Well, after what seems like a loooong time, I've finally completed my Encrusted Block. What with getting my girls off to their trip and spending a week with my husband (alone!) not much stitching was going on there at the end...But I was true to my word and didn't cook one meal that whole week! We had Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Thai food - it was wonderful! And we actually saw a couple of movies that were geared toward adults! And my girls actually survived their airplane trips and came home alive! So many blessings....
I'm very happy with the end result of my block and also relieved to be done with it! Do you, too, get tired of a project if it drags on too long? Also, I always have a plan for the next project - why does the new one always seem so exciting? - maybe because you haven't started working on it yet and don't know its challenges...
I've been working on this floral spray on my encrusted block. Some of my classmates thought my block looked finished, but I just think it looked "nice". Anyway, I wanted to place some motifs around the block to help its "flow" like we learned in Sharon's class. Just a few more things to do and I will consider the block really finished.
Well, I've finished embellishing all the seams of my encrusted block, so now it's time for some SRE, buttons, etc. to tie it all together.
This is my latest seam treatment - I wanted to keep it kind of simple because I think some SRE will spill over it.
Things have been busy lately. Last weekend I was out of town for a women's convocation, which was wonderfully uplifting and inspiring and very fun. Also, I laughed and laughed and got very little sleep, so I've been playing catch-up all week. Now back to the encrusted class.... When I put this curved piece in the corner, I hadn't really planned for this to be a fan, so the curve wasn't right, the pink piece wasn't symmetrical, etc. So I spent a lot of time fudging things and trying to camouflage the unevenness. Then, I just couldn't stop adding things to this fan. Oh, it just needs a little more dark pink, now some cream, what about more beads - rick-rack, pearls, you name it! But I am very happy with the way it came out. Meanwhile, I removed some boring lace, changed the other curved seam and went shopping! Two steps forward and one step back....oh, well..
Happy Stitching!
~LinMoon
Here is another seam I've worked for my encrusted CQ class with SharonB. I love the look of this "trellis" from Carole Samples book - but it's a hard one to get straight. It looks simple enough, but keeping things parallel and even is hard!
Happy Stitichin'.....
~LinMoon
Started stitching on my block I pieced for Sharon's Encrusted class at joggles.com. Yesterday the kids were off school, but busy so I had a few hours to work on it. I swear, the first hour I just stared at the thing, not knowing where to start at all.... I was glad I had made a notebook of pix printed out from flickr for ideas, because Flickr was down all last night and I was in need of inspiration! With 2 teenagers in the house and a husband whose idea of fun is writing programs, I sometimes don't get much computer time, so a hardcopy of some CQ is good for me....
Happy Stitching,
~LinMoon
Well, the Christmas holidays put a big stop to my work on my CQ Kimono. I was too busy working, making ornaments and getting ready for my annual holiday party. So now I have FINALLY gotten this done, so here are the pix. Lots of the seams were inspired by SharonB's 100Details challenge. I was about ready to throw this thing across the room when adding the braid around the edge, because my thread kept catching on all the beads, sequins, etc. Then when my thread caught on my watch, my ring and the buttons on my shirt I thought maybe all finishing should be done naked! But I don't even want to think about the problems that would cause! ha ha...I need to add some sort of charm or something to the top left of the side with the black button on it - the pink fans seam ends too soon. I'm such a fool - I went looking for a charm or special bead, so went to my box of Asian embellishments, only to find a huge stash of threads, ribbons and fibers that I had collected just for the purpose of a project like this, back when Evening Star Designs was offering kits with an Oriental flair. Of course, I totally forgot they were in there, so it was like going shopping and finding a treasure without spending any money!
