Heart 2 Heart Postcards

These are the postcards that I have made so far for the Heart 2 Heart postcard project. The message on the back reads "thank you for your service to our country". The postcards will be sent to the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC in time for Valentines Day. There is still time to participate as long as the postcards are received in Houston for distribution by February 7. For more information please visit Heart-2-Heart Postcard Project.

TAST Week 4

A few weeks ago when I was working on the white Aida I decided that the next time I would add some color to it. I got some new fabric dye and played with it just a little. The color was supposed to be burgundy so I didn't add too much hoping for a raspberry type color. When I added the dye to the water it was PURPLE and I mean purple. I may have rinsed a little too much because as you can see in the scan it almost looks gray. I had some trouble with the Cretan stitch. I think I am getting a little better at it now. The bottom row I stitched rather large with rayon thread, then added some detached chains which got cut off in the scan and some french knots on the other side. I liked it much better after adding the french knots. The yellow didn't go quite so well. I tried to make smaller stitches and they ended up all over the place. The top row I stitched larger again. I had a plan. First I stitched a row of orange cotton perle. Then I went back and stitched a second row in rayon between the spaces in the orange row, so really one row over the other. I think it is my favorite. On to the chevron stitch!

Page for Goddess Meandering Book

This is a page for a Goddess themed meandering book for a round robin. The fabric is an embroidered batik. I printed the image on a piece of ink jet fabric and used a satin stitch on my machine after ironing it on. The stitching around the edge of the page is just a small zig zag with a little more decorative machine stitching. I wanted to the little paper flowers but could not decide how to attach them. Just gluing was too plain and flat and I didn't like the way the brad looked on the fabric. I ended up attaching them with a french knot through the center of the flower. It is hard to tell in the scan, but that little french knot really adds some dimension to the flower. There are several more on the back of the page which I did not scan.

WIP

This is a piece I started for the Fiber Collage online class at Joggles.com. I got through the first 2 or 3 lessons, had to go out of town, and never got back on track. I think I am ready to work on it again. When I finish, most of the hand and the background will be filled in with embroider stitches. I did a similar fabric page a few months ago called "Heart in Hand" and machine stitched around the hand. I think I liked the hand stitching better and it was a great way to learn the blanket stitch. Now I just need to decide where to go from here. We'll see how far I get by next Wednesday. I do know there will be some cretan stitches in there somewhere.

TAST Week 3

This is as far as I got with my embroidery this week. I must say I like the bright pink and orange stitches much better than the white. They hide my mistakes much better!...lol Actually, even though a few of my lines look pretty crooked I followed the lines in the fabric which is why I chose this fabric to practice on. The Aida cloth I had just wasn't helping me much. I want to start a crazy quilt block for this next week and wanted to get a little practice in on some fabric vs the Aida cloth or Linen piece that I have. The scan really shows me how much I need to practice getting my stitches even but at least I accomplished 2x the amount of stitches in less than half the time of last week. I know, I know. Practice makes perfect and speed is not the way to go. I didn't rush, just accomplished more. I will practice much more this week.

Winter Quiltie

This is a fabric page I did for a swap on Fabric in Altered Art. We have a monthly page swap and our January theme is Winter. You probably guessed that. A few months ago I took a card making class and one of the cards we made paper similar to the snowflake and blue fabric. I decided I would recreate the card on fabric. Since I had a little more room I added an Artchix image. On the card the ribbon was attached with staples. I tried using eyelets instead on the fabric but they just weren't holding. I finally decided to just stitch the ribbon on with a zigzag stitch and actually liked that better than the eyelets. All in all I was rather pleased with how the page came out and will probably make one for myself.

TAST Week 2

Here is my meager attempt at the buttonhole stitch. I had a limited amount of time since I had too many deadlines at a very busy time of the month. The bottom row was done with a metallic thread. I love the look but what a pain to work with. There must be something I am missing on that one. I will have to give it another go later but it was just too time consuming. The next row up was with DMC variegated thread. Much easier but the counting was slowing me down. The next row up was fun. I worked a bead onto the bottom of the stitch. The top row was the easiest. It was done with #5 Perle. I had a limited choice of thread and fabric to get started with but new stuff is on the way! After a few more weeks I am going to do most of my stitching on the projects I am working on. Just need a little more practice first.