Floral Spray

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.

Seams done

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.

Encrusted seam

Finished another seam on the encrusted block. Just have one more seam to embellish and then on to motifs and bringing the block all together. I am so enjoying this!

Keep on stitchin'

~LinMoon

Tulips!

Can you tell these are tulips? I hope so. These are semi-stumpwork tulips that are described in the book "Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork" by Di van Niekerk, (isbn 1-84448-090-9). I like this book because it combines 2 of my favorite things - SRE and stumpwork. I haven't actually done a lot of traditional stumpwork - instead I have done lots of stumpwork using ribbon. I really like the idea of dimension in embroidery.

Only a couple more seams to embellish and then I can add some motifs, buttons, etc. to my block! It's so exciting!

Happy Stitching.....
~LinMoon

Another Encrusted Seam

Here is another seam I've been working on in Sharon's encrusted class. I changed my mind about a million times about the flowers to put here - first the roses were too big, so then I tried beaded flowers. They seeemed too chunky, so I went back to the roses, just made them smaller. I think what makes me stitch soooo slowly is just deciding what to do.




Here are the rejected flowers....
Happy Stitching....

~LinMoon

New YLI Fibers

On Thursday I went to a Quilting/Craft show at the Pomona county fairgrounds. Felting is certainly hot! There were lots of booths selling felting machines or hand felters, wool roving and fabrics to felt upon. One interesting thing that was done with a felting machine was to "felt" a lightweight metallic ribbon to a backing fabric. It made the ribbon look randomly "wrinkly" and gave a very interesting texture. The thing I noticed about all the felting hoopla that was disappointing to me was that the colors were all muted earth tones. Some of the booths "read" as all browns. Where are the pinks, the purples, bright turquoise?

There were also lots of booths selling patterns and fabric for sane quilting. I wish it had been a stitching/sewing show - I think there would have been more for the CQer there. I did find some new fibers, though, that I hadn't seen before. I've certainly worked with ribbon floss or RG's Neon Rays. But I'd never seen ribbon floss with metallic woven through it. Pictured are some colors of YLI Shimmer Blend ribbon floss. I had to get some. It's interesting how they can take a basic color and then add metallic black to it, or take the same color and add metallic silver and the two results are sooo different.
Happy Stitching.....

~LinMoon

Fan on Encrusted Block

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

A beaded seam

Here is my latest seam on my encrusted CQ block. I am having so much fun with this! I bought some sequined trim to use on this block - small blue flower-shaped sequins. I cut the sequins off the trim - I thought they would be perfect. I sewed four of them on this seam, but it just didn't look right. So then I surrounded them with beads. Then I added the pink flowers in metallic thread. No matter what I did, I couldn't make that seam look right. Finally I cut off the "perfect sequins" and changed them to these flowers - viola! looking much better. I think it s so funny that it took so long for me to just chuck those stupid sequins!

Another Seam

This seam nearly drove me crazy, but I'm happy it's done. Sharon's encrusted class is chock-full of info and really fun.
Happy Stitchin'....

~LinMoon

TASTy Fly Stitch

After seeing HelinaCQ's fly stitch and her comments about dancing fairies here, I had to try my own hand at some dancing fly-stitch people. These guys are made up of 2 fly stitches, one right side up and one up-side down, with their tie stitches overlapping, because, as we all know, stick people have a fatter "stick" for their bodies.... Don't they look happy?
Here, of course, is the obligatory fly-stitch-in-the-round, which makes a nice design. If you just used part of it, it seems like it would make a nice fan. I thought about weaving some fibers in and out of the straight stitches radiating from the center, but I'm busy with my encrusted class, so.....
Now you see that they weren't really happy, they were upset, because, you see, one of their kind has come undone.......

Another Encrusted Seam

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

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

Flickr Photos

Has anyone else noticed that the Toolbar that is usually present above Flickr photos isn't there lately - or is it just me? I'm talking about the toolbar that gives you the option to Add Note, Send to Group, Add to Set, Blog This, All Sizes, etc. The functionality is still there - if I click in the right area where that option normally appears, I can still do these functions. It's not that fun to guess where these buttons are supposed to be....

LinMoon

Encrusted Class

I am currently taking SharonB's Encrusted CQ class at Joggles.com. We just finished the first week and I have pictured my naked block. I know, naked blocks are kind of boring, but it's nice to see the difference in the "before" and "after" pictures later on. I think there are about 40 of us, mostly from the US, but also from Sweden, Norway, Australia, France and Canada! I am soooo enjoying it. Can you believe I have never used lace on a block? Lace and the dark oriental brocades somehow don't mix in my mind. So it's off to a pastel CQ wonderland for me....

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

TASTy feather

Well it's back to TAST and this week's stitch is feather. Yes that first picture is right side up - I wanted to play with different thicknesses of thread, starting with chenille and working my way down to a thin metallic. The beaded feather stitch is something you think of to do at 4 am when you can't sleep - I'm not sure how successful it is, but it's still interesting....

Kimono Finally Done

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!

About Creativity

Another Button for you to enjoy....

I was reading the recent (Feb/March 07) Quilting Arts magazine about the "Project Runway" show, which I have never seen. Tim Gunn says that he thinks the more constraints placed on the designers, the more creative they must be. To me, this is very counter-intuitive. Usually I feel very limited by rules. Also, how many of us have felt we couldn't do a CQ block justice because we just didn't have the right (or enough different) materials at hand? I wonder if this is why, in serious embroidery classes, such as the City and Guilds, that there are so many rules and regulations about what or how you stitch in order to pass that level.

Conversely, sometimes when I want to do something creative and feel somewhat aimless about what to do, I go shopping for more stash, instead of just diving in to create something. But I really have plenty of fabrics, threads, beads and buttons (not that I'm not always looking to add to my stash - let's be serious, now). So with all the materials at hand, maybe it's just overwhelming to know where to begin, especially if I'm starting a brand new project. So could it actually be that some limitations could foster new creativity? Hmmmm...

I know with the TAST challenge, we stick to a certain stitch, but that's the only constraint. It is very fun to go off and try different threads, etc. with that stitch and it amazes me that I might actually like a sample I make of a stitch I'm not that thrilled with at first. This creativity thing is tricky business, all right......
Happy stitching,
LinMoon

TAST algerian eye

Well it's time for another stitch in SharonB's TAST challenge. This week it's the algerian eye stitch. I wasn't real thrilled to see this one as I don't even own any counted thread fabric or canvas - I really prefer freestyle surface embroidery. But I like the way it came out - even though for the most part I just did quarters of the stitch.

Chevron Sample

Well I don't have much to show for Chevron, just one sample. I seems like Chevron has the same or similar possibilities as herringbone.... I've been busy working on finishing up another project, which I will post pix of when it's done. Hope you've had more time to stitch than I have lately.....

I'm published!

I have an article in the newest issue of CQMagOnline! I am so excited to be "published". My article describes how to make a ruffled flower in silk ribbon, a couched butterfly and a special flower - all in silk ribbon. (There's a link to my article in my sidebar.) Check it out - it's a great issue.

-Happy Stitching!