80*F >>>>>> 24*F

For for those of us in the Celius mode: 26*C >>> -4*C. The beach at Nokomis is part of Casey Key, on the Gulf side of Florida.

Seafood was on our menu lots of times, and shrimp boiled in seawater is to die for!.

Crab was on sale at Publix and there were lots of loose claws. This was a great meal!

Before I left on my vacation I was lucky enough to find this great bag in Fabricland, on sale for $9.99! It's about 12" x 8". On the outside it has two large pockets, one zippered and the other with Velcro.

It comes with two "pages" with zippered pockets. The pages are anchored with strips of Velcro so they are removable. This is the middle where I have a variety of threads.

This is inside of the outside back. The inside of the outside front has one large zippered pocket that I filled with bits of lace and trim.

The sewing case was so great that I decided to buy another one just to get the two removable sections and add them to my original case. There were no black cases left, so I took the white.

The other double page I filled with beads. I used very small plastic bags to hold small amounts of various colours.

Security is very tight on the airlines, and on my last trip I had to forfeit my tiny scissors. There's lots of time to sew while waiting for planes and you absolutely need something to cut the thread. This little bit is part of a dental floss cutter. It measures only 1" x 1/2" and does a great cutting job.

These were some of the small projects I took with me to work on. They are all needle cases. The orange (above) and lilac ones (below) are folded in half.

Above is how this one looks folded with two folds. On the left is it unfolded.

These two needle cases are still unfinished.

There's lots of interest in making paisley motifs on the CQ websites, so here's my first attempts. The top one is 2 1/2" x 1 1/4". The other I'm still working on, and I like how it looks. It's bigger, 3" x 2 1/4". The sequins are all the same colour!

This is Lilifee my new Garden Angel Dotee. She came from Miriam in Germany in a Swap-Bot swap recently. She loves her new home in the orchids.

So now I'm home and need to get caught up with the daily chores. But not yet ......SharonB has just posted March's Stitch Explorer Challenge technique and I must have a go at that before I do the laundry!!

Added Monday, 16th March. This is finished now. The colours are better in the unfinished one above.

Chicken scratch tea cosy

No wonder chicken scratch embroidery was so popular back when. It's so easy, works up quickly and looks nice when it's finished. Here's yet another tea cosy. I did a different pattern on each of the two fronts. To see my other chicken scratch, click on "chicken scratch" in the label box below. There's also a tutorial for making this tea cosy. Click on the sidebar label for "tea cosy tutorial" It's basically made from four square blocks, the crazy quilt ones were, but this was made from one big oblong. Added August 16, 2009. In my sidebar I have a gaget called "Feejit" that tracks visitors to my blog. I've noticed in the last few days that I have many, many visitors who are coming directly to this post on Chicken Scratch. I'd be interested to know where you made the connection. If you like you could leave me a message on this post please.

More chicken scratch

Chicken scratch has been a great first technique to experiment with in SharonB's Stitch Explorer 2009. I tried lots of variations which you can find in previous posts or on my Flickr site. Since I'm on the "tea cosy" wagon right now I decided to make a tea cosy with some chicken scratch decoration. It is the four-square design again. And this is the basic chicken scratch stitch on this square except that I have switched colours on the inner and outer rows. This is the front. And this will be the back. Another basic stitch. This side needs another round of stitching. These designs work up really quickly and are very effective. I like the contrast of the navy and white on the pale blue gingham.

Another go at Chicken Scratch

I couldn't get anything to work on that multicoloured squared fabric I mentioned in the previous post, so I gave up on it. I worked on the 1/8" green gingham and this is how it turned out:

The weaving part in the daisies would have looked nice in yellow. The darker weaving is a sage green.

Stitch Explorer 2009 - Chicken Scratch - added to Jan 17.

SharonB's choice for the first stitch is Chicken scratch. This is good! I'd been fooling around with it in December and found it so interesting. It's great to have the push to try more. First is my sampler from the end of December. I was experimenting to find out which attempt would have the most impact. I was making a dotee doll. I used white, pink and dark pink threads. I also tested leaving either the white square open, or the darker pink square. I liked the effect of the white square open with the dark pink thread (top right), the pink square open with the white thread (middle of middle row), and the white square open with the white thread (bottom middle), this is the combination I chose. The others blended into the fabric I thought. These are what happened last night. I marked out 1/4" squares and used #5 perle for the stars and #12 for the circles.The woven bit was copied from one of the samples suggested by Sharon. I would like to try more of this weaving. The right hand block below I used 4mm silk ribbon and a few strands of silver for the weaving. I added this photo Jan 17 because it's brighter than the one below it.This piece of gingham has 1/8" squares. The cross stitch is in #12 perle and the weaving #5 with a tiny seed stitch in the middle. This is called diagonal laid filling in my book and looked good in the frame when I'd stitched it, but it collapsed without the hoop. The part I anchored down looks OK, but it didn't have the 3D effect anymore. I think I've made a reasonable start, and any more that I do, I'll add to this post. These photos are all on Flickr where you can see them enlarged. On here I cannot make that happen. On Saturday, 17th Jan, I've added this new bit of stitching. The fabric was marked in 1/4" squares. In every other square I made a cross with cream thread to match the fabric colour. Then I wove four different shades of #5 DMC blue perle. It measures 3" x 2". "Creative Every Day" for Jan 15, 16 & 17.

SharonB's New Challenge for 2009

I keep checking the date to make sure that I haven't missed the 15th! SharonB's new challenge begins on Thursday the 15th. It's called Stitch Explorer. This is how she describes it on her blog, Pintangle.

• "On the 15th of each month I will post details of of either a slightly unusual or lesser known stitch, or a style of embroidery. Please note I will be looking at embroidery styles as well as stitches. Sometimes it will be both. Sometimes it will be one or the other.
• Looking at how a stitch is constructed and adapting that makes for some interesting discoveries. The same holds true when we look at different embroidery styles. Looking at how and why a style might be worked in a particular manner and investigating that, makes many styles more versatile than people realise.
• Each month I will provide readers with enough information to enable them to explore, investigate and or adapt the stitch or style. Readers can use the challenge stitch or style on any project they choose."
• To find out all about the new 2009 challenge, check out SharonB's blog, Pintangle. You'll find a link on the right.

To prepare for this challenge I made a section of the sampler that I will use for the various stitches. This is my "Creative Every Day" piece for today.