WIPW - Ready for Another 35 Stitches

December is the busiest month of the year. Yet, I managed to put in quite a lot of stitch-related work.

Here is my Work In Progress Wednesday report.

Hexablooms

I arranged and numbered three piles of hexagon flowers. They are now ready to be added to the flimsy.

When I visited the quilt contest in Nakano, I was given a handkerchief-sized piece of fabric, which you can see - it is the one in yellow with white beans. I basted some petals and made one more flower. Then I made two more blocks with animal prints on.

Sunday Stitch School Reference Chart

With stitch #345 I had completed the old chart. It was time to type the number and name of each stitch, then print out the list on cotton fabric, cut out each label and stitch it on.

I now have seven charts for Sunday Stitch School, from Stitch #1 - #345:

Add to that, the 155 TAST stitches that are on three samplers:

In total 500 stitches learned since 2012:

So the next step was to make a new chart. I drew the boxes and stitched the lines with black thread. The butterfly print strips of fabric were stitched on as support fabric so that I can easily put the sampler in a hoop. 

While I was on it, I stitched on the labels for the first five stitches, 346 - 350 (only the name of the first stitch, Double Lazy Daisy Stitch, is visible; on the other four boxes, I blurred out the names. I don't want to spoil the fun of not knowing what stitch is coming up next!

Sunday Stitch School Indigo Stitch Sampler

I added the latest stitch, Double Lazy Daisy Stitch, but they are actually Triple Lazy Daisy Stitch!

Sunday Stitch School - Lesson 346: Double Lazy Daisy Stitch

It takes time to learn stitches. With a stitch-a-week tempo, I obviously grow one week older for each stitch. It seems I also grow more forgetful by one week for each stitch I learn.

Today, I have a simple stitch - Double Lazy Daisy Stitch. As you have probably guessed, it consists of two Detached Chain Stitches, one worked outside the other. 

I stumbled across it in a library book, "1000 のステッチ - The Techniques for Over 1000 Stitches EMBROIDERY", a thick book published by Japanese ONDORI. 

What an obvious stitch the Double Lazy Daisy Stitch is! Why had I not included it in my collection before? I rushed home and checked my TAST and my Sunday Stitch School Reference lists - small cards I keep on rings.

 (Impressive, aren't they? 155 TAST and 345 Sunday Stitch School stitches, in total 500!!!)

Among them, there was no Double Lazy Daisy Stitch, nor a Double Detached Chain Stitch. Yet, the stitch looked so familiar... I must have seen it somewhere before.

Happy-go-lucky, I set about making a photo tutorial and a new card to add to the collection on the rings shown above. 

As I was also preparing a new Sunday Stitch School Reference Chart cloth with lines, I added the labels for the first five stitches. 

So there it was, the name already on the chart and on a ring card, a photo tutorial edited, and the blogpost ready to be published... 

And THEN it struck me. I HAVE made this stitch before! WHERE is it? Under WHAT name did I make it? 

With a fine toothcomb, I went over my charts, and finally I found it. 

Double Lazy Daisy Stitch, also goes by the name of BERRY STITCH, 

and it was a TAST stitch I learned while taking part in Sharon Boggon's online stitch initiative in 2012.  You can see my blogpost here.

Oh no, what shall I do? All this work prepared and no good...., but hang on. There is no photo tutorial in the blogpost of 2012!

So the long and the short of it is that I will include this stitch once more, this time with instructions and an alternative, Triple Lazy Daisy Stitch, as you can add a third stitch outside the other two!

Here goes:

or make it a Triple Lazy Daisy Stitch

Friday Revision Homework - Stitches: 341 - 345

This scene with Sunbonnet Sue is off-season. It is obviously winter and cold (in Japan anyway) right now. Summer, though, was hot and LONG. This made the fad of battery-operated and handheld fans stretch long into autumn. 

I made the picture a long time ago, but didn't use it. #345 Barred Buttonhole Wheel Stitch was the perfect stitch to depict the fan, and thus the picture is a memory of this year's prolonged Indian Summer. 

Being glued to the smartphone's screen and showing off a tattoo are also fads or modern trends,  but have no seasons! So is triple-tasking; surely Sue is doing sit-ups too!

WIPW - The Last in a Series of Five

Work In Progress Wednesday.

I have a finish today - the last out of five bookmarks was completed.

Bookmark

Yes, I made a bookmark for each of a group of five friends. The last bookmark is now completed and winging its way across the Globe. I will show you only the felt-covered back today and the full embroidery once the bookmark has reached the recipient.

Hexablooms

I cut some more squares and I basted some other squares over hexagon cards.

