Under the sea

In between other things I've been working on a block for my friend from Florida. This is the second Under the Sea block and I wanted to make it a bit different than the first one. I had a few requests from him such as a shark, a tiki hut and a treasure chest which I had fun doing. I had a great piece of tropical fabric which went in perfectly. So now it's finished and here it is! You can see the first Under the Sea block by clicking on "under the sea" in the labels on the right.

Wall hanging

The last few 100 details have been added to the wall hanging. It's time to add some more fabric which will be in a lighter maroon/red. I was hoping that clicking this photo would enlarge it, but this time it didn't work. This is a really pretty stitch. The thread is a pink varegated with pink pearly beads a little larger than seed beads.

Round Robin Favourite Things

On CQEmbellishers I'm taking part in my first RR working on someone else's block! I found it a bit intimidating to start, because it wasn't my block, but I did finally get going! The block belongs to Cathy and it's quite a large block, so I had lots of scope. I loved the fabric, silks, velvet, brocade, and colours she chose, purples, royal blues, pink, deep green, some Asian brocade, black and silver grey. So I tried to keep to those tones. Here's the whole block and some closeups of what I did. It came from Cathy with the circle crochet applique already on.

Visitors

I have this little gadget on the right hand side of my blog that shows dots where visitors have come from. It's really interesting to enlarge this and see exactly the cities, towns and villages that surf here, have a look and are gone again. I wish some of these folks would leave a message! In England I used to live in Margate, Kent, (a town on the east coast, south of London), and last week I noticed I had a dot on Margate! If you visit again, Margate, please say hello!

Hearts and Flowers

Crazy Quilting for Newbies is a lovely friendly site which encourages new crazy quilters without being too regimented about fabrics or embellishments. The ladies there are full of encouragement and kindness. Just recently they began a "Hearts and Flowers Shower" for members who celebrated a momentous occasion, either happy or sad. Any member who wishes can send a partially done 8" CQ square on the hearts and flowers theme.

So far I have done two, and I could hardly stop myself from finishing each of them!

More hospital time

Well, all I can say is I ended up again in the hospital, with an infection this time, but I sat in my bed with a good assortment of threads and beads happily sewing away as the IV pumped antibiotics!

But now I'm home again and working on the 100 details and my RR of favourite things for CQ4N. I have Cathy's block to work on. It's big, so I have a few seams to do.

Here are Details 42a, 42b, both look much nicer in reality.

Detail 42a

Detail 42b

I think I can say that I have finally mastered bullions. As a fill in on the wall hanging I am doing, I made a bullion flower. I used #5 perle thread:

Details 35, 37, 38a & b, 39 and 40.

I had a few days in hospital last week which put me a bit behind, but now I'm caught up again!

Detail 35

Detail 37

Detail 38a

Detail 38b

Detail 39

Detail 39 was supposed to be " Up and down buttonhole worked in a feather stitch formation" but I kept getting mixed up on the feather stitch formation, which moves the 'v' from left to right. I tried a lot but I didn't succeed, I need help here!

Detail 40

The left side of the wall hanging is filling up nicely.

Details 34b, 36a and 36b

Detail 34b This was fun to do with the varigated thread, it filled a large space, and I tried to match the thread with the beads.

This is 36a and b.

And I finally found the way to do bullions without having an extra thread. Well, all it took was to read some instructions and follow them! Sharonb's original detail was done with wool, I used 6 strands of variegated floss.

These recent details are part of a big wall hanging I am doing for my living room. When it is finished it will be 4' x 2' 6". This is about 9" wide.

Musical cake

A 18" x 12" lemon cake. This old gentleman celebrating his 99th birthday used to be an orchestra conductor. The music top left is "Happy birthday to you".

Details 32, 33, 34 and 35

Detail 32 Detail 33 Detail 34 Detail 35

I was away for a couple of days and had lots of time to sew. The first detail, #32 is a barred chain with a regular chain in between and a rosette of caston stitches. Details 33 and 34 both use the cretan stitch, and detail 35's base is the herringbone.

Details 30 & 31

I'm learning so much doing the 100 details. Detail 30 is the up and down blanket stitch. It took a fair bit of practice, but once I got the hang of it, it was easy to do. Here's how it looks. This was my first attempt:The second go was more like Sharonb's example.

This is detail 31, the example showed yarn couched. I couldn't find yarn that fit, so I used some raffia and 4mm silk ribbon. I think it worked out very well.

Detail 37

A strip of braid, some straight stitches and seed beads and some upside down sequins. Somehow I missed doing #s 30 to 36! They will follow soon.

More angels

Can't seem to stop making angels! Here's a very simple one, straight stitches and fly stitches.

Detail 29

This is the palestrina stitch. SharonB's had a tail (I haven't figured out quite how to do that yet). This is such a tidy stitch, and I think could take the place of the french knot and be very neat. I'm very pleased with the bullions too, having them contained in the lazy daisy hides that extra thread I always seem to get.