Still on the jacket

It's now four strips wide with one more and a bit to go for the left front. It's pretty labour-intensive, so not growing by leaps and bounds! I'm also being very careful to sew on the printed line on the paper and pressing lots. Just a note about the silk that I am using. It's all reclaimed, so definitely used, mostly gently. Everything goes in the washing machine in cool water with just regular detergent. I have never had anything silk spoil by laundering it, even though ALL the labels say dry clean.

More on the Jacket

This morning I sewed together all the pieces in strip 1 and strip 2. After pressing the seams down and removing some of the paper from areas that would be difficult to get to after more sewing, I pinned strip 1 to strip 2 and sewed them together. Then I removed all the paper from the second strip and pressed it well. What a difference it makes with no pins, paper or raw edges. As I'm working on this project I'm finding out tricks that really help. For instance I started out using white thread. Now I've switched to a dark thread to help find the tacking when I am undoing it. Also I don't fasten off my tacking now, I run a few stitches, about 2" over the beginning tacking and then snip off the beginning knot. This really helps because the thread just pulls out and doesn't stop at the knot.

Silk jacket - moving right along

This is the left front pinned and ready to sew together. I have enough tacked pieces to work on the rest of the jacket, so I'll be at the sewing machine for a while getting this done. It's been a great take-along in the car project. I even was able to do some tacking at the Canadian Open Golf Championship! I took lots of pinned pieces but ran out of thread before I finished. So....I had to watch the golf!

Daredevils

These lads are crazy! This was MX1 Can-Am pro racing on the weekend at Gopher Dunes in Ontario, Canada. This guy isn't actually balancing on the trees, but high in the air after roaring up an earth ramp and soaring up into the sky! The good ones land on the downward ramp just out of the photo to the right, and then ride over a long stretch of rutted loose sandy earth. The whole course is over a mile and a half of jumps, rough track, hairpin turns and sometimes another 30 riders all trying to get into first place. It's pretty noisy and exciting to watch! And we took our own barbecue and eats and sat outside in the sunshine after the races were over.

Out of your comfort zone Challenge

CQ4Newbies recently ran a challenge where the participant would make two blocks, one where you were entirely comfortable with the colour, design, fabric, stitching and embellishments. The other would be out of your comfort zone. I started with my comfort block - pinks, lace, beads and the like. This is a needle case opened out to show front and back.

Below is my attempt at the "out of your zone" challenge. It's out of my zone as far as colour (no colour, just black, grey and silver), but not for any other reason, (like using big buttons, beads and butterflies), so I couldn't in all honesty, submit it into the Challenge. But I did end up with half of a nice tea cosy!!!

Silk jacket - update

I've made a whole pile of pieces and started pinning them into place. Just to be sure that I have the same patterns and colours on all pieces of the jacket, I'll pin everything in place before I sew.

Crazyquilters-ca - UTS Stitchalong

Our Canadian group of crazy quilters (crazyquilters-ca), under the direction of Rose Anne B. are working on an Under the Sea block. It's a stitchalong and so far we have worked on seaweed and a sandbar. This is my naked block.Some seaweed added, but it needs lots more of everything, thread, ribbons and beads! This is the start of my sandbar, the thread colour works well (Wildflowers) but it may have to come out because my tight stitching is pulling my block out of shape.

My technicolour dreamcoat

I have a lovely stash of colourful reclaimed pieces of silk and a wonderful assortment of pretty embroidered and beaded bits waiting patiently to be used and admired in something special. Well, I have a project in mind for both. I am going to make a silk patchwork jacket and sprinkle the sparkly bits sparingly around. These are the colours I am planning to use; mostly turquoise, blues and purples.

Here are a few of the beaded bits.And this is the pattern I am going to use. As simple as I could find as i don't want the problems of collar and lapels, pockets or darts.

I don't know if this is anything like sane quilting paper piecing, but this is how I am going to do mine. I used four squares to the inch squared paper and cut strips of 3" wide. The seam allowance is 1/4" which is one square wide. I started by cutting lengths of one, two, three, four, five and six inches, 3" wide, out of the squared paper. I cut the same out of the silk using a rotary cutter. Later I changed to using pieces of silk a little larger than the paper piece just so that the silk would stay straight. I pinned and tacked the silk to the paper, sewing in between the paper edge and the first printed line (approx. the 1/8" mark). This is so when I machine sew the pieces together later, I am not sewing over the tacking line. Then I trimmed the pieces to match the paper pieces.

