Showing posts with label silk thread. Show all posts

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Christmas mat finish

Bonjour and welcome! 😃I hope that you've had a good week. Nope, I'm not ready, not at all!!!! I did however finish my second Christmas mat.

Hand-stitched mats

For the November Table Scraps Challenge, I made two very scrappy Christmas mats. I had a wonderful time stitching them with a running stitch. I finished the second one this week.

Two Christmas mats with running stitches

For the first mat I used only a couple of yarns - green perle cotton and red linen. All of the stitches went in the same direction. For the second mat, I wanted to shake things up 😁. I used many different colours of both perle cotton and linen yarn. The stitches went in many different directions, including in a circle and diagonally!

Second mat with running stitches

First mat - in two colours and yarns

Hand-dyed silk thread

Last week I received this amazing hand-dyed silk thread. I ordered it from Karen Turner in the UK. I chose a package of 5 pink/purple silk thread. They are so pretty! I did start stitching with one of them.

Hand-dyed silk thread by Karen Turner

Stitching a leaf on my not-so-daily stitching project

My stitches are not very good - I'll need more practice, and possibly a finer needle, to get the hang of stitching with such fine thread.

A Win!

I want to thank Gail of Quilting Gail and Sandra of mmm quilts for the lovely Arabesque quilt pattern. Gail made a sample for Sandra's new quilt pattern and I won the draw. You can see Sandra's quilt, "Happy Christmas" in FM Mavericks below 😊

What I learned

I didn't even think of stitching the first mat in different directions, but when I got to the second mat, I just wanted to do something different!
I stitched with three colours of linen yarns. Even if it was tricky getting them into the needle, I love the heavier stitches.
The Snowman in the photo was my mother's. We teased her about it because it had the same hat as she did 😀
Stitching with the silk thread takes getting used to. I had forgotten how fine it is. It's lovely using it as a double strand but then you really have to watch the tension. No worries, it's well worth it and it will be fun playing with!
There is a local yarn shop that is closing down next month, because the owner is retiring. I've been in there twice in the last few weeks. The green yarn that I used for the leaf above is a very fine cotton yarn from Japan. I love stitching with yarn that isn't necessarily intended for embroidery. It's so much fun experimenting!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 562 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts made a wall hanging and a runner using Angela Walter's panels.

Kat's FMQ wall hanging panel

Kat's FMQ from the back

Runner panel FMQ by Kat

You can see the FMQ on the
back of Kat's runner panel

Sandra from mmm quilts has a new pattern, Arabesque, that she quilted up using lovely Christmas fabrics. Happy Christmas is a lovely wall hanging! Sandra stitched-in-the-ditch and then some meandering.

Sandra's Happy Christmas wall hanging

Details of Sandra's Happy Christmas

It's now your turn! 😊

Monday, August 09, 2021

#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!

Thursday, August 05, 2021

Improv piecing and FMQ

Welcome to week of Free Motion Mavericks linking party. I'm not sure if the eye candy will show up today since I waited too late in the day to take pictures.

Playing with improv piecing and FMQ

I'm really into mindless at this time. The heat is back and Chevy is not letting me sleep as much as I need to! All that to say that last night I wanted to sew but I didn't want to follow a pattern or plan, therefore, improv piecing! Since I also wanted some free motion quilting for today's post, I added solid fabric in the middle of the improv piecing.

FMQ the Improv piece

For the improv piecing, I used up fabrics from a box of partially stitched pieces that didn't make it into an improv quilt. Since I wanted to be able to FMQ and hand-stitch, it needed some solid fabric. This is what the piece looked like this morning. I kept looking at it during the day, hoping for inspiration on what to FMQ on it.

Improv pieced background

In the end, I decided on various shapes. I was inspired by a placemat under my work laptop in the dining room. There were boxes within boxes and diamonds on them. I added a circle, some hexies (of course), and other shapes.

This is what it looks like so far. I used mostly variegated thread for the stitching, which doesn't show up well.

Close up of the free motion quilting

What's next?

Playing with thread - both hand stitching and possibly more FMQ.

Last week I discovered Maiwa. Two orders in less than two weeks later, I'm in big trouble. I'm totally addicted 😊 I think that it's a great addiction - it's socially acceptable (there may be some eye rolling from non textile people), it has no calories and it takes up less space than fabric. That's a win, win, win situation!

