Friday Revision Homework - Stitches: 261 - 265

I want to feature Sunbonnet Sue at many stages of her life. 

Here she is in her teens, brooding over life, love, school, music, God, the future, acne,  plastic marine pollution.... She is wondering whether to join the fencing team or embroidery club at school, to make do with her pocket money or get a part-time job after school, to continue to wait for Sam in the year above to call or to be brave enough to text him, to apply for an exchange student programme and go abroad for a year... or should she give in to the pressure from her friends and try that party drug, or join the volunteers and clean up the beach, or...

Poor Sue is thinking so hard she's got a splitting headache.

Did you have an identity crisis in your youth?

Apart from the stitches above, I have also used Stem Stitch and Straight Stitch.

What's in a Quilt - The Green Man - Part 9: Trapunto

There are a few blocks on the Green Man quilt that have added stuffing, today let's look at Trapunto, an Italian way to add extra texture.

Basically, you need the top fabric, a sheet of batting (high or low loft), small balls of extra batting, and a sheet of thin backing fabric, e.g. gauze:

Sandwich the quilt in the usual way.

Quilt along the desired quilting line -  I made a leaf.

Now, out come the scissors! Cut a slit in the backing fabric, and with the help of a pair of tweezers and a cocktail stick stuff the leaf with extra batting.

When you are satisfied with the height of the stuffing, stitch the slit together. Pure surgery!

You can see how puffy the leaf has become.

Finally, it is time for the real backing fabric. Baste it to the quilt sandwich and start quilting the non-stuffed areas.

Here I have done echo quilting, but crosshatch or any other type is ok of course. The more you quilt, the higher the stuffed areas rise up. 

The leaves of the Green Man are densely packed with batting and there is dense quilting around him, as you can see.

I have also added a bit of interesting information for you:

Shannon Brinkley talks about the background of Trapunto quilting. Have a look at the beautiful Tristan and Isolde quilt. Shannon also shows examples of Trapunto made by machine. 

The second piece of information is this YouTube video where the quilter is simply poking a hole in the back and pushing in the batting, no need for suture!:

WIPW - A Birthday Present

Oh, how time flies! Here is this week's Work In Progress Wednesday report.

Mandala

I completed the four lines of small blue and green leaves.

Sunday Stitch School Stitch Sampler 

I used two filling stitches: #87 Open Wave (variegated thread) and #104 Fly Stitch Filling (red and white).

Both were stitched freehand without waste canvas, so they are a bit wonky.

Birthday Present

A young lady I know will soon be 8 years old. The other day she coloured in a Mandala and hinted that she wished it had been stitched. I rescheduled some chores to get enough time to stitch it for her. This is as far as I have got.

I will only use threads that I have in my stash, so that is why the orange is a bit too strong in colour. Furthermore, I will also add some beads and metallic thread as the birthday girl LOVES everything that sparkles.

Sunday Stitch School - Revision: Stitches 261 - 265

Before Sunbonnet Sue decides what she will be up to this time, let's review the last five stitches. Click on the title for a link to the instructions.

261 Y-Edge Stitch

In looks it is very similar to #263 Plaited Fly Stitch or a line of Fly Stitch rubbing shoulders. However, when worked over a folded edge, you can see the difference.

Is Sue going to work it on an edge or not?

262 Star of David

This is one of the first stars I learned to draw as a child - two triangles on top of each other, one upside down. To stitch it, you 'draw' it in a totally different way.

263 Six-Pointed Star

See what happens when the stitcher can't stop with a Star of David but continues to work the needle and thread around the shape. Magic!

264 Roumanian Couching

You need only one thread. You make a long stitch and then couch it down on the way back. The coaching part of the stitch is rather wide, so you might not work out how the stitch is made at first glance. 

It covers the foundation fabric nicely. You need, however, a good supply of thread in your stash for this hungry stitch. Worked on Aida it looks very neat with tidy edges. In freeform style, it can get a bit shaggy if you are not careful, or if that is your wish.

265 Double Whipped Running Stitch

See how the humble Running Stitch (TAST #10) can dress itself up.

Homework:

This is the back of the homework, not a single stitch has been made yet to show you what Sue is doing.

What's in a Quilt - The Green Man - Part 8: Crazy Quilting

I love embroidery! I love quilting! So it is not surprising that my favourite form of quilting and patchwork is crazy quilting. A crazy quilt block just had to be added to the Green Man!

Before we look at him, let's talk about how to make a cq block.

Step one is to collect fabric, trims, ribbon, beads, buttons and whatever you want to include. As you can see, you don't need cotton fabric made especially for patchwork and quilting. No, the fabric can be 'fancy', remnants from ball gowns, an old tie, upholstery, a corner a handkerchief with initials, a bit of velvet, something lacy ... anything goes! What you DO need is a foundation fabric, here it is a piece of white cotton onto which I have drawn the placement for the fancy fabric.

Start in the middle of the foundation fabric.

I placed a bit of the tie (1) in the centre. 

On top of it, right sides together I then added the grey silk (2), stitched it along the right-hand edge, then turned it open, hiding the raw edges underneath. 

(3) is a light blue synthetic, once the lining of a jacket. I wanted a curved line so turned under the raw edges as I hand-stitched it in place.

