This is all from Art of Fabric in Pickering, Ontario. Fortunately the owner is a big fan of purple!
I think these will be perfect. Now that they've had their "beauty shot," it's time to throw them in the wash!
Serious fun with quilting, stitching, and embroidery
Thursday, July 18, 2013
A Few Purples
I know there are many quilters who never met a purple fabric they didn't like, but somehow when I am at the store I never come home with anything purple. It is like a blind spot! The final straw was this week, when I was searching my embroidery floss stash for purple thread, and there were only two in the whole box! I want to use some purples in Best Friends Forever, so today I hit the store. My main purpose was just to buy floss, but of course I came home with fabric too:
This is all from Art of Fabric in Pickering, Ontario. Fortunately the owner is a big fan of purple!
I think these will be perfect. Now that they've had their "beauty shot," it's time to throw them in the wash!
This is all from Art of Fabric in Pickering, Ontario. Fortunately the owner is a big fan of purple!
I think these will be perfect. Now that they've had their "beauty shot," it's time to throw them in the wash!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Best Friends Forever
I mentioned a while ago how much I loved this hexagon stitchery quilt design, Best Friends Forever, by Australian designer Rosalie Quinlan. My first instalment arrived yesterday, and I have already started it!
This project has surpassed my expectations, which is really saying something, as they were pretty high! The pattern covers are nice enough:
I was worried that the linen would be too fine and sheer, but it is actually quite solid and has a nice weight. The overall piece is a good size, 17" x 21". The individual patterns will fit exactly on my 3.5" (7" across) hexagons that I bought for this project. It was a bit of a gamble to buy them before the pattern arrived, but it worked out perfectly! The pattern calls for a quilt-as-you-go technique, but I have a fancier, English Paper Piecing design in mind. You know I can never do a project as written!
These are the stitchery colours I've chosen so far:
You can see by the revisions on the card that I've already changed my mind about a couple of the colours. It is interesting how different they look stitched versus in the skein.
I also put away the stitching instructions early on. The pattern uses chain stitch on the heavier lines, which I haven't done before but really liked. I have used it on the bird below. Most of the rest calls for back stitch, which I don't much like. I will use it on the lettering, but on the tree and leaves I used my favourite, stem stitch. The flowers were supposed to be satin stitched, but I was thinking about blanket stitch pinwheels on another project, so I decided to try them for the petals here as well. I think they worked great, so I think they will be my standard for all the flowers. The flower centres are a ring of tiny chain stitches.
Because the pattern is quilt as you go, it calls for a lightweight fusible batting to be ironed on the backs of the stitcheries before stitching. When I can, I prefer to avoid fusibles, and I think it is going well without it. You can see the linen is wrinkly because I have been embroidering in hand, but there is no problem at all with the fabric puckering or pulling. It is really very nice linen, I am so pleased with it!
After working on my Sweet Hearts redwork for so long, which is on lightweight muslin and much more detailed, this project is a breath of fresh air! I sense an obsession coming on...
With this post I am checking in again with The Needle and Thread Network, and WIP Wednesday #99. I will have to see if I can do something special for #100 next week!
This project has surpassed my expectations, which is really saying something, as they were pretty high! The pattern covers are nice enough:
But I was particularly impressed with the printed linen patterns:
These are the stitchery colours I've chosen so far:
You can see by the revisions on the card that I've already changed my mind about a couple of the colours. It is interesting how different they look stitched versus in the skein.
I also put away the stitching instructions early on. The pattern uses chain stitch on the heavier lines, which I haven't done before but really liked. I have used it on the bird below. Most of the rest calls for back stitch, which I don't much like. I will use it on the lettering, but on the tree and leaves I used my favourite, stem stitch. The flowers were supposed to be satin stitched, but I was thinking about blanket stitch pinwheels on another project, so I decided to try them for the petals here as well. I think they worked great, so I think they will be my standard for all the flowers. The flower centres are a ring of tiny chain stitches.
Because the pattern is quilt as you go, it calls for a lightweight fusible batting to be ironed on the backs of the stitcheries before stitching. When I can, I prefer to avoid fusibles, and I think it is going well without it. You can see the linen is wrinkly because I have been embroidering in hand, but there is no problem at all with the fabric puckering or pulling. It is really very nice linen, I am so pleased with it!
After working on my Sweet Hearts redwork for so long, which is on lightweight muslin and much more detailed, this project is a breath of fresh air! I sense an obsession coming on...
With this post I am checking in again with The Needle and Thread Network, and WIP Wednesday #99. I will have to see if I can do something special for #100 next week!
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