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