Stitching Hands Studio

Small Wonders 2012

This is my entry for the Small Wonders Challenge this year.  The theme is 'A Patterned Village' and the challenge fabric for this year is the green print.  All the rest of the fabric is hand dyed, mostly by me, but at least one of the greens is from a local friend.  It measures 25" x 19".

I admit to having to push myself to make this.  My first idea for the challenge just wasn't going to be ready in time, and I love it so much that I think I want to keep it, so I made this all in one day yesterday.  I started at the bottom, working my way up to the row with the houses.  The main bodies of the houses are free pieced, with the roofs and other details added by fusing.  I call it 'The Red Door' because I've always wanted a house with a red door.  I also like blue doors!  Presently I have neither, but I'm happy to create little worlds where I can have any sort of door I please.  

If you are so inclined to make a Small Wonder, I have it on good authority that the deadline has been pushed back to May 15.  The prizes are pretty awesome, so think about it!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.  We are having our first taste of summer weather and it is just delightful!

10,000!

Wow!  My quilt, "Shhhh..." was the 10,000th quilt registered for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative!  I just found out today when I got a call directly from Ami Simms.  What a treat!  When I picked up the phone I was really wondering why AAQI would be calling, even though I knew the 10,000 milestone was approaching.  The quilt is already in the mail to Ami and there are hopes it will be able to get some extra publicity for the charity.  

In fact, some of you will recognize this one as a piece that I made during the Patchwork Beasts class with Jude a couple of years ago.  I finished it last year and put it in my shop, but I hadn't sold.  When April 1 rolled around I realized I had nothing ready for AAQI this month, I decided to remove this one from the shop and registered it right away.  Well, now it's on a whole new adventure!  Ami is keen to see some local and national publicity, so I'll post here if any of that comes about.

Sneak Peek

Sorry for neglecting the blog lately.  The preparation for my show has kept me busy.  I also had a real lack of energy last week, the aftermath of that nasty bug I had the week before.  Last weekend I was really able to catch up on sleep and finally get over the bug and today I felt like normal for the first time in two weeks!

This little sneak peek is the last thing I want to finish up before delivering my quilts on Wednesday.  More photos will come after the quilts are up and the reception is over.  If you happen to be in the area this Friday evening, the reception will be at QuiltWorks 5-7 pm.  I'd love to see you then, but the quilts will hang throughout the month of March, so stop on by anytime the shop is open.

Continuing

I've been working on many things this week and feel in a bit of  whirlwind with so many things I want to do.  The chores and have-to's keep getting in the way.  I'm finishing up a couple of these samples from Jude's classes (Patchwork Beasts and Cloth to Cloth). I had originally intended to put several of these pieces together into one big piece, but have changed my mind and will make small wall hangings that I plan to offer for sale in my shop.  I'll post here when I do that.

Meanwhile, my new design wall is getting a workout with this quilt for Chloe!  This was meant to be her graduation/going to college quilt.  It's  bit late, but will come just in time for the cold weather.  I decided to make two design walls and the other one isn't up yet.  This one is behind the door and so will be somewhat hidden, but it's a great use for a wall that really wasn't good for hanging artwork.  My pinboard is up too, but photos of that will have to be another day.  Must get going!

AAQI for November

Little Blue Lamb was just finished for my Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative piece for November.  I keep rolling along with the Quilt-A-Month club.  This piece was started in Jude Hill's Patchwork Beasts class in September 2010.  A little more stitching, some batting, a backing and a facing and it's done.  I like using my old class samples for this sort of thing.

I realized a few days ago that I don't have a photo of my October AAQI quilt.  I thought I had taken one, but can't find it anywhere.  The photo isn't up at AAQI yet, but you can keep track of it here if you like.  Tulip Fields started with the class sample below, from a workshop that Jean Wells did for our guild last month.  She gave us most of the fabrics you see below to use for experimentation and said that they weren't a very good palette.  That was enough of a challenge for me to make it work.  I added some extra bits and even more when I did some applique and stitching.  This one should be up in the next week or so.

Right now, the AAQI people are at the International Quilt Festival in Houston doing an amazing job at selling some 1500 mini quilts for AAQI!  I have 4 quilts there as far as I can tell and 2 have sold so far.  Nine Daisies and Through the Window I have sold!  Zoom and High Desert Sun are still available at last count.  Over $20,000 has been made at the festival so far!

5 & 6

The last of the magic feathers I have going.  I'm not sure these are the last I'll make, but I'm done for the time being.  These were fun to add the stitching to.  The red tip is especially nice as it's a bit of silk from a friend.  These will be sent to Jude for the Magic Feather Project.

Cross Currents Experimentation

I was trying out some more stitch ideas today.  Above, 2, 3 and 1 strand of embroidery floss in a running stitch.  I like 2 and 3, but not so much the single strand.

