Another cold, wet day!

Cabin fever is setting in. I was looking for a photo of vintage fabric to put on the web site I am trying to build and ran across a link for vintage dress patterns. This one is from the late 1920's. That was such a sophisticated era for fashion. I wasted far too much time looking through the patterns on the site, but it I enjoyed it nonetheless...

Happy New Year!

Most of the day has been spent working on a web site. All I can say is I am glad I don't have to do that every day!

I have also been experimenting with coloring the background on an embroidery block. The technique is to draw a picture, color it with colored pencils, scan it into the computer, and then photocopy the picture onto paper-backed fabric that can go into the printer. I have seen quilts done using this technique and they are really pretty.

Well, things did not go as planned. The printer ate the first two sheets (and at $1 each, I wasn't going to keep feeding them in). The last one I tried did go through but did not print evenly. When I peeled the paper off the back, I didn't really care for the feel of the fabric. It has a plastic feel to it. When I tried embroidering the roof, it was difficult to push the needle through the fabric so I decided to abandon this block and try again.

Tomorrow is another day. Next I am going to try using fabric crayons on muslin and see if I get better results.

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.