Tag: embroidery

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More on Those Lovely New Threads

I am continuing to have trouble keeping up with my planned daily and weekly projects, mostly because I keep allowing myself to goof off with other things and run off schedule.  Well, not everything that I get distracted with could be considered goofing off, I have many time consuming interests.  I’m simply ignoring my own goals for scheduling and time management.  I have been working on my art and craft… here are some of the sides for a series of pink and brown mini boxes:

These box sides are commercial print fabrics that I stamped over with acrylic paint, using rubber stamps and antique wallpaper stamps.

If you’re attempting a daily creative commitment, don’t overlook the obvious: start small.  Take ten or fifteen minutes a day at first.  When you can keep that up without skipping for a couple of weeks, add five more minutes.  I recently embarked on a daily stitch project that takes no more than fifteen minutes daily.  I am creating a series of postcards to document each color in the House of Embroidery line of perle cotton.  Each group of three colors stitched out in chain stitches, three color groups per card.  I am nine days into the effort:

This is a nice way to warm up into my creative groove, and when I finish the project, I will continue to do three lines of stitching each day on some crazy quilt squares that I assembled a few years ago.  One thing is certain, when I complete the House of Embroidery samples, I will be great at the chain stitch, not to mention really tired of it!

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Lovely New Threads

A NOTE ABOUT PRODUCTS IN THIS BLOG:  I do not receive complementary  products to review, nor do I receive any compensation for reviews or mentions of branded items.  Any products discussed here I have either purchased on my own or are items that I sell or use my art and sewing business.

I have done it again, the end of last week has rolled into the end of this week, and I promised to talk a bit more about House of Embroidery perle cotton threads.  It might be better to share what I am playing with this week:

Don’t those look luscious?  The words luminous, splendid, brilliant and elegant also come to mind.  They are a delight to stitch, take a look at this little sample:

This is definitely the librarian/archivist coming out in me, I am starting to stitch out a series of postcards that will have a line (in chain stitch) of every single color.  I will have these threads at upcoming quilt shows, and the company allows retailers to create custom color combinations!  As I have been working on my own color blends of dyed fabric, the ability to have matching thread packages is wonderful news for me.

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Shopping Spree

I just returned from my annual trip to the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo, and as you can see, I had a lot of fun!

The best find of the day was four back issues of Uppercase Magazine for $2.00 each from a local guild’s used book sale booth.  I really must subscribe to the magazine one of these days, though it is quite expensive for a quarterly magazine – however, if you make something, or want to be more creative, it is well worth the price.  Uppercase is an eclectic blend of artist profiles, inspiring ideas collections of interesting vintage items and histories of craft, design and manufacturing processes.  Highly recommended!

Other stuff that I couldn’t resist: a complete collection of House of Embroidery perle cotton threads, a Dia de los Muertos decorated spray bottle, a set of Tsukineko inks and supplies, a funky sewing machine clock, a thread stand from Superior Threads, several small packs of funky yarns that I have never seen before and a few more yards of fabric that will go perfectly with some collage series of mine.

Check back to see what I have done with some of my new “toys.”  I am taking the inks to my art journaling group tonight, and I will have more to say about the House of Embroidery threads later in the week.

 

 

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Unfinished Business

I still have not made any progress on the pieces for fast approaching deadlines.  The 3-D entry is not going to happen, at least not for its intended show.  I’ll keep working on it and use it for some other show entry.  I have not made a single stitch yet on the two Upcycle entries.  I’ve simply allowed myself to be distracted by other ongoing projects, so at least I am getting back into a creative groove.  One of the things that I have made progress on are some of my mini quilt collages:

The fabrics in these three “sketches” are scraps of my own hand dyes in the “Madri Gras” color blend.  The one on the far left was stamped with antique wallpaper pattern stamps and acrylic paint, then embellished with funky yarns.  The center one has strips of silk scraps to create a very skewed frame to the composition, then I seed stitched all over to secure the top two layers before pillowcase binding it.  On the far right, trial with using embroidery stitches to create textural interest in the solid colored shapes.  I still need do some final machine quilting in all of them.

I have no idea what I will work on this weekend, and I think that I am going to scale back to posting once a week until I get some issues worked out with the back end of this site.