Above, something I'm calling a separated backstitch.  Perhaps there's another name for it?  I think this was with 3 strands of floss.  I'm getting more comfortable with combining machine stitches and hand stitches together.  This purple is a bit of chambray I bought today.  I couldn't resist the totally fabulous selvage so sewed it right on top!

More of that stitch.  Here there's a subtle color change from right to left as I ran out of the green thread and changed to yellow.

I also played around with block arrangement.  This is the hardest of all.  I've gotten some of the smaller units put together, but it's still hard to figure out where things should go.

Rosalie was doing a 10 minute consultation with everyone today and tomorrow.  Mine is in the morning.  Wonder what she'll say about this?  I decided to experiment with using the black and white setting on my camera.

The last day of the workshop is tomorrow. It's kind of sad to see it end.  Despite the difficulties for scheduling my life around this workshop, it's been such a luxury to have long days to sew and think about sewing.  Back to normal next week!

Cross Currents Stitchwork

I got some unexpected free time this afternoon, so another in progress post!  Today I was working on adding surface design by stitching by machine and by hand.  Adding interest to individual blocks before putting them together is something I've been doing in my work in Jude Hill's classes as well.  Here I am mixing both machine and hand stitching even in the same blocks.  When looking at Rosalie's pieces, it's very interesting to see how she has combined all sorts of techniques. 

One of the things she mentioned is to not say to yourself I can't do that, but, rather, how can I do that?  All of these things I've done could be accomplished by either machine or by hand and you get different looks.  It's nice to see the difference and variety though.

I brought home several blocks with the intention of adding more surface stitching before starting to join them tomorrow.

Colors in the above photos are rather washed out, but the colors below are a bit better.  I am looking forward to getting this piece out into natural light for a real photo shoot.

Tomorrow is a very full day, so hopefully I'll be able to post more on Friday.  More later!

Cross Currents Evolution

I wish I'd remembered my camera yesterday and gotten more in progress photos, but this is all from today.  Work continues; sometimes slowly, sometimes in a flurry of inspiration.  My Cross Currents class with Rosalie Dace has been a lot of fun and filled with inspiration.  She has asked us not to publish photos of her work and I've not taken photos of other people's work, but, trust me, mine is not representative of the class.  All the work is unique.  

I went into the class only knowing a little bit of Rosalie's work (from her blog), at the suggestion of friends in the Sue Spargo and Tonye Phillips retreat.  I knew the theme was crossed lines (+, x) and that was it.  As it turns out, it's much more than that. It's composition, value, color, surface design and embellishment.  Rosalie is a wonderful teacher and I find that I am listening to her conversations with my classmates as I work quietly away.

Rosalie is very accomodating to those who want to do handwork instead of, or in addition to machine work.  This was a help to me as I was itching to use my slow cloth techniques as well.  I have made many small units with crossed lines of all sorts and kept adding to them all day.  I have quite a bit of hand stitching so far and will add more.  I've used many of my latest hand dyes, some of Deb Lacativa's hand dyes, commercial dyed fabrics, silks, linen, hand dyed embroidery floss.  I've done machine piecing, hand applique- both raw edge and turned, running stitches and back stitches.

There are three more days of class and a busy week at home too, so I may not be able to post again for a few days.  I am sure there will be more progress when I do though!

Contemporary Folk Art Retreat

The Contemporary Folk Art Retreat with Sue Spargo and Tonye Phillips took place at the historic Camp Sherman Community Hall, about 15 minutes from Sisters.  It was so beautifully decorated and a really lovely space to do a bit of stitching.

Actually, we had three days of stitching and it was really just heaven!  Below is the class sample, a pretty bad photo.  I didn't realize my camera was on a funny setting and never did get a better one.  At least you can see the idea.  It was a blend of Tonye's whimsical houses and Sue's wool and embroidery.  Of course, most people took off in their own direction after getting a little inspiration from this and all the other pieces on the walls.

The piece above is by my friend Jan Tetzlaff.  She has a wonderful eye for color and loves to incorporate words and/or letters into any quilt she does.  

Above is from Janet Wilson, a fellow Jude follower (makes us sound a little creepy- Judite??).  Anyway, I think the blues were hand dyed indigo that Janet made.  Her mushroom houses will be just darling!

This piece is by Marian Shimoda, another retreat friend.  Marion will be teaching Whimsical Wired Angels at the Stitchin' Post in December!  I will be there with bells on.  Marion is so very creative and makes all sorts of intricate small dolls and other beautiful pieces.

And this is mine.  I've already added a bunch more applique.  I think my favorite is the Seuss tree!  I have several of my hand dyed fabrics in the piece, both cotton and wool.  The border has indigo dyed fabrics.  I'll post an update some day soon!