Today's daily sewing.'

there was no update last Sunday as I had a talk, so no stitching.  This week I finished off the mid grey on both pieces and the dark grey on one (started on the other) both are progressing. Although I would say one is easier to see what the finished item might be than the other.

And the title of this post, well there is a hymn we sing at Church titled We are sowing..and as I was singing it the other day I  had an appreciation of it as both a song for sewers with an E as well as sowers with an O. And perhaps also some of my reasons for preferring furrow over ditch when describing a quilting method. 

Here is a link to the hymn in question just in case it is not one you are familiar with.

We are sowing link

I could make that

Now there is a dangerous remark to make.  I said it in an art shop in Berwick as my friend admired a velvet and beaded wall hanging, with fronds and large leaves (which was rather expensive).  To which she replied that would be great do you think you could use an old velvet skirt I have to make it?

And so another project was born.

The skirt was plum velvet, pencil style, made with three panels,  a little shaping at the waist and a waist band.  The three panels gave me the idea of a triptych.  A surprise find of beads on sale at a local DIY store the next step.

I have a certain sense of accomplishment with this piece as the bird design that forms the largest panel in the middle is mine and not something I have copied from someone else.

The shape formed by the crossed beaks being my subtle nod to my friends initial and (That difficult to find letter as I have mentioned before)

The fish however are from a children's colouring book, which as I am sure you know is a wonderful source of designs.

The outlines of all the elements are couched, with the most heavily couched area being the feet.

The only part of the original skirt not used was the zip, the waistband made the hanging loops.


The beads catch the light, which my pictures do not show too well

Although pleased with the end result and fully intending to do a beaded "something" for myself I had not until recently been inspired by either material or design.  However, it has not been an old velvet skirt which has set me on the beading route again. Rather it has been the local craft show, free entries and a beaded item class just waiting to be entered.  That is a story for another day, after the show in September perhaps.

A bit late with the update..yesterdays sunday stitching!

a touch of apricot, a little more on the right than the left, took the picture then forgot to blog!

Afghan Alphabet

Time for a trip down memory lane.  When my BFF told me she was pregnant many a craft item followed. The log cabin quilt, the Noah's arc stuff and an Afghan.

The latter item was a new experience for us both.  The Afghan my friend bought came with 28 squares of the same size and she had no firm thoughts about what to put in them.  Well other than it had not to be too complicated as she was just making a start with cross stitch.  We thought about an alphabet and started looking for patterns.  Bears, kittens, puppies, roses, various animals all rejected as being too twee (and mostly too difficult) and just not sufficiently reflective of my friend or her husband or me for that matter.

Then she found in a magazine an alphabet intended for cards, three different designs on a magical theme:

Wizard (my friend's husband)

  

for me ? A dragon of course. 

and for my friend

the Queen

I do believe I have mentioned before that my friend likes rainbows, this factored into our plan, a rather mad plan. We would pick the colours for each square in the order of a rainbow . That sounds reasonable enough however, we took it a stage further every square would use different colours. So all red characters would be different reds and so on.

We spent two nights just choosing the thread.

We did agree to keep some elements the same, the colour of the castle for instance.

We took turns sewing I had it a week then to my friend for a week

Or if we went on holiday

 the Afghan went with us.

At the outset we had not chosen the thread for the letters getting something to go with all those different colours was being tricky.

Then my friend found this pastel shaded variegated metallic thread.

 it became not just the letters but also the jewel in the wizard's staff

 and the binding for the Queens hair.

We stitched all the green boarders first then on to the figures.

during this process some interesting differences came to light

I did not like sewing the Queens they were annoying me.

I sewed a lot of the thrones instead.

And a lot of the castles, although Wizards were OK to sew and we shared them out fairly evenly

I did however enjoy doing the dragons

You may have noticed that in addition to the changing colours other elements of each design alters from letter to letter. For the queens it is the style of the crown.

For the wizards it was the colour of the beard (we had considered altering the top of the staff but stuck to just a simple change here)

For the dragons ? the expression on their face. A little change to eyes, eyebrows and or mouth.

