Sal Update - update 2 of Viennese Waltz

It's time for another update on my Viennese Waltz cross stitch piece.  So here is where I was 3 weeks ago:




And here is where I am now:

I have done loads!  I've filled in all the background "spikes", I've also finished the purple background and started the pink strip.  I've stitched a little of his leg and added more to her dress, along with filling in any gaps I had.

Let's hope future updates will be as successful and I'll have this done in no time! 


You can go and see what the other participants have been up to here:

Claire, Avis, Gun, Carole, Alison, Jule, Elizabeth, LucyAnn, Kate and Cathy

paper piecing paper piecing

I have been paper piecing paper piecing.  Nope, not repeating myself there.  The lovely East Midlands group of quilters who are modern is entering a quilt into the Festival of Quilts again this year.  I can't disclose what it will be, but I can show you my contribution.

It is, of course paper pieced.  I used Quiet Play's Just My Type alphabet to piece it.  We were each given a dimension that we had to fit into, luckily my size meant that I didn't have to increase or decrease the letters at all, so I'm pretty pleased I didn't have to fight the work photocopier whilst pretending that I was photocopying important work documents and not sewing patterns!

I know.  My hashtag is pretty crap.

But I'm quite pleased with the rest of it!

more purple squares

Slowly, slowly, very slowly I'm still crocheting squares for the rainbow sampler blanket that might never be.  I'm going to make you look at them anyway.  No!  Don't skip this post, you'll love it.  Promise.

All squares are from 200 Crochet blocks by Jan Eaton.

#173 Big Round - this one is pretty dense in the centre.  I know I'm casting aspersions on its character there, but it is.  Dense and then airy...

#62 Edged Square - this rather pants photo is courtesy of Photobucket who no longer makes photo editing possible as it flips the photo upside down, you crop where you think it should be on the correct-way-up photo and wait for it to flip the photo back and crop it.  Yeah, great gimmick Photobucket.

That's all for now.  Did you love it?  No, I lied.

the last of the pip beads... for now

A while ago, before I became ill, I showed you some brooches I'd made from Pip beads, well I made a couple more that I didn't get round to showing you.

This is a clear rivoli (the crystal in the middle), surrounded by bronze coloured seed beads and Delicas, and the pip beads (the petals) are a green/purple iris, which means the light bounces around them and changes the colour.

This is actually much bigger than life size, I like to make my photos extra large so people can actually see them.  Some bloggers use small photos in their posts, I find them hard enough to see on a computer screen, let alone on my tablet or even my phone!

Finally, I used another rivoli as a centre, surrounded it with navy and blue beads and added the same pip beads as above, but the other way round.  They are plain silver on the back and I rather like them that way round.

I can't quite make out what's reflected in these and I've only just noticed there is a reflection.  Better make sure I don't take photos of shiny stuff in the nude!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

I'm joining in with the Bloggers' Quilt Festival for the first time!  I want to show a wall hanging I made last year, so this will be entered in the Mini Quilt category.  

The pattern is Quiltessential's Art Deco Inspired wall hanging 2, it is made using reverse applique and fusible binding tape so that the final effect is of a stained glass window.

I finished the quilt with faced binding as the bias tape runs right along the outside edges of the hanging.

I did straight lines radiating out from the "sun", but I didn't want to cross the black lines or quilt in the pink/red sections, so it was lots of stopping and starting.  I didn't backstitch as it would be too visible so that left me with thousands of threads to bury!  OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there were loads of them.  

(Sorry about the centred text, Blogger won't let me change it)

Confession?  I didn't bury those threads, I pulled them through to the back and tied knots in them along with the bobbin threads.  In my defense, the back looked awful with the black stitching where I'd sewn the fusible binding down and it also developed a hole at one point...  Needless to say, no photos of the back (though I did show it in my original post...).

And this?  This is the fat quarter bundle of solids I bought to make this wall hanging.  Lesson learnt - read the materials list before buying bundles to make a project.  I actually only needed a handful of solid scraps!

Thank you for visiting me and my mini quilt, enjoy the rest of the festival!

Siblings Together Quilt

At the EMMQG we are joining in with the initiative in the quilting community to make quilts for Siblings Together, a very worthwhile cause.  

A couple of years ago I made some Skill Builder blocks for the QAL ran by Pile O'Fabric.  My 8 blocks had become orphans so when we had a day of making quilts for ST at a Quilt Group meeting, I took them along.  Hannah embroidered a central block so that we would have 9 blocks, Tanya sewed them together and Hannah quilted and bound the quilt.  A real group effort!

This will be sent off to Siblings Together and is part of the initiative to make 100 quilts by July (not me!  Anyone and everyone who's willing to give up time and stash to make a quilt.  You can find out more in the Flickr group).

SAL update - week 1 of Viennese Waltz

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.  It's time for a Stitch Along update.  As you know, I finished Save the Stitches and so I had to dig out another WIP to work on.