This is an ongoing project and I'll update my progress as it happens!

Good Pickings

Strawberries were late this year because of the cool weather, but when they were ready to pick they were big and sweet. Mo and I picked these two buckets full in the morning in about an hour, then made about 27 pots of jam and several baggies of frozen berries in the afternoon. Most of the pots go to our families, friends and neighbours.

Lori and Don - your names are on these!

Happy Birthday, Gary!

My friend Mo's son recently celebrated a special birthday. During the week before the party he and other family members put in a very pretty paved sitting area in a shady corner of their garden. So I made the cake to represent his spot to relax for the next fifty years.

East End Cake Decoraing Club - June Meeting Competition

The Club held it's annual Cake Decorating Contest at the June meeting. There were four entries from members of the group. The judges declared Lyne Coderre’s cake to a category of its own, and it won “Best of Show” 1st Place: Diane Kingston. Diane's entry includes a real cake and cake slice. The "china" teacup and saucer, the plate, the fork and spoon, the Pansy posy, the napkin ring, the napkin and the try cloth are made from gumpaste.

Second place went to Ruth Alves whose Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" were very lifelike.

Shirley Peters won third place. She fashioned an Artist's Box and Equipment. The oil paint sure looks real! Thanks everyone for your participation. And a big thanks to our two judges, Cynthia Lewis and June from Katie's Cakes. It was decided to hold the 2009/2010 year cake competition in the October.

The next meeting will be September 20th. Elections will be held at that meeting, and your membership of $25 will be due. Also at September's meeting will be demos on how to make gumpaste, cold porcelain and Mexican Paste and Royal Icing

CQInternational FFT#7 Gerry's block

Gerry's block was a delight to work on. I enjoyed so much the work that went into it before it reached me. Gerry's lovely green fabrics and the silkie in the middle, and then Nicki Lee and Mary's pretty additions. It's now time to post it on to Faye in Australia. This is how it looks now.

I added the tatting seam at the top (I wish I could say that I tatted the tatting, but I can't). I also added the rosebud vine.

A row of chevron and lazy daisy.

Bullion daisies in a shiny variegated thread and some beaded flowers. A row of silk ribbon french knot blossoms.

Another "sweet" day

Do you remember the post last week with all those little faces? Well, here is the resulting cake, finished. My friend Verdie and I worked all day on these five and three others. The occasion is a meeting at a local church of "Small Group Leaders". The cakes are an 8" carrot cake heart, two 6" vanilla and two 6" lemon. All are filled - cream cheese buttercream, buttercream and lemon curd with buttercream and fondant covered. The lettering and logo are in colourflow. The cakes were varying shades of blue on a 16" x 20" fondant covered board. We just delivered this cake and some of the meeting attendees were there already. They had such a lot of fun picking themselves and others out of the faces. We hadn't actually modelled them after any of them, but certainly there were some similarities!

This looked so pretty! An 8" "black fruit cake" smothered in gum paste flowers.

Pattern search

One of the posts in Plays with Needles blog mentioned a knitting web site called "Knitty", which reminded me that I have been looking for a knitting pattern for ages, and maybe through my blog would be a good place to ask if anyone still has it. The picture below is my daughter in about 1976 graduating from nursery school in the dress in question. It's knitted with a simple crochet picot edging and looked so cute with tights.

FFT#7 - Nicki Lee's block

Just finished and mailed Niki's block to Faye in Australia. I really like working on sea-themed blocks and Nicki's was set up so nicely with lovely fabrics and pretty stitching already completed by Mary. Here are some pictures.

These shells shine like mother of pearl, the photo doesn't do them justice.Lots of seaweed and a little shoal of tiny fishes to the right.

This braid has a lovely shimmer which I was able to match to some Sassa Lynne thread and seed beads. Below that is my representation of an octopus

I wanted a stitch that would disappear into the background because I didn't want it to interfere with the patch with the shells. The stitch I used is the up and down blanket stitch and is one of my favourites and every time I use it I have to look at the instructions. But it's an interesting stitch because the second leg appears is the most impossible way. Just try it out and you will see what I mean.

Now I am block-free until I receive Gerry's block from Mary. I should probably do some housework!