. I really like the double curve, ogee outline around both this block and the birdhouse blocks. I also like the way Beasley used the green sprigs and the outside points to suggest a diamond shape inside the curves. I chose the coral and pink colours for those flowers to emphasize the diamond, and I think that worked well.


My original plan for the small lazy daisy flowers was to make them dark blue, same as here. It was not successful, and I am sorry that I didn't take a photo to prove it! In the light blue, the small flowers provide some contrast and support for the large flowers. I was really surprised by how much better the large flowers looked once those little blue flowers were stitched! It was a good lesson to me. And, I think that same colour of blue is going to fix my problem with Prairie Star as well.


With all the stitching completed, this block has ended up quite a bit darker than the light, watery effect that I originally intended. This was mostly because the Tsukineko inks were too difficult to control when they were really watered down, so I had to keep them more intense and pure. I think this has also made the project more formal, and I'm not sure all those gingham fabrics that I hoped to use are appropriate any more. But the inspiration fabrics by Tamara Kate still work well.


It's a big block, 15 inches square, and a lot of stitching. I really like all the words and sentiments in the poem, but gosh, the words were boring to sew! Fortunately, my commitment to stick with just the one project made it easier.

I keep thinking that now I am mostly done, which is not true at all! There are still 3 more birdhouses, and all four of the watering can blocks to do. The applique butterflies on the watering cans are wickedly difficult, but I think I have them under control now.

In any case, my plan to focus on just one project at a time is a big success, even though I have changed it to two projects - one hand sewing and one machine sewing. Momentum is building, and right now I'm not even tempted to change projects. I'll show you the machine sewing project next time -- I think it will be a surprise!

Friday, May 1, 2015

DitG Tagore


In addition to the large embroidered blocks that anchor Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt, Down in the Garden, there are little bits of stitching scattered all around it. I really like these little details that are stitched over printed fabric, so there are two layers of interest. The fabric is from Tamara Kate's 2013 collection, Flight Patterns.

I intended to use these medium dark blue flowers all over the quilt, but it turned out that they didn't work elsewhere, so this is the only place they remain:





The quote is from Indian writer and painter Rabindranath Tagore's Poems on Time. Wikipedia also has this nice piece of synchronicity, written exactly 100 years ago:
Who are you, reader, reading my poems a hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.
The Gardener, 1915.[165]

These butterfly sections will be scattered around the quilt, while the contrasting bee quote is featured in the large centre block. You haven't seen it since the end of Ink Week last fall, but it is now almost done. I just have a little of the lettering left. But, I also want to do it justice with some good photos, so it will need some sunshine as well. With luck, next week!
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