In the box are two sets of hand-dyed Bengal thread - silk and linen. They also have cotton and wool in these colours but I couldn't resist the silk and linen. I have started using them and I'll tell you all about them in another post.

Bengal hand-dyed thread from Maiwa (silk and linen)

These are hand-dyed linen, also from Maiwa

I will be using these and other threads to add to the FMQ. I'm really not sure what I'll be doing except for using some fun stitches over and around the FMQ. You'll have to come back next time to see what I end up doing!

What I learned

It's really hard to not plan a project. The improv piecing was straight forward but I really didn't want to spend much time planning the FMQ. I hope that the use of shapes was a good idea...we'll see.
The trick when hand stitching will be to make the piece interesting, with mouvement and cohesion.
I discovered Maiwa from an article where Sue Stone is interviewed and she talked about some of the supplies that she uses. When I read that Maiwa was a Canadian company, I just had to check it out. Wow! (See Related links below)
I'm really looking forward to using the linen thread. I bought a white skein to eventually dye. That could be a lot of fun!

Free Motion Mavericks

It was a small intimate party last time but wow - the FMQ was impressive. I'm going to be featuring them all!

Let's start with Rebecca's White On White Bailee Quilt. Rebecca may be using a computerized long arm but that baby needs some guidance to quilt this kind of quilting.

Rebecca Grace's incredible White on White Bailee Quilt

Sandra of mmm quilts participated in the Just One Charm Pack Blog Hop with a lovely quilt designed by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Design. The Blog Hop was to showcase quilts from Cheryl's book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts. It's really amazing how the fabric and the quilting can change the look of a quilt. Sandra did a stunning job, as usual 😊.

Sandra's version of Blossom Chains, called Captiva Meadow

Gail of Quilting Gail got another UFO finished! She had some trouble with a couple of rows of swirls and found out that a new needle was the solution. It's a painful lesson to learn, but at least the solution was simple! Check out Gail's swirls. She did a great job of putting those two sets of panels together to make the quilt.

Another UFO finish by Quilting Gail!

And now it's your turn!

Sunday, November 06, 2016

The value of Value

Quilting Arts Magazine

I read an interesting article in the latest Quilting Art magazine (Oct-Nov 2016) about value. Call it serendipity - it came as I was wondering what was wrong with my latest landscape art quilt. Why was my quilt not as amazing as the vision in my mind? I usually create landscape art quilts from photographs, but I knew what I wanted, so I tried creating it using only my memory and imagination. Darn it - it seems that I had a new lesson to learn!

Landscape Art Quilt

Since I've also been reading about the usefulness of working in a series, I thought that this project would be Lone Tree 2.

On the drive home from work in early fall, I saw a very red maple tree in a small clearing. It caught my attention because although it was very red, all of the trees behind it in the forest were green. None of them had started changing yet.

I took out my sketch book, drew a very quick picture and wrote "I'm tired and I want to rest - or Overachiever?" Was that tree looking to go to sleep early or was it an overachiever, trying to beat everyone to the fall pageant?

Red tree foliage made of snippets

At home, I found fabric for a green background, the sky, the foreground and the red for the tree. The background with the lone red tree would take up at least half of the piece. I thought the red tree would stand out against a dark green background. I was also going to thread paint the trees making up the background.

I took out all of my green thread (polyester, cotton and silk), and started free motion quilting (FMQ). I wasn't thrilled with the background but couldn't wait any longer - I had to create the red tree.

I cut the batik fabric I had chosen into very small snippets. I placed them where I wanted the tree foliage and proceeded to FMQ over them. I was surprised by how much fabric it used up! I then created the tree trunk.

Adding limbs to the trees helped!

As I examined the green background I wasn't sure what was wrong. On my way to work the next day, I looked at the forest and noticed that no matter how thick the foliage, there was always tree trunks and branches showing. So I took out my brown, black and grey thread and added some limbs. It really helped!

Lone Tree 2 - what now?

OK - now I had a sky, a red tree with a background and foreground that all seemed to blend in. Now what?

I took out my embroidery floss. I had FMQ some blue flowers in the foreground, so I added some lighter green grass and more blue.