(4) was attached in the same way as (2) i.e. stack, stitch, flip open.

A short piece of odd braid (5) was hand-stitched in place along the light blue edge.

(6) is actually a piece of patchwork cotton, that is so long it stretches across the entire side of the block.

The ball gown fabric (7) is also long, and the ribbon on top (8) is longer still.

Every raw edge has been covered.

Now the block is ready to be DECORATED. Pour on the embroidery stitches, the beads, buttons...

At this stage, it might be time to stop and call the block finished.

I think this book by Sharon Boggon is one of the best to learn crazy quilting.

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The Green Man you find in churches is not flashy, but rather shy, or sly, hiding in the greenery, or maybe lurking to jump out at you? 

Whatever, he is not covered in sequins, metallic thread or complex stitch combinations. Instead, I wanted my crazy quilt Green Man to be simpler than the quilt block above. The pieces of fabric have odd shapes, though, and the seams are covered with embroidery. I selected buttons with groves in them, perfect for the eyes and mouth.

To be continued.

Friday Homework for Lesson 265: Double Whipped Running Stitch

This was fun! Use three contesting colours for your threads and you get a striking look. Use three muted colours and you have a nice braid-like line.

Aida

Mottled Wool Scribble Cloth

Sunday Stitch School Reference Chart

WIPW - Extending Leaves

This is my Work In Progress Wednesday report.

Mandala

I need to extend the sprouted leaves on this line so they reach the 'Dresden Plate' curved edge. I've done one line, there are three more to go.

Sunday Stitch School Stitch Sampler

Three new stitches were added: #82 Bokhara Couching in orange, #264 Roumanian Couching in brown and #244 French Cretan Stitch in blue.

Sunday Stitch School - Lesson 265: Double Whipped Running Stitch

You know the Running Stitch, whip it and you get Whipped Running Stitch, whip it one more time (with the needle going in the opposite direction) and you get today's stitch: Double Whipped Running Stitch.

I found it in A-Z of Embroidery Stitches 2 where it is called Whipped Double Running Stitch. I changed the name as the Whipping is double, not the Running Stitch.

Work it like this:

Homework: Decorate these three samplers.

Friday Homework for Lesson 263: Six-Pointed Star + Lesson 264: Roumanian Couching

 Double homework this time!

Aida Sampler

It was impossible to use the holes to make even points. I didn't want to cheat and stitch between the holes. Nevertheless, the stars are rather neat, I think.

On Aida with its far-apart holes, you need a fluffy yarn to cover the foundation, as can be seen in this picture.

Sunday Stitch School Reference Chart

On a tight weave like this, the stars form easily.

The Roumanian Couching is tight and compact, but I had trouble keeping the edges even.

Mottled Wool Scribble Cloth

As I mentioned before, marking the hexagon shape for the stars' foundation is nearly impossible on this mottled wool. I cut out small paper hexagons and pinned them down first, then it was a bit easier to stitch the hexagon. The actual Six-Pointed stars were easy to do.

Roumanian Couching was also easy to do on the wool, but the edges are uneven...

What's in a Quilt - The Green Man - Part 7: Painted Quilting

First a correction about the blogpost 'What's in a Quilt - The Green Man - Part 2: Whole Cloth' posted on August 10th, 2023.

I used this picture to illustrate my whole cloth quilt block. Do you remember?

'Yes! I've already seen this block', you may say. You are right, but I made a mistake!  A SILLY  mistake!!!!  Although it technically IS a whole cloth, being worked on a single piece of fabric, it was the wrong one.

Below is the whole cloth quilt block that should have been used to illustrate 'What's in a Quilt - The Green Man - Part 2: Whole Cloth'

As you can see, it is only one piece of fabric, and the whole Green Man's head is quilted on a piece of green sheeting.

I have now updated that blog post with the right photograph.

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Now back to today's blog post.  Block #7 is not only a whole cloth quilt, more importantly, it is a sketched and painted quilt as you can see here:

I quite often take the help of paint or crayons to fill in parts of my quilting. Here are a few examples:

Sunbonnet Sue's dress and her Christmas tree are coloured with crayons.

Another Christmas quilt, this one in the style of a stained glass window quilt. It is all paint except the candle which is the foundation fabric untouched!

A fake crazy quilt, all the pieces were drawn with ink pen and then coloured in with children's wax crayons and finally set with a hot iron. The embroidery is real, though.

For NHK's Partnership quilt project 2006, I painted the sailboat on a piece of pink fabric, then appliquéd the rainbow-coloured batik and the palm leaf.

Another vessel, a steamship, is still used for commuting between Stockholm and the islands in the archipelago. The leafy background, the water and the mallard - are all done with paint on a sheet of white fabric. Only the ship's hull is the original white foundation fabric.

The flowers, leaves and garlands on this Block Of the Month quilt are drawn with wax crayons.

So what is the merit of painting? It is the ease of quilting. Appliqué and piecing mean you have seam allowance which leads to bulk. That bulk makes it harder to do the actual quilting, especially even quilting. If you fake it with paint or crayons and hope that from a distance the motif will look like proper appliqué, you can easily quilt through the three layers without having to struggle with any bulk or bumps.

Here is some of the stuff I use:

To be continued...