Chikan Embroidery - third lesson

I'm now working on the double back stitch.  That's the centre blue heart.  I chose the smallest piece first, there's lots more of that stitch to do.

Seed Bead Botany

Beaded feather stitch. Looking at Nancy's handout from the class, these will be grape vines.

And these, stems to flowers.

East End Cake Decorators - February 2012 Meeting

We were treated to two very well-prepared demonstrations at our EECD meeting in February.  Cynthia L. showed members the correct way to do brush embroidery.  Lynne demonstrated pleating, different sizes and different methods.

Here Lynne has rolled out a large piece of fondant mixed with a bit of tylose for strength.  She begins by laying down  food-grade dowels, the first one in the middle under the fondant.  The next two on top and either side of the middle one.  She carries on in this manner to the size of drape she wants.

When the dowels are in, she trims to size and then carefully removes the dowels

She gently shaped the pleated piece, pinching each end together.

Here's the finished piece, several of which could be used on a tiered cake, and where the individual pieces of draping joined, place a gumpaste rose, for example.

Here she is working on a small fan-shaped piece

Here Lynne is demonstrating a pleating tray available from Creative Cutters, you can see the tray at the bottom of the photo.

This is a nice selection of Lynne's work.

Glenys tried her hand.  She's making a fan shaped piece.

Here it is finished.

Next, Cynthia demonstrated brush embroidery; for my embroidery readers this would be similar to long and short stitch.

Cynthia is outlining the leaf with royal icing

Next step is to gently brush icing from the inside edge of the leaf towards the centre of the leaf.  

There's definitely a technique to show that petals are overlapping.

Thank you both,  Lynne and Cynthia, for your interesting and informative demos.

The next meeting for members is on Sunday, 25th at 2pm at St. Margaret's in the Pines, Lawrence and Kingston Roads.


Glenys will demo gelatin flowers and wings.  If anyone has any gelatin items at home they've done before and would like to show them, that would be great.

 

Chikan Embroidery - second lesson

Finished the first two lessons.  I think it looks quite delicate.  I'm using a hoop and a lighted magnifier at all times.  For the chain stitch I tried it with two strands, but unpicked and used one only.  

Now I have to get down to Nancy Eha's first lesson in the Seed Bead Botany online class. 

Chikan Embroidery - first lesson

Almost finished the stitches for the first lesson.  With the magnifier my stitches are acceptable.  I'm finding it relaxing, and even the back is looking quite good.

Back side of work

The second lesson is already up on Anita's blog, Artistic Fingers.  I have her on my sidebar list of blogs. 

Chikan Embroidery

I'm taking part in Anita's stitchalong.  She's teaching a bunch of us an Indian embroidery style called Chikan embroidery.  Anita's blog is Artistic Fingers and is on my sidebar.

There are stitches at the back of the work that show through as a shadow.  I'm enjoying doing it, but have realized several things so far:

• I need better glasses!  Towards the end I used my lighted magnifier, and there is a great improvement. On the left side where the darker pink starts, I began using the magnifier. 
• Garbage in, garbage out, I think I remember that from computers.  And the same holds true here, do a good job of tracing the pattern and the little shapes will be more even when embroidered.

Beadoodlery

My finished beaded heart from the Joggles online course Beadoodlery with Christian Brown.
It measures 3 1/4" across the widest part. 

Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012 - March's Blocks

This is my March block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012.  I'm using Carole Samples wonderful book as inspiration for old and unusual seams.

This is also a block for March.  I want to complete the project at the end of 2012, but I'll need to have more than 12 blocks.  So when I can I'll make an extra one.  

Fairyland

We haven't had much of the white stuff this winter, but this morning this is what I woke up to.  No wind, so it stayed on the branches.

Flower quilt - Crazy Quilts are Quilts too!

I want to thank all who voted for my quilt in Thearica's Competition and Show on her blog Pigtalesandquilts.  I was so pleased, it came in fourth!  

TAST Week 8 Chain Stitch

One of my favourite tools is a scalloped ruler that I used to mark out this simple design.

TAST Week 7 Detached Chain Stitch

This is week 7's stitch from Take a Stitch Tuesday, Sharon B's challenge on Pintangle. 

The daisies are chain stitches filled with beads, and the bud is three chain stitches, one inside the other.  

Crazy Quilts ARE Quilts Too - continued

Thearica's dream of  having an online quilt show has been a real success.  Hop over to her website to browse through some wonderful crazy quilting.  Also take time to vote for one of the 19 entries in the competition.  Here's the link.  For the competition entries, scroll down until you see the word COMPETITION, and click on it.  For all the websites with crazy quilting, go further down to where there are 41 blogger's links.

TAST Week 6 Chevron Stitch

Chevron covering ground.  It filled in a corner quite nicely.  The thread is velvet.  

WIPocalypse February report

My goodness, this month slipped by so quickly.  I didn't get as much done as I expected.  There's still a lot of UFO's needing attention.

These I did manage to attack:

Baby block tutorial:  I made good headway on this tutorial, I'm about half way through that project.

I'm up to this point 

Handkerchief Quilt:  Got some expert advice on how to begin assembling, which I am seriously scheduling for this coming month.   My Seniors group also hand quilts for a fee, and I they will do mine.