No excuses

I haven't put up any updates here for awhile. Not offering any excuses, just picking up today and moving forward.

This week my stitching was almost entirely devoted to one of the four CQ blocks I made for Sharon B's online cq class. I call this block "Patchwork" because it is composed of 4 sub-blocks that were created through the foundation piecing method.

This block is for a larger project I'm calling "Roses" because each block features an image of the valentine roses I got from my husband this year. (I printed the images onto ready-to-print cloth with my inkjet printer.) There are 4 8-inch blocks for the Roses wall quilt, and so far I've done embroidery work on just one of them-- on "patchwork".

Since the block's construction has so many straight lines and sharp angles, I am using a lot of curves in my embroidery to add counterpoint and to soften the flow of the block.

close-ups (including the stitches from last week):

Algerian Eye

Buttonhole wheel

Up-and-down buttonhole

Basque and chain in a serpentine pattern

Heringbone

Fly stitch with a bullion tail (couched into a curved form)

Continuous oyster, with long float couched down

Up-and-down buttonhole with the float picot buttonholed, and bullion buds

Feather stitch, detatched chain, bullion buds (pair of tornado-shaped bullions)

I say my stitching time this week was almost entirely devoted to "Patchwork", but I still managed to find some time to slip in a couple other stitches on a couple other projects.

I added two seam treatments to "Peacock":

continuous oyster stitch in hand-dyed DMC floss

buttonhole picots

The buttonhole picots are not cast-on stitch, though the effect looks much the same. I worked them a little differently, is all. Cast-ons would work just as well.

Unfortunately, I ran out of the blue-purple variegated thread before I ran out of seam line! Ack! I'd like to continue the same seam treatment, but I've searched all through my thread supply and can't figure out where the rest of it would be (I thought I should still have some.. hmm.)

And I did some catch-up work on the fabric ATCs and postcards for the 2012 birthday exchange:

blanket, detatched chain, up-and-down buttonhole, herringbone, straight stitches

blanket, chain, laced herringbone, up-and-down buttonhole, twisted chain, feather, and herringbone couching a ribbon.

Up-and-down buttonhole, chain (in metallic thread), Algerian eye

up-and-down buttonhole, feather, Pekinese, Casalguidi over blanket, knotted stem

Casalguidi over blanket

Pekinese heart outline (the looping thread is one of my handspun yarns), knotted stem numbers

These ATCs and Postcards need to be pretty quick and brainless in order to get them finished and out into the mail, so, with a few exceptions, I tend to use the stitches that I feel most comfortable with-- the ones that I know how to do without looking up a tutorial, or the ones that I just plain enjoy doing. Pekinese made it onto the pc because I needed to do the TAST stitch, and the pc was what I was working on at the time! heh.

Up-and-down buttonhole has definitely found its home in my Go-To stitches! Blanket, feather, and chain were already there. Herringbone isn't exactly one of my Go-To stitches, but it shows up pretty often nonetheless. bullion is slow, and it takes up a lot of thread, but I enjoy doing it, so it also claims a spot in my Go-To list.

To catch up on my TAST stitching I still need to do some cast-ons, and I'd like to do some better Algerian eyes. ... and then, at some point, I'd like to go back through some of the earlier stitches and refresh my working knowledge of how to do them and what their names were. I think I've forgotten most of them already! ack!!