I looked in my bags of scraps and found a bunny, a butterfly and leaves. Getting much better. The white bunny added contrast. Now the viewer sees the tree, wonders off to the bunny, catches a glimpse of flowers and the butterfly and can keep exploring.

Lone Tree 2: I'm tired and I want to rest - or Overachiever?

What I learned:

I thought that the dark green background would be fine because green and red are complimentary and contrasting colours. It would seem that I forgot about the value of colours.
In her article, The Value of Value (Quilting Arts Magazine Oct./Nov. 2016), Grace J. Errea writes "if there is a problem, look for a value solution first."
Read parts of her article in this blog post: Quilts Design: The value of value
She suggests that a successful design should have tints (lighter versions of colours), shades (darker versions of colours) and intermediary values.
The article is very informative and easy to understand. She also uses a Value in Colour Chart that I will make from scraps to remember my value lesson.

Lone Tree 2 behind the burning bush.

Although it was a little late to change the values in my landscape art quilt, adding the appliqued elements, the lighter green embroidered grasses and blue flowers gave my piece some tints to contrast the mostly darker tones and added some visual interest.
Using a photo probably helps to avoid some of these errors because I would be more likely to notice the lack of value in a photo and adjust accordingly.

This post is linked to some great linky parties. Check them out! MOP Monday, Oh Scrap!, Off the Wall Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Slow Sunday Stitching, Finished or Not Friday, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers.

Friday, July 10, 2015

A Small Fantasy Art Quilt

Fantaisie 1

I had a couple of days off and was actually getting ready to do homework when we had a power outage. After a while, I turned off the electric things around the house and wondered what to do - I couldn't even use my sewing machine!!!

Since I don't really have any hand sewing to do, I started a mini quilt. It was supposed to be a quilted postcard in the style of Positively Postcards, but I couldn't fit it onto 4" by 6", so it's turned out to be a small wall hanging (7½" by 9").

All of the fabric comes from my scrap stash. The project ended up taking most of the two days to do (with a lot of chilling time with Chevy since I was on vacation!)

Flower garden fairy

The first fabric I picked out was the garden fairy. I found other plants that looked like they came from the same garden. After that, it was mostly about choosing what else to add. I tend to want to add tons of things, so I had to work hard at keeping it fairly simple. I added the frog, insects and scrolled leaves for a feeling of light-hearted fantasy to the piece.

I placed the fabrics onto a Pellon interfacing that I bought years ago and never used. I really liked the feel of the thread sketching on it. I also used a glue stick for the first time to hold fabric pieces in place. That worked really well except for when I changed my mind and moved or removed pieces. Glue remained, but it washed off easily (more about that later).

Thread sketching details

I had a great time thread sketching the flowers and plants. I love the fact that if you don't really like what you just did, you can usually cover it up with another thread! It's very forgiving that way. It's great to try different threads (weights, colours and fibre) and see how they work out. I had bought a couple of spools of silk thread from Superior Thread. What an amazing sewing experience. It's the peach thread that I used on the fairy and her flowers. I'm going to have to very slowly invest in more of that!

The only un-sewing came when I was trying to figure out how to quilt the solid background. I started with a purplish thread around the butterfly. It was just too blue and too obvious. Since I really didn't have any matching thread for the background, I used a very thin Superior Bottom Thread. It didn't blend in as much as I would have liked, but was a huge improvement over the first one.

I think that the quilted feathers give the piece some movement and takes the eye on a discovery tour around the piece. I also like the look of quilts that go over the borders. I'll have to keep working on that.

What I learned:

I found it really difficult to decide if I should FMQ the negative space (the purple background). I wish I had taken a picture before I quilted it so see if I made the right decision.
Thread sketching is a lot of fun and very forgiving. I like the fact that I can sketch what I want, and when I've had enough, I can stop. Not everything needs to be covered in thread!
As I mentioned, I very gently hand-washed the piece before binding it. I found that after washing it, the borders weren't as stiff and they puckered a little. I was able to work them out when I added the binding, but it might have been better to wash the piece after binding it.

Thanks for stopping by.

This post was linked to Free Motion Mavericks, MOP Monday, Quilt Story: Fabric Tuesday and Oh Scraps! Check out everyone's work!