Snow Day

For the most part Toronto has not seen the bad weather that most of the northeast has received this year. I often say that we have a protective bubble over us! Today, though, we caught it. It has been snowing and blowing all day, and we have had at least 30 cm (one foot) of snow at our house.

A good day to stay inside and sew! I know two other ladies from my guild who said the same thing to me this morning. I started a new quilt! I made two of these:

And two of these:

These are the Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks that seem to have taken Blogland by storm (I have storms on the brain today). Bonnie Hunter posted this demo in 2005. Recently Hetty made a few blocks, which caught my eye. Then LeeAnn made her massive 96" square version, which really tempted me. I was holding the line, though, until I had a look at the Flickr group, which is at 1300+ photos and counting. I started to look for interesting settings and I was a goner.

Usually the line of contrast runs from corner to corner, but I saw one quilt sewn this way on the Flickr group. You can make some cute layouts with this block.

I love the way it looks like a collage of old newspapers! All the fabrics for this quilt are from my stash. I bought the text-based fabrics for another quilt (Collector, actually), and then changed my mind and decided to use just one fabric in the background there. Personally, I think this quilt is a way better use for them!

Two From Trish Burr

Some of you may recall the butterfly embroidery in long and short stitch that I started last summer. The more I looked at it here on my blog, the less happy I became, so I figured it was time to call in the expert! I bought these two books from Trish Burr:

The first one is Needle Painting Embroidery, Fresh Ideas for Beginners (Sally Milner Publishing, 2011). The second is Long and Short Stitch Embroidery, A Collection of Flowers (Sally Milner Publishing, 2006). Although they were not published in this order, this is the order I recommend you buy and read them in.

Once I started to read, I immediately saw where I had been going wrong on the butterfly. Although it is called "long and short stitch," there are in fact no short stitches in the technique. My mistake! In her books Burr does something that is really genius, and which for me was totally the missing link. All her photos and patterns are the same size that they will be in real life:

So you can see exactly how long your stitches should be, how close they should be, and how they will blend together. The 2011 book has several little practice petals and leaves that you can do to perfect your technique. It also has a number of projects, organized in three levels of difficulty. The Little Bee Eater, which Burr recently taught in an online class, is one of the projects in this book.

The 2006 book is more advanced, and goes into more detail on shading and choosing colours.

This book also has scale photos of the projects to go with the patterns. Surprisingly, there is not that much overlap between the two books. All the projects are different, and the 2006 book focuses more on colour, while the 2011 book looks more at technique. Although obviously, those things cannot be entirely separated! I think you would do fine with either one, but personally, I am glad I bought them both. My long and short stitch has already improved!

What's Next?

Obviously, with two projects recently finished, I am now allowed to start two new ones! My next embroidery project will be Breath of Spring, the linen tote bag with an embroidered pocket from Inspirations 56:

This kit has been ready to go with the threads all sorted as long as Cottage Garden was. I was a little put off when I found that the kit came with a pre-printed panel:

I hate it when the lines show around the stitching. But, now that I am starting it, I am also glad that I don't have to transfer that complex pattern! There are 17 different elements to stitch in this pattern, so, many blog posts to come!

My next Bonheur des Dames counted thread project will be the monthly sampler for August, Aout:

If anyone knows how to insert the special character for the "u", please send me an email or let me know in the comments. I can never figure it out!

I have already started both projects. As I was putting the first stitches into the Aout sampler, I realized why I love counted thread work so much. It's because you start with a completely blank canvas, with no prior markings on it. So it's like creating something out of nothing, and it actually feels more creative to me than an embroidery pattern, even though with counted thread projects you are usually more of a slave to the design. There's something magical about watching your first stitches grow.

So, lots to do! Plus, I need a break from Celtic Spring, which is at the stage now where it is nothing but the gold braid for the forseeable future. I can only do so much of that at a time!