Thread Salad

I am participating in an online embroidery workshop sponsored by HEN (http://www.handembroiderynetwork.com/) based in England. The teacher uses a technique she calls thread salad to cover large areas in her embroidery. The first lesson required time spent dying unbleached muslin with coffee grounds and hand painting and stamping muslin to use as background for the embroidery. The muslin I used for the nest block was soaked in coffee for ten minutes. It is the most beautiful mocha color. The photo doesn't do it justice. The background for the tree was made by mushing around coffee grounds on muslin. Messy but thoroughly satisfying. The nest is made by cutting lots of short lengths of embroidery thread and then heaping them on the fabric and circulating it until it covered the background. Voila, a nest. The egg is a piece of muslin that I painted and then stuffed and stitched.

The tree trunk is a piece of muslin stamped with ink and colored with pen. I was encouraged to use the thread salad for the tree leaves, but liked the cut fabrics better. I think I will play with the thread salad for the ground at the base of the tree. I still have to embroider in some flowers and bushes or some other shapes to fill up the empty area on this block.

Oh, oh, oh. Colds have laid low the kids and the husband. Still recovering from all the activity last week. I did spend some time doing some embroidery that I am really dissatisfied with. Nothing worse than having some time to do something creative and then feeling like the time spent wasn't worth it. Oh, well. Hoping for something more positive tomorrow!

More Sharons

Here are a few more of the designs I entered in the Rose of Sharon contest at Electric Quilt. They received over 800 designs, so the book being prepared with the 100 best designs should be terrific. Ultimately, EQ will make all 800 designs available to everyone using EQ.

In Stitches

I don't remember the last time I embroidered something but I am sure I was not old enough to drive and still wore braids. When my friends Linda and Carol invited me to join them in taking an embroidery class at the local quilt shop, I thought it sounded like fun so I tagged along. We stitched up some lovely little floral blocks. I was introduced to Lucien embroidery floss which is very nice to work with. The colors are very vibrant and it is silky so it doesn't knot up easily. We also learned to back the embroidery block with light weight flannel so we could "travel" with the thread. It saved stitching time but made setting the blocks together a little more difficult. I think the setting block in the quilt we made for the class overpowers the delicate embroidery, but it was fun to get reacquainted with this needle art that is becoming very popular again.

Rose of Sharon Contest

Electric Quilt has joined forces with Nine Patch Media and Sharon Pederson to host a contest designing Rose of Sharon Blocks. Sharon is putting together a book that will feature 150 different Sharon designs. None of my are traditional so they may get tossed out, but it was certainly fun putting them together. Here are the first few.

Ramsey and Cleo Dress Up

Temporarily leaving the subject of quilting for today, I would like to share a recent photo of Cleo and Ramsey. The girls take them to the dog park every day to play. The city sponsors a dog parade around Halloween and there is a costume contest. The girls dressed Ramsey as Santa, and Cleo dressed up as a demented-looking elf with four ears. Christmas costumes are not traditional dress at Halloween so they certainly stood out. They were very patient and wore their costumes without complaint. Sadly, they did not win a prize...

Time to Tie One On!

My dear friend Jan recently lost her husband Karl after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Last week Jan gave me two boxes full of Karl's ties. She knows I quilt and was hopeful that I would be able to use them. There are a number of beautiful silks, and quite a variety of designs and colors. I spent four hours this afternoon carefully taking them apart, but have only put a small dent in the pile! I am glad for the time this is taking because it gives me space to reflect on possible designs for this very special collection of fabric.

My quilt is back from it's journey to Fall Market in Houston. I created it using EQ6 and Andrea Bishop from EQ borrowed it to use in her Schoolhouse presentation on using the software to design kaleidoscope blocks. It also hung in EQ's booth at the show. It was fun to receive photos of it at the show from Andrea. That's one way to have a quilt hung in Houston!

The Beginning

I have been inspired to start my own blog after spending many enjoyable hours reading the blogs of talented artists nationwide. They share their passion through words and pictures of their work, their families and the world around them. I love fabric, color, designing quilt patterns and using my hands to create. I hope to use this vehicle to chronicle my journey.