Which leads me to another mutual division of work. The backstitching.

Not my favorite thing by any means

However as she quite likes it

so my friend did the vast majority of the backstitching, I was in charge of the crown variations

We both did some of the lettering, although I think she did more than me

and I did all of the dragons, backstitch as well as the different faces had been my plan.  Z being asleep just fit with that letter.

So that was 26 squares all filled with letters however, you may recall there were 28 squares available for sewing.  We decided they should be signature squares.  Something that said US. They needed to fit in with the themes of the rest of the Afghan, magic and rainbow.

Mine was easy, a book, I love books.  A leather bound book with hints of a grimwar a pattern was soon located that would fit, fit was an important factor. 

For my friend a music lover and a guitar player her element seemed obvious also. A guitar, minstrels form a part of the fantasy world inhabited by Wizards and Dragons and Queens.  For the rainbow element, well as you cans see we went with, a rainbow to link the two squares.  Fit however became an issue, we could not find a guitar to fit, not that looked like one and then the angle was causing problems.  We talked it over and paused the project waiting for inspiration. It struck in the form of another mutual passion (my friend likes books too) boxes.  I like boxes my friend likes boxes so a wooden box, a magic chest. 

 Pattern found

we now had both signature squares

to complete the rainbow

and all together

Fantasy completed..well the sides are folded over and tacked down to avoid fraying (and has been for years since the x -stitch element was finished) but just how to finally finish it off.  That metallic thread whilst pretty is scratchy so does it get an nice backing of something soft or does it become a wallhanging. My friend has yet to decide. No rush, the baby is 10 now and there is time before this heirloom item needs to be finalised for passing on.

Oh and I have "shoehorned" this into the summer hop with serendipitous stitching, my linking skills are still somewhat feeble but here goes.... serendipitous stitching in-summertime-doopy-doopy-doo.  And my reasoning, well those holidays this project accompanied me on as holiday sewing were always my summer break.

Scotty dog

Earlier I shared the little quilted bird that I will be entering into the animal class of the local show.  The entries are free this year (but just two per person per class) so I was wondering what else I could do.  An Internet search under felt animal (I have some gifted felt)and there were lots of delightful designs to inspire in all shapes, sizes and level of complexity.

After something to stitch and watch the Olympics at the same time simple appealed. I downloaded patterns for a dinosaurs, kangaroos, a squirrel and a dog.

Scotty Dog felt

You will have guessed from the title of this post I went for the dog.  Not just because it looked like being the simplest but because it called to me on some level.  Perhaps it was the delight of the blogger offering the pattern that she had expanded her flat dog to one with two ears, four legs and capable of standing up.  Crediting her design evolution to the inspiration of another. You can see the women's team gymnastics on the TV in the background in a few of the pictures here.

So here is a picture of the source design (click on the designers name for a link to the home blog where you can get the pattern) by Jenny Allsorts

Softie Scotty dog by Jenny Allsorts 2 May 2006

Mine is a further variation, let me explain. I cut out the pieces from my gifted grey felt and started sewing using thread inherited from my Aunt.  I started with the head gusset going from the nose over the ears and down the neck. Off along the back round the tail added in the leg gussets. A bit of stuffing to tail and ears while easy to reach (scraps of wadding from my quilting) I was then going to go down the face. However the two un-sewn bits of the face hanging apart at the jaw gave me an idea.  I added in a further gusset to the front of the face.  I like the effect. I have not tried to show a pattern for it as it would be difficult to show the correct size without adding it directly to the source pattern. It was fairly simple to do a diamond shape to fit.

 

So tiny buttons for the eyes (from my grandmother's button box) a scrap of ribbon saved from a something into my ribbon box a little tag from E-bay and entry number for this class is two is completed.

No name for this little chap as yet, any suggestions?

The End

Double sunday stitching two

All of the white, the very light grey a touch of pink (which is all for both designs) and onto the light grey on the left.

Neither piece looking like much of anything yet.

Oh and I have taken the picture with the one on the left and right reversed to last time.

No "talks" as such this Sunday at church as the first Sunday in the month is a testimony meeting.