Stitching Away

Two very quick progress reports today.  First, the sample of the Upcycle project:

Image and design copyright RPS

I simply took a piece of muslin and drew a portion of the trick or treat lettering in marker.  Then, made some hasty sketches of chickens and free motion quilted them on my little Elna model 50 "Grasshopper."  Then I began to go over the marker letters in chain stitches, at the same time auditioning two different weights of WonderFil Eleganza thread.  In all of the drawing classes I have had, my teachers always stressed the importance of drawing directly from the real thing, don't try to draw from memory.  These chickens are proof of that advice. 

I have dabbled a little bit with one of the little Mardi Gras series - the ones where I was supposed to finish one a week - here is some hand embroidery that I am pleased with:

Image and design copyright RPS

I am off to at least find pictures of chickens.  There is a barn full of chickens within sight of my house, but I don't know the neighbors well enough to ask them if I could hang out there for a while drawing their laying hens. 

World War I Challenge Progress

Sadly, I am missing the entry deadline for this quilt, it is still not finished.  I'm not upset by missing the deadline, I will still finish the quilt and since I am going to be a vendor at the show it was to be entered into, I will have it on display (and for sale) in my booth.  I have a few more things to add to it, but here are a couple of detail images of the quilting and the very cool stamens in the poppies (hand stitched - straight stitches with French knots).  Enjoy!

images and design copyright RPS

This week is quieter than last, so I really have every intention of posting on Thursday... will it be about the finish of this quilt, or something else?

Stitching the Summer Flowers

Slowly, I am am adding hand stitching to both of my little summer flowers series.  The hand stitching slows down the progress of a piece, which brings up a significant dilemma.  My art quilts are all about a multitude of textures and details that includes lots of hand stitching.  It also adds exponentially to the time and therefore the selling price of the piece. This occurred to me as I started to stitch yesterday on these little flower quilts.  

Image and designs copyright RPS

One hour's worth of stitching on the day lily, fifteen minutes on the Joe-Pye-Weed.

I have been intending on having 8 x 10" art quilts as a more affordable option to customers at future art fairs.  The more hand stitching I add, the less affordable they are, but leaving out the hand stitching compromises the integrity of my vision for the quilt.  So far, I have worked on the Joe-Pye-Weed for one hour and 35 minutes and the day lily for two hours and ten minutes.  I could split the hour I spent piecing the bases, since I made two bases in that time, that would bring down the times for each.  The hand stitching is something I like to do, but it is going to wreck the cost factor.  Take a look at the Joe-Pye-Weed (the one on the right above), I have a long way to go!  

That day lily really needs some leaves...

Learning New Things

For some reason, I've decided that I don't have enough to do (not the case in reality), so I am taking a six week long calligraphy class.  I had the first session last week, and here is what I did in class:

Learning any new skill starts with the basics, and there is no getting around it.  It takes time to master anything.  As I have discussed here before, I have encountered many people who apparently want to master a skill instantly, so they don't bother trying anything new.  It just doesn't work that way.  The best things in life aren't downloaded.  Which reminds me, I have some lovely stitching going on a collage, I am off to continue these fly stitch vines and keep working on my stitching skills.

Give Up or Keep Going?

I had a set of four small (8 x 10") art quilts resurface in my mass of unfinished projects.  I started them over a year ago in an attempt to have some small impulse-buy type pieces to sell at art fairs.  They were cast aside as I wasn't happy with the way that I had assembled them. 

Image and designs copyright RPS

I had pillowcase bound these two after doing some, but not all of the intended embellishing.  I keep running into problems with embellishing before quilting through all three layers.  I don't always like putting a heavy quilting design on my work, as I want the fabric itself to be the focus.  I will quilt some pieces of fabric in these collages, and I'll add hand stitching in others, but I want some pieces of fabric left unadorned.  I'll sew along the seams to quilt, but here I've put thick trims in many places where I didn't want to quilt inside the fabric pieces.  It won't be a good idea to sew over the trims again in the quilting process.

Image and designs copyright RPS

The piece on the left in the above image has some hand stitching on it, and then I pillowcase bound it.  I should have added some trims along the seams before binding, so that the trims along the outer edged would have been neatly tucked in the binding seams.  The one on the right is just a pieced top with no quilting or embellishing yet.  I still have a chance to get it right on that one.

I am stuck on these small pieces, should I pitch the ones that I have embellished but could have assembled better?  How much time should I give to fixing them before giving up?  Finally, I 'm still uncertain as to how to combine all the different techniques that I want to use in a sequence that results in good craftsmanship.  I am going to think about this for another week, then I must decide to fix them or move on.

A Little Progress

Aside from spring planting and fall harvest, nothing gets me off track more than packing for a quilt show.  I have not accomplished much on the samples for the demos I will be doing this weekend, but I have enough done to show the samples.

Image and design copyright RPS

This is part of a collage that I am doing on a vintage tea towel.  Take a look at the feather stitch I used to stitch a length of silk sari ribbon around a square cut from a vintage hankie.

Image and design copyright RPS

This is a bigger view of the above detail.  The piece above the hankie is a mini collage that I started as another project that stalled, so it is going into this tea towel creation.  I am feeding my fascination with layers upon layers with this piece.

Not my stitching here!  This was the stitching on the tea towel when I rescued it in an auction box lot.

Finally, a little stitching I managed to finish on one of the collages that I will be talking about in Lebanon, Ohio this weekend.

Stitching Around

Maybe I am too ambitious, as I habitually envision myself completing more than I actually do.  Obviously, I am not as far long on my collages as I wanted to be.  But, I have been stitching:

The stitching in the center of the doily is just a lazy daisy in a Valdani 8 weight.  I think it is looking reminiscent of a sunflower seed head. 

I have also played with filling in the designs in the ivory dyed doily:

Here is a detail of the stitching:

I like the leaves, but I am not completely sold on using the buttonhole stitch to fill in the flower petals.  It is looking better the more I go along.  How much father will I have crept along by Thursday?