Sunday stitching

and Tom is starting to appear.  Now the white was not in the thread pack (but I had added it already after starting the Ed) but the blue was there.  However, the two colours needed for the inner ear which I would have done after the white, well they will have to come out of the stash.

Good testimony and talks today that reflected on the nature of perfection...

Sampler quilt ..Triangles to block

So last time I had the triangles into squares and was quite pleased with it.

Then I took a better look at them and realised there was a good bit of squaring up to do.

That is not as bad a thing as it might have been, it gave me the chance to make use of the smaller of two square rulers I bought some time ago.

I had several options for the arrangement of the half squares , I shared them on my last post and after some deliberation I was thinking of doing this one.

I still quite like it, but once I had the squares joined into the diamonds, well I had another play with the arrangement and my mother liked this one (not previously an option considered)

So that is the one I have done.

Now as it was coming together I could tell there would be issues with the points.  But as I said to my mother getting this block perfect would just ruin the whole aesthetic of the quilt.  She had a good chuckle at that one.  I have learned some things and that is part of the reason I am doing this sampler quilt journey.  

I have from the outset planned to follow the book, patterns and techniques.  There is a pattern coming up that I am less then enamoured of and a technique that looks perhaps a step more complicated than I feel up to trying, I may change my mind by the time I get to that pattern but I am not sure.

I guess only time will tell, an applique is the next chapter and it is making me think about the material choices and reviewing the past blocks.

Sampler quilt ..triangles

That is the heading of the next chapter, triangles.

And a method of sewing then that avoids having to cut or sew triangles.

You start with two rectangles, right sided together.

Mark on squares.

Mark the squares into triangles.

Then sew either side of the diagonal line.

Cut along the diagonal lines, then along the edges of the square 

and you get lots of triangles.

The blue lines are the stitches, you will notice on 14 of the triangles there is stitching on the pointy end.  You have to unpick that bit.  Still even with the unpicking this was certainly less fiddle than cutting 32 triangles and sewing them into 16 squares.

I used my charity shop find sewing machine to do this as it is quick to get out and put away if just doing a quick bit of stitching.

Now I have the squares of joined triangles I have to decide the layout.

Here are a few options...still thinking about it.

A

B

C

D

E

F

Once marked out the ease of making this makes me think it is a block I could repeat for a full quilt.  All the variations of the block there would be some interesting repeats or even combinations.

Feel free to comment which you prefer, I an not too struck on E but I quite like the others, and I am sure there are many more possibilities.

Sunday Stitching

and back to Tom Mouse.  Who at least so far has had all his colours provided in the set which makes me happy. 

I found it interesting in one of the talks today, how individuals look to the things they are familiar with and know well to explain certain principals.  In effect modern parables.  It reminds me that understanding references (and hopefully ones in common) are an important part of understanding both for scriptures and for everyday interactions.  

For sewers of cross stitch  tweeding or blending, ninjas and confetti mean something considerable different to non-stitchers. For quilters batting has no connection to bats, we all speak themed languages even if we do not always realise it.  At work we are advised to avoid jargon however in any field there is a tendency to try and get a concept into as few words as possible and that leads to jargon. 

Since last Sunday, in addition to the progress on my long term cross stitch project I also had a little request for Church.

I was asked by the Primary President to sew the CTR shield onto a soft toy, a large lamb to be exact.

After some consideration, I asked if sewing it onto a waistcoat would be OK as it would be easier than sewing onto the fur fabric.  She agreed.

I don't exactly do clothing, I had no pattern but I did have some brown paper and a measuring tape so I made a pattern.  Then I added the shield using fabric markers.  It looks OK and was handed over today.  

I think I shall miss him sitting on the edge of the sofa waiting to go back to his Primary home.

He has a nice face.

The sands of time

just about have an hourglass to run through now.  Having done more half stitches in the smoke I moved on to the tweeded half stitches that make up the glass part of the hour glass.

Again this was a nice soothing filling in of a space outlined by previous stitching.  Whilst this does need doing of course there is an element of avoidance here still. Avoidance of the bottom part of the scene in the middle of the picture.

Avoidance that continues as I filled in some dark stitches in the bottom framing and then went on to add the same dark stitches to the bottom of the design.  This was a solid stitch, no tweeding.  I was watching Captain America the Winter Soldier at the same time.  Interesting combination. 

Gifted gorgeousness..knitting

I may not be a knitter of note myself (well unless you are noting how very,very slow I am) however, I have had the good fortune to be gifted some wonderful knits.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share them as part of the Gifted Gorgeousness link up with Joe over at Serendipitous stitching .

Up first, a cardigan knitted by the same person who gave me my  -first-ever-kit- and she made this pattern up herself to reflect a design I was rather fond of and which has made previous appearances in my blog in other mediums embroidery wood carving

Front

Back of cardigan

Dragon detail

Detail of the back of the design.

She also made this jumper for my mother with a Peter Rabbit theme.  It was too big and warm for my mother but me I like big. And it was great to take camping.  It makes a great shawl, was a comfy pull over anything jumper. And stuffed into a bag it made a brilliant pillow. It is so big the sleeves go corner to corner on a double bed, I have to roll up the sleeves to get my hands out (or unrolled I don't need gloves)

Peter Rabbit jumper

Basket detail

Close up of Peter Rabbit

This next Cardigan was knit by my BFF's mother (so you see I only avoid her with my knitting). It was a bit big when I got it  but remember I like big.  It is less big now, not because it has shrunk..noooo it is the other reason.

My BFF made me this one, she thought the wool looked like dragon scales as it knit up.  This one is now a tad tight..I wonder why. Hmm It is a bit wrinkled in this picture.

And for work, as I hate drafts and being cold and the air conditioning in an office makes both, she made me this neck wrap and matching finger-less gloves.

Sunday Stitching Ed and

Spring Time Flowers is........finished tad da!

I may be back to Tom for next week.

Its all smoke

                                   and half stitches.

Been awhile since I worked on this, a question raised about what constituted tweeding on one Facebook thread and another asking what direction a half stitch should go made me think of it.

On this pattern there is a lot of tweeding.  A strand each of two different colours in the needle at the same time. Another twist to that is for the smoke from the torches the bottom half of the stitch is one set of tweeded colours for the columns and the top half  another shade for the smoke.

Here it is with the bottom half of the stitches done.

And then with the top half to add the smoke.

It was soothing just "filling in" for a bit and not needing to count, just cross the stitch.

As the smoke clears the top of the buildings it changes to tweeded half stitches and I thought oh which way to do the half stitches.  In the direction of the bottom stitch or the top. Normally I go in the direction of the bottom thread for my half stitches.  Can't say I ever gave it much thought before, I just did it.

In this case, as the direction of the smoke was the direction of the top stitch I chose to stay with that direction for the half stitches of smoke.

Last for this update but not least here is how the whole piece so far is looking.

There is still smoke to do and after that perhaps I will be able to get geared up to start that bottom bit in the middle.

Sunday Stitching the backstitch

begins.

and Ed has a face.  The other thing that happens when back-stitching is any remaining ninjas come to light.  So far I have spotted one. Happily it is not a tweeded stitch and is one of the colours on the card.

I may pop it in before next Sunday so that I can proceed with the back-stitching.