Showing posts with label embroidery hoop. Show all posts

Friday, November 14, 2025

Desert Landscape in progress

Hi and welcome 😊 I hope that you've had a good week. I'm sorry that I'm a day late - I hope you'll link up below! This week I didn't have as much time to stitch as I thought, but I did have a wonderful week thanks to my brother and his family. There will be more about that in a future post. This week I almost have a finish!

A desert landscape

I have been doing more landscape art with coiling. I'm on my third piece and it's still fun. 😀 That's unusual for this gal who gets bored so easily. I think because it's relatively simple, quick and so full of possibilities. I even have my next one planned!

This piece is based on a picture I took in 2016 in one of the National Parks we visited around Nevada. Maybe because hubby and I are from the forests and lakes of the Cambrian Shield, we find deserts fascinating.

Desert Landscape - almost finished

The original photo of a desert landscape

I remember taking this photo because the fine sand at the forefront was actually unusual in the parks we visited. It's amazing how different the landscapes are, even if they are all considered deserts.

This piece is tiny - it's in a 4" embroidery hoop. That was part of the challenge that I gave myself. I wanted to see how different it would be to work on a much smaller scale. After making the drawing of the photo within a circle, I didn't colour it but did mark instructions about the colours that I wanted in each area.

Drawing of the image with colour instructions

Marking the areas directly on the background fabric

Getting lots of stitching done. Sorry about the dark photo.

Here's a final photo of Desert Landscape in progress.

All that's left is the bright blue of the sky

What I learned

Working in a smaller hoop was fun! I used narrower strips of fabric - about 1". As long as all of the strips are roughly the same width, the coils look uniform. Of course, if you want something to stand out, you can used wider fabric which makes a wider coil!
I also used shorter coils, especially for the mountains and the sky around them.
Different coloured coils were used underneath the mountains to ensure a strong contrast between the desert, the trees and the mountains.
I also used two different batik fabrics for the mountains to get different colours in the mountains.
I used a FriXion pen to mark the pattern on the background fabric. You can see on the earlier progress picture that I just cross out the lines that I don't want to use. In theory I could use any pen but I don't want to get into that habit...and then use the wrong pen by mistake!
My next hoop will be 5 or 6 inches. I want to add embroidery on top of some of the coils. We'll see how that goes!😊

Related links

Sunset over water, November 06, 2025
Pink Turtlehead Flowers Finished, October 22, 2025
Julia Wright, website, Instagram, Artist interview in TextileArtist.org

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You may want to check some out, after you've linked up below! Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Sew & Tell, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Slow Sunday Stitching, Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 557 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts made a gorgeous quilt, Sulaxi, for the Timeless Traditions Blog Hop.

Sulaxi by Preeti

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts made a lovely Tossed Leaves and Pumpkin runner with 2 placemat panels. She quilted this with a diagonal around the small squares while she FMQ around the pumpkins and leaves.

Tossed Leaves and Pumpkin runner

Kat used a serpentine stitch grid for this string baby quilt that was made from donations from the quilting community. It will also be donated to a good organisation.

Baby quilt made by a community for a good cause.

Deb the Scrappy Quilter made this very lovely water coloured quilt. After struggling, she was able to FMQ a water ripple design on it.

Deb's lovely quilt FMQ with a water ripple design

Gwyned Trefethen finished her thread painting demo, A Dance Among the Flowers. She stippled the background and will be wrapping it around an 8" x 8" canvas.

A Dance Among the Flowers by Gwyned

Brenda of Songbird Designs made Sedona Starburst for the Timeless Traditions blog hop. What a beauty! You'll want to visit her post to see more of her FMQ! Here's the quilt and a peak at the FMQ and ruler work.

Sedona Starburst made by Brenda

Brenda FMQ Sedona Starburst

More FMQ by Brenda on Sedona Starburst

Frédérique of Patchwork & Quilts presented BB quilts that will be donated. These were made by her friend Maribé. Here is one that was quilted with hearts!

BB quilts quilted with a heart design by Maribé

It's now your turn😍

Thursday, November 06, 2025

Sunset over water

Hi and welcome 😊 Are you recuperating from the time changing and the days getting shorter? It's been typical fall rainy and blustery days. The trees lost most of their leaves in the last couple of days. Welcome Fall! 🍁

Sunset over water

After making my Pink Turtlehead flower piece, I decided that I wanted to make something smaller and simpler using the same technique. This one is based on a photo of the sky and water that I took going to Antarctica. I love the colours of the sunset and thought it would translate well into stitched coils.

Sunset over water

Working in a 5" embroidery hoop really made it easier. Here's my process - from the photo, I made a coloured sketch.

Photo taken on our way to Antarctica

Sketch of what I wanted it to look like in the hoop

As you can see from the sketch and the finished piece, I didn't quite get the proportions right. I wanted to use the rule of ⅓ (as in the first ⅓ is water, while the rest is sunset and sky. I was happily attaching coils to the frame when I realised that I was just going to get water! I ended up un-stitching a number of the coils, and I'm happy to say that it wasn't as difficult to fix as I expected.

Water creeping up!