I attached more blocks to the flimsy. If I have counted correctly, there are now 226 hexablooms on the quilt.

Sunday Stitch School Indigo Stitch Sampler

For Stitch #345 Barred Buttonhole Wheel, I fastened a real button and a piece of round felt.

The 9th Quilts Japan Contest Exhibition - Bags

Last week, I reported on the quilts I saw at the 9th Quilts Japan Contest Exhibition. Today, I will introduce the other category of the contest, bags. 

I have often wondered why bags are such a popular type of quilting in Japan. Believe me, at a quilt show or contest, there is almost always a section for bags. Could it be that Japanese ladies love bags? Could it be that a bag is smaller than a bed-size quilt and therefore easier to work on if you live in a cramped Japanese house?

Be that as it may, here are some of the bags:

上野知佳子

My friend, Chikako Ueno, is a quilt teacher extraordinaire. This time, she entered two bags in the contest, both of which are practical and stylish. She always finds interesting buttons or zippers to add. The first one, above, is rather sombre.

Whereas this bag, which won a prize, was more colourful with the help of upholstery fabric and some recycled fasteners for kimono jackets (haori).

These resemble Friendship Bracelets that young girls often braid and give each other, but have a different function, of course. 

Foreign tourists who are into quilting often buy a handful of second-hand haori braids to use in quilting and other crafts.

If you are interested in how to put on and take off a haori and how to tie the little fastener, I have included a short video from Kinoshita Kimono Lab's YouTube channel. 

It's all in Japanese, but nevertheless interesting to watch. Maybe it explains why fewer ladies dress in kimono these days! After all, it's so much easier to slip into a pair of jeans and pull a T-shirt over one's head! 

And how many of us follow special rules for dressing casually? The traditional dress code in Japan is strict, although the instructor here uses the modern word 'smart', as in smart phone and convenient ways.

Now let's return to the bags at the quilt show.

Another of Ms Ueno's students, 竹田悦子, was inspired by her teacher's design but used old denim for her bag.

So did 三木準子, another of her students. There is a lot of movement in the way she has placed the pieces.

久保佳代子is yet another student of Ms Ueno. She also used denim in her shoulder bag.

梅野京子's bag has a metallic button that, from a distance, looks like a Dorset Button.

太田絹子　included a red fabric with a 'patchwork' print.

竹村泰子 says that she loves circles. She used a plain fabric in off-white with grey dots. She decorated each dot with appliqué, felt and stitching.

These Japanese ladies are so precise in their work.

Here is a UFO bag by 北川信子

It must be practical to carry home a pizza in it.

薄井美代子 used a variety of recycled kimono silk for her brown bag.

萩本みちエ also used an old kimono for her plum blossom bag.

Here is an unusual bag for you, made by ふわぬのひろ. There is no space for a bulky wallet or make-up bag, but it is a showstopper and conversation piece.

Hexagons and Christmassy stars by 西山清美.

Would you possibly have one of these at home? I'm not talking about the bag, but the robot vacuum cleaner it is based on? As you can see, it is full of small and cheerful cleaners! 

The maker, 藤本容子, titled her bag 'inside of a robotic vacuum cleaner'.

Some quilt makers worked on structure and texture. 和田まゆみ

Or,  like 寺杣清子, encrusted the bag's kimono belt fabric with beads galore.

Do you remember the Rubik's Cube from Hungary? It was very popular in the 1980s. The cubic puzzle inspired 平田信子to make this interesting and colourful bag.

I think the details on this bag as well as the combination of colours were very pleasing.

山口信子。

Lovers of Boutis will admire this heavily quilted and padded bag by 石井智美. It was one in a set of three: a tote bag, a pouch and a mobile phone case. Together they won the Grand Prix.

I am already looking forward to next year's quilt show.

Sunday Stitch School - Revision: Stitches 341 - 345

 It's time to look back at the last five stitches:

341 Bamboo Stitch

This is a nice filling stitch. If you look closely, it does look like the stems of bamboo grass.

342 Broken Chain Stitch

Fish hooks? Dangling earrings?

It's an easy stitch and can be used as a base for other stitches like French Knots or Straight Stitch.

343 Open Fishbone Stitch

Here is the perfect stitch for portraying leaves. It looks very nice in a variegated thread.

344 Persian Star Filling Stitch

Tension is important here, but the result is very pleasing, don't you agree?

345 Barred Buttonhole Wheel Stitch

I love this variation of the traditional Wheel Stitch. If you packed more of the Buttonhole Stitch in each quarter, you would end up with a cross in the middle!

Homework:

Let Sunbonnet Sue illustrate these five stitches, somehow.