Slow Sunday Stitching

 Last week I finished off the row of cupcakes for my Summer Kitchen quilt. Immediately after that I got to work tracing out and starting in on the tea cups. I continue to be amazed at a couple of things with this project - how much I am enjoying the process anyhow quickly  they stitch up.  I have 2 out of 4 tea cups done: a cup of pansies. 

And I think these look like phlox.

 I have 2 more of these little floral arrangement cups to do. They  will eventually get trimmed down and framed with fabrics before being sewn into the quilt. In the meantime there is also another row that will measure 5 inches by 48 inches that needs to be done. I found a free vintage embroidery design that also features tea cups which I think fits quite well with what  I am planning for the over all look of this quilt. There are 5 cups across this section. The cups are all the same design but are different colours. This is what it looked like when I finished colouring it but before any of the stitching went in. And here’s a close up of the first section finished.

I’m going to link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get back to more slow stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 I’m almost finished with the cupcake row. I have a little bit left to do on the cupcake paper on the last one. After that I have to do across the ground line and it will be done. I’ve taken the picture showing groups of four which makes it easier to see them.

These have been a lot of fun to do. 

For the next section I’ve been searching around on the internet for free designs add to this quilt. I have found some vintage tea cups with flowers in them which I think I will do next. Here’s one of them.    It will be done in a 6 inch square. Once I finish the row of cupcakes I’ll trace out and colour in the cups and flowers. I think there will be four different cup and flower designs.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

My embroidery obsession continues.I have almost finished as much of the cherry pie picture as I can do.  I needed to order thread to do the pastry. 

 The tracking info says it won’t be here until Tuesday. That meant I needed to get another one ready. I am doing my version of the Crabapple Hill Summer Kitchen. I’m replacing some of their blocks for my own. I found a fabulous colouring page of cupcakes. I cut them up and enlarged them to the size I want them to be. They are each about 3 3/4 inches tall. This is the first 3 of the row started. 

I decided they would be vanilla cupcakes with different frosting treatments. The row when it is pieced into the quilt will be 5 inches by 48 inches. Here they are all coloured and ready for stitching.  

It’s hard to get a good picture of them all in a row. So much fun! I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching.

I’m continuing on with my current obsession with embroidery. I am so enjoying every single stitch watching the designs come to life. I love the combination of crayon tinting and floss. All of the projects I’ve been doing are Crabapple Hill designs. I finished up the floral stitchery I was doing last week.

 At the time it hadn’t decided what it wanted to be. The original design in the pattern was intended to be part of a stitchery bag, but I don’t really want to do that. This is the original pattern concept from Crabapple Hill for the Project Bag. But I think it is going to become a pillow cover. I’m thinking it would be fun to have a series of pillow covers all the same size to switch out for various seasons. I have the stitching for the Christmas Tree Lot all finished but still need to do the piecing around the edges. I’ll need to do some playing with size and borders to get the floral stitchery up to the same size. 

So while all that is pondering around in my head I’ve started a new set of stitcheries. These too are all from Crabapple Hill and are part of the Summer Kitchen series. I didn’t order all of them, just the ones I like that fit with my style of what I think a summer kitchen should be. I like the overall look of the finished quilt so I think I will do that but add in some of my own pictures in their places. Perhaps some tea cups and cupcakes and things like that. These are amazingly fast to stitch up. Here’s the bowl of cherries. 

If I get uninterrupted time this afternoon I think this will be done today. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

The end of an era....

Well, it’s the end of an era. The long arm quilting machine that used to sit in this space has been sold and has gone off to live in a new home. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did. I met some wonderful people while doing their quilts and have made quite a few lifetime friends from it. But it was time to retire. I’ve noticed over the past few years, and this last one especially,  that my physical stamina for standing at the machine in order to get the quilting done was waning. And along with the waning physical strength was the enjoyment I got from it. Instead of enjoying the process it was becoming a painful chore. I did manage to get all of my un-quilted tops finished, so it will be a while before I have to figure out how I am going to handle any further tops I make. In the meantime I am enjoying the summer spent helping to look after our grand daughter. I haven’t done any machine piecing lately but have been slowly working on hand piecing and hand embroidery. And that’s a good thing.

Rainbow Slow Stitching

I’m doing 2 hand stitching projects at the moment. I’m still highly focused on the embroidery. But I’m also doing a rainbow project. I’m not following along with the colour of the month but am taking it row by row in the order of the rainbow colours. I’ve done the red and the orange rows and am now working on cutting and putting together the yellows. I’m using the colour as the focus, in this case yellow and it’s opposite colour as the background, which is purple. The yellows will go from bright yellow to golds and perhaps even down to browns. I’ll decide as I go whether it needs the deeper browns or not. This is what I’ve got so far.

 I’ve cut more purples since I didn’t have enough.

I am loving this embroidery project. 

It has different stitches for different areas. Satin stitches and french knots for the Queen Anne’s Lace. 

 Button hole stitches and tiny chain stitches for the poppies. 

I’m not exactly sure what this will be when it is finished. But that’s OK because I am enjoying the process. It will let me know what it wants to be when it is done. 

I’m linking up to Soscrappy Rainbow saturday and also to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

I’m continuing to work on my embroidery. I started this piece about a week ago. Most of the stitching on the left side of the picture is done, except for the lettering in the sign above the trailer and also some metallic stitching in the trailer.  I’ve moved onto the right hand side of the picture and am slowly working through stitching all the snow. I have discovered that, although the effect of metallic type thread is really pretty, it is a HUGE pain in the neck to work with. Even when using short lengths of thread and using thread heaven conditioner it shreds terribly. But I will persevere with it.

On Saturday I was reading through some of the rainbow scrap projects on the Soscrappy blog which caused me to remember that I had started an English Paper piecing design by Willyne Hammerstein with plans to do it as a rainbow project. I ended up stalled on it because I couldn’t figure out the logistics of how to go about making the units necessary for each row. I had a knock myself in the side of the head moment and figured out how to do it. So I dug it out and started back at it. It’s early days yet. Each row will be assigned a colour in the order of the rainbow and I’ll follow the layout of the rows as I’m  making the units. Sounds easy..... right? So why did I seem to think it would be difficult? The name of the project in her first book is called Good Times, Bad Times which is rather appropriate at the moment. So here is the beginning..... starting with red. I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.