Water subsided and horizon added

Once the horizon was attached, it was a matter of condensing my sketch to fit the rest of the frame. Below you see what the piece finished to, before I secured the background to the embroidery hoop.

Coiling finished - now to finish the piece in the hoop

Finished Sunset over water

One Monthly Goal

I'm not sure if I'll be able to get this done, but maybe stating it as a goal will help 😊. I really want to make the fourth side of my Cowboy Quilt!

I need to add the last border

What I learned

I'm very happy to report that un-stitching was much easier than expected. I should have un-stitched a bit more but it still looks good.
I really enjoyed working on the sunset part - those colours are amazing! They really make my heart sing 😀
Working in a hoop for the whole project made it so much easier to handle. I'm going to try to keep doing that. I had forgotten that I have square quilting frames that would have made working on the first project (Pink Turtlehead flower) easier.
I've found images for two more coiling projects. One will be 6" while the other will be 4". I'm looking forward to seeing how working in a smaller hoop will affect the process. It's easy to make thinner coils, so I'll be trying that out.

Related links

Pink Turtlehead Flowers Finished, October 22, 2025
Another Border on the Cowboy Panel, August 20, 2025

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the November One Monthly Goal (OMG). Why not check some of them out before linking below? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, TGIFF, Put your foot down, as well as Favorite Finish - November 2025

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 556 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts is still busy making lap and baby quilts to donate. They are so cute!

Flannel quilt with outline quilting by Kat

Straight line quilting by Kat

Donnalee is making runners for her guild's quilt show boutique in January. Here is a pile of quilted runners waiting to be bound.

Quilted runners by Donnalee - ready to sew down the binding!

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts made an amazing backpack using Patterns ByAnnie.

Preeti is modeling her amazing backpack

An inside view of Preeti's backpack

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps finished her Paper Lantern quilt. She sewed down the binding with a long running stitch. How lovely!

Melva's Paper Lantern quilt

Melva's finish for the quilt binding

Brenda of Songbird Designs is FMQ her big quilt! She's promised us previews - and here they are! You'll want to go to her post to see the photos up close!

Brenda's FMQ of swirls on her big quilt

Kathleen McMusing participated in Michelle's QAL and made this lovely ghostly runner. How cute is that! Since Kathleen created her own pantograph for this one.

Kathleen's Ghost Runner

It's now your turn!😎

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Attack of the Squirrels :-)

Hi and welcome! I have lots of artsy, stitchy things to do but I got a full attach of the squirrels 😁 I have a wonderful, comfortable pair of jeans with holes in them - on purpose. I don't mind the style but my whole knee is poking out...so the hole is a little too big. I've been wanting to do something but I know that a patch won't be comfortable, so I wove a band across the hole, over the knee.

Weaving a band

I used a small embroidery hoop and #8 perle cotton to weave the band between the two edges of the hole.

Band woven between the two edges of the hole in my jeans

This is how it started.

For the warp, I stitched a few strands of 4 different colours of #8 perle cotton at both end of the hole. They were pretty taut and I figured that if I had to, I could make adjustments to the tension once the band was finished.

Weaving within the embroidery frame

I had an audio book and it took about 6 hours to finish the woven band.

Finished woven band

At the beginning of the project, I took a picture and sent it to one of the weavers in our Fibre 15 group. She suggested that I stabilize the ends and possibly use interfacing to make sure that it stays put.

The next morning, I put a piece of heavy duty Steam-A-Seam at the ends of the band, overlapping the band and the jeans. I attached a scrap piece of cotton and then sewed over the edge of the jeans to about ¼" of the band. I think that it'll hold.

Finishing the back of the band

Here is the finished project....so far.

The woven band across the hole

Squirrel!!!

What I learned

I haven't woven anything in years, but it did come right back. 😊
It was so relaxing and perfect to do while listening to an audio book.
I used the Weaver's knot to attach a new colour when my thread ran out.
I googled it and used two different techniques. Every once in a while I was able to make the weaver's knot without following the instructions but then it just wouldn't work. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong but I kept at it until I it worked.
I'm linking up the two techniques that worked best for me....most of the time!
I'm going to wash my jeans in a large garment bag so that the band doesn't get pulled off.
I also figure that if the band does come off, that it's been secured enough that I'll be able to use it somewhere else.
I feel like the jeans could use a little something more - maybe just embroidery around the hole? I'm not sure that I want to spend another 6 hours making a second band to go with it 😁

Related links

The Weaver's Knot - Get knotted paracord
How To Tie A Weaver’s Knot, Four Keys Book Arts

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You may want to check some out! Slow Sunday Stitching,

Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Free Motion Mavericks,

Friday, September 16, 2022

Embroideries in hoops

I've been doing some slow stitching in the last few weeks. It's always such a relaxing thing to do.

Stitching a second seascape

Last month, I wrote a post about Embroidering a seascape. It was based on TextileArtist.org's workshop with Bethany Duffy (see Related links below). I decided that I wanted to go further with this technique since it's a lot of fun and since I changed it up a little, was able to learn a new beading technique 😊!

