Stitching procrastination

I've been in the mood to stitch! 😊 I started in the car and just kept going.

Chain stitch 

I went away for a couple of days to Toronto with my hubby to see a concert. He had booked it before lockdown, so two years later we saw Airborne Toxic Event with Mondo cozmo opening for them. It was a really great concert. The artists were so obviously happy to be back out there doing their thing!

I wasn't going to bring any stitching but at the last minute threw a few threads and this fabric that I had started stitching on in a bag for the journey. I'm very lucky that I can stitch in the car.  This was the picture in my Instagram post on the way. Turns out it's easier to embroider in the car than it is to take a photo of it or actually post!

Stitching in the car - all chain stitch variations

I kept stitching during the week. I used a variation of chain stitches. As you can see, I love adding hexies to the mix. They add colour and are fun to stitch around.

The fabric that I was using was larger than my previous 8" blocks, so I cut off this side that had half-chain stitches. The openings can be large or small. It's good to see what a stitch can do. I also used rows of them above - they are very interesting together (the pink rows under the ladder stitch.

Half-chain stitches

This is what the sampler block looks like today. Over the open chain stitch (or ladder stitch), I added some long tail chain stitches because they look like flowers behind the fence! I also love the single chain stitch (or detached or lazy daisy) in a cluster in different threads and colours. It's a little more elaborate (and fun) than just using seed stitch.

Many variations of the chain stitch

It always takes me a few stitches to figure out the correct angles of the feathered chain stitch (at the bottom of the piece and under the top hexie). These are very popular in Crazy Quilting and can be part of quite elaborate combinations. 

I learned a new variation while reading Textile Stories #12, by Mirjam Gielen of Mirjam textiles. Mirjam does some great organic embroidery, mostly on her eco-printed fabrics. The heavy rows on the right are made with heavy chain stitch. I really love their weight and tried them out in a few thread weights. The orange is 6 strands of embroidery floss, the blue is #5 perle cotton; the fuchsia is #12 perle cotton. The final row is Honest Yarn's hand-dyed indigo lace linen.

Heavy chain stitch

Embroidering on eco-printed fabric

This is a piece of eco-printed linen that I started stitching on a while back. I added a few open chain stitch rows (ladder), some detached chain stitch as well as quite a few French knots. 

Adding more stitches on eco-printed fabric

In the image below, in the bottom left corner, you can see Mirjam's variation of the blanket stitch to make lace like or what she calls cell like structures. That was my first try and I will be practicing this - it's quite beautiful.

Stitching on eco-printed fabric

Biodiversity piece

I love procrastinating and I'm quite good at it! However, sometimes I have to talk myself into getting things done. I promised myself that after stitching and preparing this post, that I could go back to my biodiversity piece. Since I've been working with the chain stitch, I started with the lazy daisy in the blue flowers below. 

Biodiversity - getting back to it.

This piece was started based on another workshop with TextileArtists.org's stitch club. In March 2021, Kate Tume's workshop was about exploring narrative potential with embellishment. See Related links for details.

Making detached daisies within 
detached daisies

What I learned

• I've had a good time playing with thread - it seems that I really needed some slow stitching time!
• It's been a while since I worked on a new embroidery sampler. I've added links below to the other ones I've worked on.
• Embroidering in the car is a great way to pass the time, especially since I can't sleep in the car anymore.
• The best thing about a live concert was seeing how happy the musicians were being on stage and doing what they love. It was very inspiring.
• I was also reminded how much I love my quiet little suburb!
• Now that I've started stitching the biodiversity piece, I'm going to put away the other embroidery until I finish this one.

