Monday, November 24, 2014

Half Cross Stitch -- Which Way?

I have three, no, four, Christmas UFOs at the moment, and I won't finish them all, but I'm going to make a push on this one:

Dimensions Gold, "A Kiss for Snowman"
I thought it would look cute if I finished the figures before I started the background, and I think it does!

It feels like ages since I've done any cross stitch, but I think I last touched this piece in June. That was when I decided to unpick all the half cross stitches from the blue snowman body. It took two days! The trick was to pull them out without damaging the full crosses. It only took one day to stitch them in again.

Why did I put myself through that? Crazy perfectionism? Maybe. But here's the issue:


I am never really sure which way to stitch the half cross stitches. Should they slope up to the right, like the first or bottom layer of a full cross stitch, or up to the left, like the top part of a full cross? I have done it both ways on different projects. As you can see, the Dimensions instructions say to slope up to the right, like the lower layer of the cross stitch. And that's how I started with the snowman body.

But, I didn't like it. There was a clear shadow line where the stitch direction changes. So on the snowman face I stitched the half crosses parallel to the top stitch of the full crosses, which smoothed it all out and made the shading more natural. Then, once both figures were done, I realized I had enough thread left in the kit to restitch the body so it would all align.

From now on, I'll be stitching the half crosses in the way that gives the desired effect, rather than just unconsciously following the pattern!

The next step is to stitch the entire background in half crosses going the other way, so hopefully the figures will stand forward a little. And hopefully, it'll be done before Christmas!

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Slowest Quilter Ever?

Blogathon Canada is on this week, and today it's Ontario's turn. Since the lake in "Lakeview" is Lake Ontario, I'm up!

Heather at Peace Love Quilt suggested on Thursday that she may be the slowest quilter ever, but I think I could challenge for that title! I started my first quilt in the late 70s, my second quilt in the late 80s, my third quilt in the late 90s, and I didn't finish any of them. (Although the third one may still get finished.)

It's just about a year since I finished my first quilt:

Nine Patch Jubilee, 54" x 66"

I'm now up to three:

Highlands Houses, 19" x 19"

And this flimsy is probably the next one to be quilted:

Mod Trips, 60" x 60"

Not all my projects are red and white! The quilt that I started back in the 80s was a Texas Star, from Judy Martin's book Scrap Quilts. Machine piecing all the Y seams did me in, but two years ago I started it again using English Paper Piecing.


The stars are about 3 3/4" across, with 5/8" hexagons and 1 1/4" diamonds, and to make a 60" x 80" throw I calculated that 333 stars would do the job. I'm very excited, because I'm only about two weeks from finishing them all!

Of course, the next step is to sew them all together. But it will be a big milestone on a quilt I've been planning since the 1980s!

I think there are three reasons everything takes so long. One, most of my projects are ambitious, like Judy Niemeyer's Prairie Star...


...which I've realized is going to be a heck of a lot of sewing, but which I hope to get back to in the new year.

Reason two is that I enjoy a lot of hand stitching -- including embroidery...

L'Herbier

...stitchery...

Best Friends Forever

...and applique:

Trick or Treat Baskets

Although, I really shouldn't show you that one, because I'm pretty sure I've changed my mind about the fabrics.

In 2013 one of my resolutions was to hand quilt a project, and I did -- this pincushion!


Hand quilting is still on my list of things to learn.

And reason three why it takes me so long to finish anything? Too many things on the go! But you know, the great thing about blogging is that it's mainly about the journey. I hope you'll join me!

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Ink Week Wrap Up


If you missed the earlier posts in the series, you may find them here:
Today I'm going to wrap up the series about the Tsukineko inks, but the complete project still has many more days to go before it's done!

My original plan was that the coloured inks would be a watery wash to fill in some of the large empty spaces in this stitchery quilt, Leanne Beasley's Down in the Garden. The stitchery was always intended to be the main feature, and to give the structure to the design. What I found on the first day, though, was that the more water you add to the ink, the more unpredictably it behaves. Here's a better photo of that first bird house:


So I think that while it's good to start with a plan, it's also good to be prepared to change it as events arise! I decided that I can live with the blue creeping over the lines in the block above, but that I didn't want that to happen with all the flowers in the other blocks. So the colours became darker and more saturated as I worked.

I bought some specialized equipment to work with the inks, and I was happy with all of it:


  • The Color Mixing Cups at the top of the photo are small lightweight plastic containers, each with its own lid. They come with their own tray, which makes it easy to organize and store the ink over a several day project.
  • On the left are the Tsukineko Fantastix, which also come with their own caps. I kept the ones that were loaded with ink in a plastic snack bag, and they were good for a few days.
  • On the right below the water jar are the plastic eye droppers, which I used to transfer ink from the bottle to the mixing cups, to transfer mixes from one cup to another, and to add clean water from the jar to the mixing cup.
With all three of these tools you need one for every colour of ink that you buy, and for every colour of ink that you plan to mix. They can't be cleaned, but the huge advantage is that they are much easier to control. They give you consistent results across the project. Painting or inking on fabric is very different than painting on paper, I found. It's less precise, so any tool that helps with that is well worth it.

I bought almost everything, inks, tools and fabric, from Dharma Trading Co., who also have some articles on techniques. The fabric was the Kaufman Kona PFD (prepared for dying), which really absorbed the ink well. The high thread count has been a little dense for hand stitching, but it certainly supports the thread well, and I've had no issues with stitch tension.


I will say that stitching over the bright colours, all of which you have chosen and painted yourself, is extremely satisfying! I have used all my favourite flowers as inspiration. The purple daisy colouration is inspired by purple irises, the small pink flowers are inspired by apple blossoms, there are the large coral dahlias, and the little yellow "sunflowers."

Those sunflowers, by the way, took two days of trial and error to get the right combination of stitch and thread colour:


In the end I decided that while the white gap between the ink and the stitching looked nice and "arty" in the purple and pink flowers, it did not work in the sunflower centres. I tried blanket stitch to cover up some of the gap, and it worked quite well. I also left out that yellow straight stitch in the petals, because it distracted from the clean curves of the stem stitch around the petal edges.

I still have more decisions to make about the four small flowers that are in the bird house blocks and scattered around the rest of the quilt, but this should keep me busy for now! I hope you enjoyed the series. It's been a large undertaking, but I've learned a lot. I can already think of a couple more projects for the ink, but I want to finish off a few more of my WIPs first!

Speaking of WIPs, since it's Wednesday I'll link up to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network. And if you want to see all the posts on this project so far, including the quilt piecing and other little stitcheries, please click here. Happy stitching!
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