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.

Autumn in New York

My latest slow cloth is finished with a couple of weeks to spare.  Autumn in New York is inspired by Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, as part of the QuiltWorks Novel Idea book club.  This cloth is completely hand stitched with silk applique on a hand dyed indigo vintage linen napkin.  There's a lot of hand stitched embellishment that you can see better in the detail photos below.  I backed the whole thing with a single piece of medium weight grey shot cotton and turned the edges under the edge of the napkin to hand sew down.  The edges peek out and allowed me to square up the napkin.  It's about 22" x 22".  This quilt will be hanging in the QuiltWorks gallery for the month of April along with 35-40 others.  I can't wait to see the whole exhibit.  The few that I've seen so far are really wonderful.

The only building I wanted to be recognizable is the Empire State Building.  To make things easier I decided to stitch the topmost part as you see above.  Lots of little split backstitches make that up.  All of these techniques were learned from Jude Hill.  Please check out her website for all sorts of wonderful online video classes.

Meanwhile I've already started on a couple of other projects, my Undercover Quilter book club project has a great start and my Small Wonder Challenge project is looking really good.  More on those later.  I'm still trying to figure out what book to use as inspiration for my guild Children's Literature challenge.  There are so many wonderful books to choose from!  We are heading out for a little spring break in a few days, I can't wait!

AAQI for February: Fine Feathered Friend

Another crazy embellished bird will be winging her way to AAQI soon!  I had a lot of fun with this one, which started with that print fabric that seemed perfect for applique.  I found the bit of hand dyed blue wool and there she was.

I did lots of beading, some braiding and found the perfect vintage button for her eye.

She has ribbon legs too.

I did the faced edges again,  definitely my favorite for these small pieces.  I also did my embroidered initials.  Now I'm just waiting for a registration number.  This has been a great week for my AAQI pieces.  Be Yourself and Tulip Fields sold at auction.  I was shocked to see that Be Yourself brought in $155.00 for AAQI!  Also, Little Blue Lamb sold recently too.  I'm a happy camper and getting close to my $1000 Promise Goal!

Tea is done!

I just finished this piece and it's off to QuiltWorks for the gallery show today. Tea is No Minor Beverage is inspired by The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. It measures approximately 20" x 20". Here's my quilt description:

Tea is No Minor Beverage

Renée, a Paris apartment building concierge, has one true friend named Manuela.  They meet for tea and pastry on a regular basis.  Renée tries to hide her talents and interests from the people who live in her building.  As the book progresses, Renée’s true character emerges and she develops deep friendships with Monsieur Ozu, a wealthy and cultured Japanese businessman, and Paloma, a precocious 12 year old girl, both of whom live in the building.  Tea brings these characters together and seemed to me a fitting symbol of them all.

p. 91:  “So, let us drink a cup of tea… I know that tea is no minor beverage.  When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.”

This piece is created with hand appliqué; hand embroidery; hand dyed fabrics and threads; and cotton, linen and silk fabrics.

This is what it looked like last night.  One of the things I did was to couch down a sample of handspun mohair that I made a couple of years ago.

In the past couple of days I added a bunch of quilting stitches.

Today I was adding the glass beads and buttons.  I just ordered these blue glass buttons from Etsy and got them the other day.  I had no plans for them, but they seemed just right here.

I think the back is always interesting to see.  The heavier lines are created by quilting with a back stitch.

Finally a tiny hedgehog had to be on the back and my signature.  This is what I finally came up with and I like it a lot.  My signature post should be coming up soon. 

***Lastly, I haven't heard from Val yet. Please email me soon, Val.  I don't have your contact info in your comment. **

Stitching Weekend

I'll be adding items to my shop over the next few days.  It's been a productive weekend.  Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

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!

Last night

Made a design decision last night and even got to execute it.  More stitching today- hurray!

Magic Feather #4

Magic feather #4 is done and I'm working on 5 and 6. You can learn more about the Magic Feather Project here. I had fun doing the protrusions on this one. I think the most fun is making it up as you go along. I love the freedom to not know what's coming next.

And a note to say that my new Etsy shop is up and running!  Thanks for checking it out at the link in the header.  More items will be added as time goes on and I get my act together.