Related links

• Posts on Embroidery samplers
• Slow stitching Update, April 13, 2019
• Relaxing and Playing,  July 01, 2019
• Posts on embroidering on eco-printed fabrics
• Updates on Slow Stitching projects, October 11, 2021
• Mirjam Gielen of Mirjam Textiles
• Basic Stitches - an e-book on organic embroidery available on Etsy
• Instagram
• Post on Biodiversity
• Embroidery & Beads for Slow Sunday Stitching, March 07, 2021
• Kate Tume
• Kate Tume: Activism and embellishment, article on TextileArtist.org
• Airborne Toxic Event with Mondo cozmo

Linking parties

Remember to link up any FMQ with Muv this week! I'll be posting on Thursday for Free Motion Mavericks. I'm linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching as well as many other fun link ups. Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2022, 

#100dayschallenge started

Hi! I started another challenge on Instagram - not really following anyone, just stitching my free motion quilted (FMQ) Improv piece to encourage me to stitch every day and to post a little more on Instagram.

Stitching on my FMQ Improv piece

As you may have seen in my last post, I am having too much fun collecting yarns and threads. I have to justify those purchases, so the least I can do is practice my stitching and play with these beauties. 

My new silk and linen threads

A little about the thread

Before I talk about the effects of the thread on the stitches, below are the different threads so that you can compare.

From the left:

• Bengal linen in Indigo. It is very fine and so far I've used two or three strands.
• Honest Yarn, hand-dyed lace linen in a light Indigo. It came in a skein so I prepared it so that I can more easily stitch with it. It's thicker than the Bengal linen, closer to a #8 perle cotton.
• Bengal silk in Indigo. It not as fine as the linen but varies in thickness.
• My hand-dyed thread - it's a thicker perle cotton - I believe that it's a size #5.
• WonderFil size #8 perle cotton, which is slightly different in size from a DMC #8 perle cotton.
• Another hand-dyed thread - it's a #12 perle cotton by DMC.

Comparing different size thread

Day 2 - Mostly Chain Stitch

It really has been a great education. The threads are so different from each other, and therefore stitch very differently. Here's a closeup of the first stitches so that you can see what I mean.

What a difference the thread makes in the stitches.

The first, outside chain stitches are made with the Bengal silk. Because it's not a consistent weight, it makes for a rather sloppy chain stitch. The second thread is the Bengal linen that I doubled. It's a better stitch but pretty tiny. The inside chain stitch is made with the lace linen. The stitches are much more defined and because of the thickness, it's slightly raised.

In between the chain stitching, I tried out two strands of the Bengal linen in marigold. There's a running stitch and a back stitch.

Day 3 - Couched Filling Stitch

My hexie lost a bit of it's angles as I stitched inside, so it looks a lot more like a circle in the middle. I used a couched filling stitch, so essentially I prepared a quadrant with the two strands of marigold Bengal linen and then made knots at the intersections with one strand of the Indigo Bengal linen.

Adding a couched filling stitch to the middle

What I learned

• I really need to practice my embroidery stitches but I tend to get bored easily, so this is a great way to try things and compare the results. As well as keeping a record in this post, I'm also writing it down in one of my many journals. It will be a great reference.
• I posted my Day 1/100 on Friday and then managed to forget to post on Saturday, even if my information was all ready to go. It's going to take a little bit of time to get used to posting again.
• I'm a little bit ahead so that if I don't stitch every day, I'll still have a post ready to go...if I remember 😊
• As I found out, Bengal silk thread is not good to use in stitches that are more even. I did use it in a backstitch for the new version of "All for One". In this case I didn't mind that the stitches would be uneven. I should be posting it soon - it's almost done and looking much better!

Related links

• Improv Piecing and FMQ, August 5, 2021
• QuiltingLearningCombo on Instagram
• Trying to get from fine to great, July 16, 2021

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let see what's going on out there!

Slow Sunday Stitching, Patchwork & Quilts, Peacock Party, Off The Wall Friday, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Midweek Makers, Free Motion Mavericks with Muv, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, 

More hand-stitching fun

As you may  have read previously, I've been doing a lot of slower stitching - hand stitching, mediation stitching, embroidery and other fun stuff. I'm having a blast and learning so much.