A second seascape with a shell and sea glass

As you can see, it's still a work in progress (WIP).

I used a piece of cotton for reinforcement and a hand-dyed piece as the background. On top of that, I added hand-dyed cheese cloth. I love the way that it looks like an old fishing net.

I attached the sea glass by making a beaded bezel. Since I had not way of attaching the sea glass, I treated it as a cabochon. I used Thom Atkins' book, Beading Artistry for Quilts. His explanations were great. It's obviously working since the sea glass is still attached after a couple of weeks!

Update: Here is a picture of the finished Seascape and Sea Glass

Finished Seascape and Sea Glass (Dec 2022)

I love how it's turning out, so much so that I started another squirrel - literally 😊

Getting caught up in a Squirrel

Here is my second WIP. I found a half nut shell that had holes inside, so why not use it too? With a nut comes a tree and a squirrel! I used a double layer of a blue-grey sheet as my base and added some of my own hand-dyed cheese cloth. I love the texture that it gives the piece.

A tree, a nut shell and a Squirrel!

I started with a tree trunk (a scrap of brown batik) and then some kind of olive green voile (from an old skirt) for the top of the tree. I've added a few daisy stitches as leaves and I'll continue doing that. I haven't attached the squirrel on the log yet. The squirrel may move, depending on what else I add to the piece.

It's far from finished but it makes me smile when I look at it.

Meditation stitching

Last weekend I spent a couple of hours at the Out of the Box (OOTB) booth at Fibrefest in Almonte. I did some great shopping beforehand and at the booth worked on some meditation stitching. A little difficult to be mindful with people asking questions but it was enjoyable talking with like-minded people 😊

Wonky star mat and the meditation block

Practice wonky star block

Can you see the quarter of the practice wonky star block as the background to the meditation block? I love trapping bits of thread and yarn beneath the tulle. This tulle is nice and glittery. I just finished the block, so here it is!

The beginning of a meditation block

Finished meditation piece

What I learned

Learning how to create a beaded bezel was interesting. I'm surprised that I was able to follow it easily - the instructions were very well written.
I should have used smaller seed beads as I went up and around the sea glass. I didn't even know that they made them smaller than size 11! I'll have to go to a beading store for those.
I don't think that I have much to do to finish the seascape embroidery, just tidy it up and finish the back.
I pierced a hole on the inside of the nut to attach it. It was tricky getting the needle through it. Now I know what a curved needle could be used for!
I will probably be working on the squirrel hoop for a bit - there is still lots to do.
I'm working on more meditation pieces since it looks like I'll be teaching this later in the fall. I want to create a few finished articles to show what can be done with these, other than my huge traveller's blanket.
Did you notice the lovely polar bear pin cushion that Turid sent me last year? I love it 😍

Related links

Embroidering a seascape, August 22, 2022
Bethany Duffy website and Instagram
Thom Atkins' book, Beading Artistry for Quilts (it's on sale now at Connecting Threads)

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let's see what's going on around the quilty world! Put Your Foot Down, Off The Wall Friday, Peacock Party, Slow Sunday Stitching, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Oh Scrap!, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Midweek Maker, DrEAMi!,

Monday, August 22, 2022

Embroidering a seascape

I've finally gone back to TextileArtist.org's stitch club. There are so many new wonderful workshops and never enough time 😊

Stitching a seascape

The latest workshop is with Bethany Duffy. Her workshop is about using seashells (or other found objects) and incorporating them into an embroidery. I really love her work (see Related links below).

By the sea

I started with two pieces of light blue hand-dyed fabric and a 4" embroidery hoop. The shells that we use need to have a hole in them to stitch through. That was actually difficult to find! I searched through all of my shells and found two since we generally collect unbroken shells.

My collection of shells in my hand-made bag.

After finding the perfect shell, I added three layers of padding using left-over batting. This helps give it a cascading effect. Then I started stitching, and stitching! There are a lot of long and short stitches. I ended up using two dark blue embroidery floss, then two light blue and finally a very light blue-green for the edge.

Adding padding to the shell

Once I finished stitching the first shell with short and long stitches, I added loopy French knots at the edge, like sea foam.

Finished stitching on the shell

Since there was still a lot of space left in the loop, I thought of adding another shell but then remembered the small bag of sea treasures that my niece and sister-in-law brought back from Prince-Edward Island this summer. There was a perfect little piece of driftwood that would be a great addition.

I added the padding in front of the driftwood but only attached the driftwood once the stitching was completed. You can faintly see the brown silk thread that I used to attach it. I was going to add glue under it, but it seems secure enough.

Driftwood attached with brown silk thread

What I learned

It was so enjoyable stitching the sea through the shell.
I'm really glad that the driftwood seems to be quite secure.
I learned that adding padding in embroidery is called stumpwork. It gives it a 3D look.
I want to learn shisha mirror embroidery since my sea treasures were mostly pieces of sea glass. I would love to add this to my next piece....yes, I really hope to make many more of these 😊
I was hoping to give this first piece to my niece who is now studying in Denmark. I didn't get it done on time, so maybe she'll have many to choose from when she's back at Christmas.

Related links