A quick tidy up

Why is it that we feel we have to tidy the house the day before the cleaning lady comes?  Well with my lack of mobility it wasn't the whole house just my sewing room.  But that clean up has take several days!  It must have been a good tidy because I came across an old treasure.

This little pin cushion was a Xmas gift from one of my year 10 students, back in about 1990.  Gosh, that is nearly 30 years ago.  I can't remember any of the names but I remember everyone of the students.  It was an unusual class in that it was full of academic students who had choosen Home Economics as an elective, that they thought, would give them something easy in their full academic load.

Because they were so bright I was able to introduce a lot of things I wouldn't normally present, like higher thinking skills, also, embroidery and design.  From this class three students chose to become Home Economics teachers, another two selected Textile Science, another two selected Food Science and everyone of them continued on with their embroidery, they had all fallen in love with this.  I remember that I set their written assignment around a "Stitches and Craft" show.  I also invited all the mothers of the students (all girls) to come.  Some had to work but the others jumped at the chance to have a day sharing something that both they and their daughters shared an interest it.

It was a great learning experience for me as well.  I found that the top academic students struggled with practical application of solving hands on problems.  There are many kinds of intelligences and the combination of academic and practical is important to all learning.  It was this experience that led me to my research Masters Degree in "Learning Theory."

This is a very important pin cushion.

Why try to reinvent the wheel?

I did so enjoy working those small embroideries that I was going to draw up a whole new lot of designs.  But then I went over to Kelly Fletcher's site and began wondering about all the effort involved when there was so much out there already.

Or I could just join the "Start Stitching" Group that meets once a month at our Guild.

Or maybe I could do all three?

I see that Spoonflower is doing printing onto a Quilting weight fabric which would be great for me.  I could have my designs printed onto the fabric in advance for some of my classes.  Shame they don't do embroidery linen just yet.

Where does she get these from?

Now, I have a collection of old doylies and some of them are wonderful, but Pauline must have a secret source for these pieces that she recycles.

They are all pieces of art.

I can never find anything quite as good as this to reuse.

The other thing she recycles is old skirting boards.

I found all these at The Collective Store at Wynnum.

WIPW

I stitched up those little pieces from Embroiderers Day and am making them into pin cushions.

It was really enjoyable to do something quick and easy, embroidery wise.  I can't say the same thing for the machining.

I backed each one with some old quotes that I had bought by the metre in Houston.  These were left over from gifts I bought my friends.

 

Show Holiday

It is show holiday here today.  The Ekka is in full swing but I will not be going.

I am lamenting the fact that I will not get a strawberry Sunday.  Those are to die for.

And I will miss all the horse events.  But my knee has given out and I have to sit around.  I am off to Toowoomba with friends for 5 days and intend to sit around and stitch.  That will get me off the leg.  When I get back it will be decided if I need the growth cut out.  If I have that I will have to sit around for another 6 weeks.  On the upside that will mean lots of stitching, knitting and quilting.  I hope they give me a few days to get everything organised?

I was looking for cheap tassels

I had morning tea with a friend the other day and she said there were cheap tassels at the dollar shop in Wynnum.   So armed with directions I drove off to look for it.  Problem was there was no parking.  But a drive around a few blocks saw me find a park within walking distance.  But, I then walked past The Collective Store. I should not have gone in, but I did and I bought lots of things and I will be going back.

My No 1 favourite thing is different ear rings and I found a bundle of them  These are now mine.

This artist has some wonderful things on her facebook page. I think I will need to buy a set of Rainbow Lorikeets.

I started wearing unusual ear rings back when I was teaching in the class room.  I found that I never had to  ask for attention because the kids were checking out the ear rings and looking right at me.  Then I got hooked on the ear rings myself.

I will certainly be keeping my eye on this artist.

I also bought these blue ear rings because they are the same colour as my late aunt's eyes.  My aunt passed many years ago but I remember her bright blue eyes and her dark wavey hair.

And the other pair of ear rings I bought were some glass ones.  I saw a similar pair at the art gallery, but they were so expensive.  These are well within my budget.

One of those Ebooks

I was saying in my last post that I had bought an Ebook of patchwork patterns.  Well this was it.

I haven't got around to sewing any just yet, but I will because there are some great patterns in there.

The cost of the hands on book was ;

The eBook was only $8.00 and it only takes up space on the computer not on the book shelf!!

BARGAIN!!!

New Applique Technique

One of the blogs that I subscribe to is Martingdale Publishers.

I sometimes find a book I like and I have bought a number of Ebooks from them.  In one of their latest posts was a video about a new applique technique, called "stitch and flip" applique.  Sounded interesting, so I had a look.

 

I teach all kinds of hand applique techniques and thought this might be a good addition.  But, would it work on other shapes?  So I did a little trial, with patchworkers in mind.  I know from experience that, as a norm, they do not like hand stitching and prefer to so as much stitching on the machine as possible.  I choose a star shape and rounded the corners of the star.   I found that I needed to lower my stitch length to 2.0 or less and that it was neccessary to use a slow speed for the sewing. (Using a Bernina machine.)

I think that if I had used points on the star and similar scissors to those used in the video it would have been easier to turn through and I would have got a sharper edge. 

Still, I wasn't unhappy with the result and the applique shape did sit up proud on the surface.  The fabric I used was a bit problematic because it had such a high thread count.  Great for the fabric to take up the dye but hard to get a needle through.  I wrote the quote on the fabric using a 1.0 ink pen.  Working on the assumption that most would machine stitch the opening closed after the pin cushion was stuffed I decided to do some Feather Stitch over the join.

I then added some beads and made tiny tassels to finish off.  I don't think this technique would work in my handwork classes and I prefer needle-turn applique myself.  But, it was fun making this little pin cushion, (5" square,) although those tassels were a bit of a fiddle.

The Quaker Stitch

I first saw this stitch back in 2007 when I did a workshop at the Quaker Centre in Kendall (UK).  I hadn't seen or heard about the Quaker Tapestry at that time but during the time I spent there I studied the Tapestry every day.  This stitch is really good for lettering and when I found this video showing how it was stitched I thought I would share it.