Making a seashell container

I've enrolled in the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. It's essentially the same concept as their original Stitch Challenge, but for a fee. After all that they have given to the stitching community this spring, I wanted to keep playing and learning as well as support their great initiative.

The first artist, at the end of May, was Debbie Lyddon. She makes very cool textile art. Since she lives near the sea, a lot of her imagery and techniques come from there. For example, she adds grommets to a lot of her work. These are hand done and are used a lot in sailing boats. Our assignment was to make three containers to hold something special to us or our environment.

I'm going to start with the second container that I made since it's much more like the work that Debbie showed us how to make.

Hand-stitched seashell container 

I started by painting the fabric, a white on white cotton that came out really well. For this second container, I learned from the Q & A sessions at the end of the week that Debbie dilutes her acrylic paint quite a bit. I hadn't done that for the first piece and so the fabric was very stiff and a little difficult to sew by hand. The darker blue fabric pieces that have Sea and Shells written on them (with markers) are from the first batch of fabric. I could never have embroidered the words on there 😊

Other side of the seashell container

I embroidered the bag before I stitched it together. I love using the feather stitch when I don't have to be accurate and follow a line. This stitch is perfect for making sea weeds.

On this side, you can see that the grommets are smaller. I actually used half of a twist tie to make each of them. On the back of the fabric, I drew the circle around the twist tie. I then cut into the hole, leaving most of the fabric there and stitched very densely around the tie. I used a buttonhole wheel stitch to  highlight the grommets. Inside of the small grommets, I stitched a small piece of netting - the stuff that comes from a bag of potatoes.  

One the inside with the cheese
 cloth covering the grommets

On the inside of the bag, with the
netting over the small grommets

For the side of the bag with the large grommets (top image), I used a whole twist tie for each grommet. I did it the same way as the small ones but removed some of the excess fabric from the middle. I then put a layer of blue hand-dyed cheese cloth over the holes - one dark and the other lighter blue.

A peak inside!

For the top of the container, I stitched down a long piece of wire (that I use for hanging frames). I had about ½" of fabric on the inside so I added a row of stem stitching right under the stitching for the wire and then about a ¼" from there, a row of chain stitch keeps the seam down on the inside.

A container to display an arrowhead 

This container is used to display
rather than contain

This was the first container that I made. It was much more complicated than my second one since I wanted to use it to display rather than contain the arrowhead within it.

The prototype for the bottom of the container

I started by painting the fabrics and then made a prototype for the bottom of the container. Since it worked out, I ended up painting it instead of making another one. After that, I sewed three different fabrics together, the brown, green and blue and then stitched them into a tube. My fabric was stiff but not stiff enough to hold the arrowhead, so I inserted a roll of toilet paper inside to strengthen it.

Displaying the arrowhead on a shelf

The arrowhead comes from Northern Ontario. I found it near the swamp at the cottage where I spent all of my summers when growing up. This was probably part of the hunting territory of my husband's community. I only realised this as I was making this display container. On the outside, I used markers to draw the tree with deep roots, and birds. Around the top, I stitched on some beads and feather charms in the four directions.

Inside the container I added a stone from the area as well as cedar, sweet grass and sage. These are not the traditional things that you would put inside a pouch but I didn't have any tobacco. I made this container for my children, who are also part of this community.  

What I learned

• I am really enjoying learning about all of these techniques, but more importantly, I love expanding my knowledge and appreciation of textile art. Some of it can be pretty out there - and I may not be quite there yet, but I'm loving the journey.
• The art that the other participants are making is sometimes quite intimidating. However, I'm not letting myself be too hard on my work - I haven't been doing this for very long and we all have our paths to work on. I make sure to save many of the work that I would like to learn from. Sometimes it's just a little detail that I might never have thought about but that's how we expand as artists and makers.
• I used Perle Cotton size 8 for all of the stitching in these projects. I hadn't used it much previously and really love it.
• The arrowhead container was quite difficult to make because I had no idea what I was doing!😊 I'm really happy with the way both of them came out.

