CQJP.  MARCH.

 This is my March quilt detail. A tatted butterfly in a variegated thread, I love doing these.

Dorset button. My first one it is just buttonhole stitch and whipped wheel in the middle.

 These are my whipped wheels, running and barred chain stitches.

 The whole piece. 
I have used silk, cotton, some hand dyed and some recycled clothing.
The stitches are all from Tast Sharon's Pintangle I am going to try to put a link to her site pintangle 


My  knowledge of stitches is growing week by week and I am now starting to plan a bit more thinking of how to combine stitches colours and fabrics. All this because of Sharon's Tast and the  Crazy Quilt Journey Project. cqjp2012 It is a journey that I am enjoying very much indeed. Writing about is still a bit of a struggle but even that is getting better.  
 

Tast week 16
French Knots

 Well here is my attempts at the stitch.
I have tried out a few different threads, ribbon and wool. The top row is embroidery thread starting with one thread and ending with 6 threads. 
The thread that worked the best was the crochet cotton 
As you can see not a patch on my Grandmothers but I have time and patience. 

Tast week 16
French Knots

 I just wanted to show you some of my treasures. They are only 3 inches in height.

  These are not my embroideries they were done by either my Grandmother or one of her sisters or  a cousin of hers. I cannot be sure as Mum had a lot of needlework given to her when her Aunts died.

 

This one is finished and is on display.
I have taken it out of the frame so that it may photograph better. The whole piece is done with single thread and the French knots are beautiful. 

Here it is again in the silver frame so it can sit in my living room.

  This piece has not been finished and I found it in an old needlework box with a whole load of threads. It does show me how she went about sewing this. The design has been painted on first, looks like water colour, onto silk. This has been tacked onto a very open weave fabric almost like a gauze, then embroidered on top, all in single thread.

 A closer view. I cannot get any closer as it distorts to much.

I hope you enjoyed these images I wanted to share them with you as I am so proud of what my relatives have done before me. I just hope that some of there skill is past down to me. 


They all died before the internet and did not get a chance to share, they were all a very sharing family.  

Tast week 15
Stem stitch

Stem Stitch

Stem stitch I have used just as an outline stitch.
I stared this some time ago with my quilting group, good excuse to finish it.
Its a lovely stitch and would be great for enclosing other stitches.

Tast week 14 
Satin stitch

Satin Stitch

It looked so easy on the internet.
How wrong can I be.
Could not think what to fill in so had a bit of fun.
I have only used a plain calico for my stitches so far, I shall continue for the time being as I quite like the stitches to speak for themselves. These are all practice pieces and when I feel more confident with colour and have a few more stitches I will add some coloured background.

Sharon has a new blog  http://pintangle.com/ I hope this link works.

Tast week 11 and 12

Whipped and woven wheels

Here are my whipped and woven wheels. They took a bit of getting used to and take a lot longer than I anticipated, I am pleased with the result will try a half wheel on my CQJP for March.

 

Close up

This is a close of my whipped and woven wheel.

It was from a pattern kindly donated by http://fat-quarter.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/woven-and-whipped-wheel-tutorial.html 

I am not yet able to just say link here so I have just copied and pasted her link.

All of this is only possible because of Sharon at

http://pintangle.com/

She has a new blog so I just copied and pasted again.

Barred and alternating barred chain

Not to sure when I shall use this stitch other than on my CQJP march block.

I do like to mess around with the stitches from Tast. I feel it is when I can really go overboard with the stitches and not have to worry about if they are even or well spaced.