Fall Colours a la Sugar

Our Fall colours haven't yet reached this stage in Southern Ontario,  it will be a few more weeks.  But my friend and I played Mother Nature this week filling an order for sugar maple leaves.  We had lots of fun playing with our gum paste and creating these multi coloured real- looking maple leaves (to be truthful the cutter we used is actually a Japanese Maple leaf).

One block's seams

These are all the seams from the block mentioned in the last post.  I purposely used more fabric pieces so that I would have more seams to embroider. 

Chevron, chain with hearts, and fly stitch with pearls

Feather stitch

Coral stitch

Coral stitch

Chicken scratch

Chain stitch "pea pods" with 13/0 Charlottes

Chain stitch with beads

Buttonhole stitch

Double cretan, chevron, coral, buttonhole and chain stitch

Chain stitch scallops and chain stitch with bullions

Chain stitch

Embroidering text.....continued

Here's the silk printed piece now attached to the block.  I tacked it down and used a thin needle and one strand of DMC floss to embroider tiny chain stitches within the outlines of the printed letters.  The next post will be the finished block.

Embroidering text

Silk page with two sets of lettering

I'm working on a baby announcement block for the latest addition to our family.  Lucas is my niece's first baby so that makes me Lucas' great aunt.  Three of my five grandchildren have blocks and I'm in the process of finishing the other two.

There is a lot of lettering needed on the block:  name, date and time of birth, and weight and length.  Getting the writing neat and even is tricky, and for the first couple of blocks I transferred the letters by tacking through a printed paper copy.  When I started using the silk to print off my own pictures, I also tried printing the text information on the silk.  For the lettering I used the font Comic Sans, size 30.  I chose pale blue ink because I will be using a pale blue thread, and chose the "outline" effect.

Close up of lettering

To get the best use out of the silk, I cut a piece of 8 1/2" x 14" legal size silk from the roll and adjusted the text and printed several times on legal size paper before I printed onto the silk.  To get two to a page, the format for each set of lettering is the same on the page using the landscape format.  When you are printing the second set of lettering, feed the paper into the printer from the opposite end.  Be sure to practice first on legal size paper.

Lucas' unfinished block

Most of the embroidery is finished, and the space at the bottom is where the silk piece with the lettering will be attached.  The printed silk page is cut from corner to corner so that each lettering is on a large triangle. 

Cathy's Tea Time RR block

Cathy's block after my additions

China Mug

What fun this was to work on!  Calthy's fabrics were all cotton and vintage.  The centre block is an embroidered teapot. The first thing I looked for was an area that could be a table, and I found it directly below the big teapot.  I added a beaded teapot, cup and saucer and a crystal footed cake plate with some Empire Biscuits.  The tablecloth is a little piece of lace with a scalloped edge.  Below the lace was my first attempt at a white damask tablecloth, but it looked too heavy, so I added the lace. 
To the left of the table is a large china mug with a rose design.
I also worked on four seams, chain stitch with pearls, stem stitch and lilac flowers, featherstitch with pink flowers and a herringbone with pink seed beads above the table. 
I love the empire biscuits!

Stem stitch seam

Afternoon tea with Empire Biscuits

Featherstitch seam