I chose Viennese Waltz by John Clayton, a counted cross stitch kit.  I stitched another kit in the series, Tango 5 years ago, that was my third ever blog post!  I started this one about a year later, but it got packed away.  Here is how it looked three weeks ago:

I think I know why it was packed away, I've discovered a lot of mistakes in the purple area!  I'm just ignoring them and working round them, it's not vital to the design.  Here is where I am now.

I've actually done quite a lot of that background, it's just difficult to see.  I'm going to plug on and get the background finished before I start the next page.  I took the photo with the frame resting on one of the bunny runs, so I thought I'd snap a photo of the occupants.

The other two were hiding from me.


You can go and see what the other participants have been up to here:

Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea

Claire at Claire93's blog

Gun at Rutigt

Kate at Tall Tales from Chiconia

Carole at A Slight Obsession with Books

Alison at Minerva Handmade

Jule at From the Boudoir

Elizabeth at Stitch 4 Therapy

Sunday Stash (on a Friday)

I know it's Friday, but I'm posting my Stitch Along progress on Sunday so I shoehorned this in here!

I managed to find some bunny fabrics at the Quilt and Stitch Village, so they had to come home with me.

Please excuse the photos, Photobucket is acting up and I can't rotate or crop photos.

I did think I had that bright pink ricrac rabbits, but it turns out I have it in red, so we're OK!  I'm still not convinced I don't already have the white-background one above it.  The other two are Lewis & Irene.  Isn't it great that I always have the full details of all my fabrics!

Walking by a stall, a jelly-roll caught my eye.  It was Block Party by Sandy Gervais.  I was torn between the jelly roll and the layer cake, but the layer cake won.  I love the colours in this line.

I also received my April fabric for the colour club at Simply solids.  Three Kona blues and... some other fabrics!  Wow, the information just flows out of me... I wouldn't be surprised if Molli didn't de-link me.

Linking up to:

Uttoxeter Quilt and Stitch Village 2015

The weekend of the 24th was the Quilt and Stitch Village event in Uttoxeter, not to far from me, so me and the lovely mum went along, meeting some guild friends there.  I, of course, was excited to see the embroidery exhibition as I'd entered Save the Stitches.  

Want to see it?

There are two photos to show it as it's so long!

I also took a photo of the whole thing, but Photobucket is playing up and I can't rotate photos.  

I did not win.

I did  not come 2nd.

I did not come 3rd.

I'm pretty sure I came 4th, but there are no rosettes for that, so we'll just have to assume I did!  Here are the entries that did win, this was the Traditional Embroidery category.

I didn't fork out the pound it cost to buy the programme, so I've no idea who made these!  The goldwork tudor rose above came third. 

I loved this goldwork dragon, it came 2nd.

And this came first.  In the Traditional category?  Sorry about the reflection, but it was glazed and there was a window behind.  

In my judges comments both said that it should have been framed.  Funny that, I thought I'd entered an embroidery competition, not a framing competition (or rather a who-can-fork-out-the-most-money-for-their-massive-and-unusually-shaped-embroidery competition).  The rest of the comments were good, so I probably shouldn't moan.

Craft book review - The Stained Glass Garden

The lovely folk at GMC sent me another book to review.  I've had it on my bookshelf for a while now as I was intending to make something from it.  I'm not sure when I'm going to get round to it, so I thought it was about time I wrote the review.

The book is The Stained Glass Garden: Projects and Patterns

  Before we go any further, the disclaimers.  I was sent the book for free to review but I was not told what to say and all opinions are 100% my own.  I didn't receive any monetary compensation.  Links in this post, as with all my book posts, are affiliated.  If you click over and buy something, I get a few pence towards an Amazon voucher.  

I love that project on the front cover, it makes me dream of having a garden full of beautiful glass pieces and mosaics... instead I've got a garden full of weeds and bunny poo!

The book starts with 23 pages of instruction, hints and tips, covering how to work with glass, equipment needed and safety precautions.  I'm not a glasswork beginner so I can't say whether these instructions would be good enough for a beginner, but anyone who's taken a workshop in glass work should be able to follow them easily.

Next is a section on how to work with copper foil.  This is a technique where you cover the outside of the cut glass pieces with strips of copper foil and solder them.  This patio lantern project is one of the copper foil projects.  There are 14 copper foil projects in total including panels, garden stakes, mobiles and lanterns.

The third section is about working with 3d Lead Came.  This is the method that I used to make my stained glass window, does anyone remember that project?  This ladybird plant stake is one of the projects in this section, it's my favourite in the book.

The section begins with general instructions of how to work with lead cane, then moves on to 14 projects.

This book is not for everyone as you need to be set up for working with glass.  If you are a glassworker then I'd definitely recommend it.  The projects are just lovely and I want them all in my garden!  The instructions seem to be pretty comprehensive and include lots of tips along the way.  I haven't made anything from it yet, but that doesn't stop me getting it out and flicking through it, dreaming of that perfect garden (which would still feature bunny poo...).

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (26 Aug 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1895569575
• ISBN-13: 978-1895569575
• Product Dimensions: 26.3 x 22.4 x 1.5 cm

Linking up to:













Disclaimer:

I was given a review copy of the book by GMC however this review and all opinions are 100% my own, I was not told what to say.  Amazon links are affiliate links.