Related links

• Debbie Lyddon's website and blog
• I use Sharon Boggon's website - Pintangle's Stitch dictionary for most of my stitches.

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. I hope that you'll join me to see what else is going on out there! Monday Making, What I Made Monday, Design Wall Monday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday Off the Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Beauties Pageant, Oh Scrap!, Favorite Finish - June 2020 

Relaxing and Playing

With its deadlines and general busyness, June was a pretty difficult month. I'm glad that the rush is over, but I'm sorry to see spring come to an end. I just love the cool weather and the beautiful early flowers - now it looks like the heat and humidity is back! Oh well, if I can't play in the garden, I'll just have to play indoors with my fabrics 😊

Playing with hexies and embroidery

I've finally taken a little bit of time to add to my embroidery. I'm not even keeping track of the Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) since I won't be catching up anytime soon. But who says that it needs to be done in one year? Certainly not our host, Sharon of Pintangle. I really appreciate her posts laid back attitude, and encouragement.

Page 3 - Buttonhole wheel stitch

I love how there buttonhole wheels play so well with each other. It almost looks like they belongs in the sea. This was my One Thing With Amy post  last week on Instagram. I did get it done - now I have to remember to actually post it!

Buttonhole Wheels (week 13)

Page 4 - Feather stitch (in progress)

I started this page this morning, while enjoying my coffee in the back yard. I'm going to play with variations of the Feather stitch.

Feather stitch (week 5) in progress

Page 2 - Herringbone stitch

After not knowing how to proceed with Page 1, I decided to add some hexies to break up the stitching and add a focus to the page. This page contains different sizes of herringbone stitches.

Herringbone stitches (week 6)

Page 1 - Chain stitch

The Chain stitch page may not be pretty but it sure holds many types of chain stitches. There is the Chain stitch (week 1), the Detached Chain stitch (week 7), the Cable Chain stitch (week 14), and the Butterfly Chain stitch (week 15).

All kinds of Chain stitches

Important Notice! I just found out that #100hexies100days2019 has already started on Instagram. I just love looking at everyone's very artfully arranged hexies. It's so much fun. Anyway, I'll be joining in once a week and will write a couple of posts during the event!

Summer Book Club Quilt-Along

I'm participating in the Summer Book Club QAL on Instagram with Kate Basti of Quilt with Kate. I'm only on my second book but it's a really cute foundation paper pieced pattern called Tall Tales. It's very affordable and all proceeds from this pattern benefit the Columbus Literacy Council.

I really love seeing everyone's books on Instagram. They are so lovely.

Here are my two books so far. Instead of making a quilt, I'm making minis (of course!) Most of these will be cubicle minis for my colleagues, friends and family 😊 and the bonus is that these are great to practice FMQ.

This first book was made because it was the first cute fabric that I found.

Bambi book inspired by the fabric

FMQ flowers

"The Earth is Not Flat" book for my son

This second book was made for my son, the science guy in our family. I was going to call it "The Earth is No Longer Flat", but I knew that there wouldn't be enough space on the book spine and of course my son would have argued that the Earth was never flat - and I certainly didn't have space for "The Earth is No Longer Perceived as Flat!" :-)

FMQ stars and planets

One Monthly Goal (OMG) for July

My OMG for July is to finish the quilt top from last year's Kingfisher Stitch-Along,










What I learned

• It's good to be playing around with quilting and FMQ.
• You may have noticed that I join a lot of quilt-alongs and such but often don't get much done. I really like love to try new things and as long as I keep my expectations small (like minis and occasional posts) then I feel that I've gotten a lot out of them. Each activity, hosted by dedicated people, has lots to offer. I appreciate all of the work that goes into organising these events.
• For all of the events that I do participate in, there are many more that I bypass. I'm finally getting to know what I'll enjoy doing and what will end up being just one more obligation....she can learn!

Happy Canada Day!

Related links

• Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) with Sharon of Pintangle
• One Thing Challenge (#onethingwithamy) on Instagram with Amy's Creative Side
• Slow Stitching Update, April 13, 2019
• 100 Days of Fun with Hexies, August 22, 2018
• Summer Book Club QAL on Intragram with Quilt with Kate (quiltwithkate.com)
• Tall Tales pattern
• Kingfisher Stitch-Along: Embroidery, Art and Hexies in Florence, December 26, 2018

Remember to come back on
Thursday to link up!

Linking parties

I'm linked up my books to mmm quilts! DrEAMi link-up and linking up to July's Goal Setting for OMG. I will be linking up this post to many fun linking parties. Let's go see what's going on! What I Made Monday, Moving it Forward, Design Wall Monday, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Free Motion Mavericks with Muv, Midweek Maker, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Needle & Thread Thursday, Slow Sunday Stitching, Off The Wall Friday, TGIFF, Finished Or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, 

Slow stitching - embroidery and a red mini art quilt

There is a lot of slow stitching happening these days - in my home and around quilting blogland. It's so exciting to see everyone re-discovering slow stitching with embroidery, English Paper Piecing, hand quilting and even hand piecing.

More embroidery

I've been following TAST - Take A Stitch Tuesday with Sharon of Pintangle. Here are the stitches to date: Chain stitch, Fly stitch, Buttonhole stitch, and Stem stitch.

Green Buttonhole and green & yellow Chain stitches

In my excitement, I started with the Stem stitch. However, last week I added the Chain stitch to my piece, as well as the Buttonhole stitch. It was so much fun working on this fabric - it's like it was made to practice these embroidery stitches!

Working Fly stitches in the wider areas

I want to go through Sharon's stitch dictionary to try out these stitches in the many options she illustrates.

Lots of Chain and Stem stitches happening

Red Mini Art Quilt

My red mini art quilt, aka “Peek-a-boo Red”, is now completed.

This one is totally hand-stitched with embroidery and beading. Peeking out from behind the curtain, you can see the batik hexies. I wanted to incorporate some traditional quilting in this piece – and although English paper piecing is new to me, it’s actually an old quilting tradition.

“Peek-a-boo Red”

I love the curtain that’s made of banana fibres. I just happened to have the perfect colours. It just goes to prove that when you find cool supplies, if you can afford it….pick them up! You never know when you’ll be needing them.

Can you see the hexies peeking though?

The background is a red grunge and the embroidery floss that I used is the one that matched the paint chip that went with bright red. I practiced my fly stitch and of course used more stem stitch for the top. Finally I beaded the red banana fibre with red seed beads.

Here are my three mini art quilts so far.

Three Mini Art Quilts so far

What I learned

• My son helped me with the colour. I had some white fibre in the curtain but he said that it was taking away from the red – so off they came!
• It’s interesting that the white was too much but the green and blue-grey were fine. I guess it was a matter of value.
• I didn't finish the green mini art quilt for the deadline. Luckily I wasn't the only one. We now have a couple more weeks to get these done - so stay tuned for my green mini art quilt!

Related links

Take a Stitch Tuesday

• Mini art quilts and slow stitching, January 14, 2019
• A few mini quilts to make, January 5, 2019
• Out of the Box Fibre Artist Group
• Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) with Pintangle

• Week 1: Chain Stitch
• Week 2: Fly Stitch
• Week 3: Buttonhole Stitch
• Week 4: Stem Stitch

Linking parties
This post will be linking up to some cool linky parties. Let's see what's happening in quilting blogland 😊 Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Linky Tuesday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Makers, Silly Mama Quilts WIPs, Needle & Thread Thursday, Wondering Camera, Off The Wall Friday, TGIFF

Project details

Peek-a-boo Red mini art quilt
5" x 7"
Materials: cotton, batik, embroidery floss, banana fibres, seed beads, Kimono silk thread
Techniques: English Paper Piecing, embroidery, hand sewing, beading