Harvesting Carrots on World Embroidery Day

World Embroidery Day, 30th July, was established five years ago in Sweden and as the word is spreading more and more participate.

Did you take part? Did you get together and stitch with friends? Did you stitch 'publicly' in a park or at the bus stop?

I am a hermit stitcher and spend the day quietly at home trying to fit in small sessions of stitchery in my day of chores.

The embroidery I chose to work on was another stumpwork portrait. Here is a detail:

Harvesting carrots!

The portrait is a birthday card and I will show the whole portrait once the card has reached its destination, just in case the recipient is reading my blog.

The Green Gifts of Friendship

What would the world be without friendship? Don't you agree that it is really uplifting to get a friendly comment on your blog? That meeting with (quilting/blogging) friends 'make your day'? That sharing your time, skill, advice, knowledge, or STASH, with others is a great way to build and foster friendship?

I am so very fortunate to have made friends with Åsa and Julie. Both of them have given me generously of their STASH of green fabric, but also of their time in looking for fabric, of their knowledge, skill and advice in things quilting.

Look what Åsa send me, and notice how she has labeled and documented the individual pieces.

There are samples of her own design, of fabric from the USA and Australia, and from many sources in Sweden.  Note also how large in scale many prints from Sweden are.

Then I went to visit Julie and in her charming home she had pulled out bins and bins of green fabric for me to choose from.

Thanks to Julie's generosity I now have a lot of small scale and green-on-green prints I felt was lacking in my Trinity Green quilt.
I went home with a bag full of fabric, and a heart full of love.

THANK YOU, my kind friends.

WIPW - Getting bored?

Are you getting bored with my Work In Progress Wednesday (WIPW) reports? I have only two projects to show on Wednesdays and though the the progress is steady, every time it is kind of a repeat of the previous week's progress, isn't it?

Trinity Green
270 new triangles. I now have a total of 3132 in my collection.

Fabric in Focus
Last week I talked about an old corduroy shirt that was used to make triangles.
The focus today is on another garment, a blouse my mother made me when I was in primary school. She was a skillful dressmaker and made many of my clothes. If I remember correctly I selected the fabric, and she picked out the dressmaking pattern. Then she made an off white pencil skirt to go with the blouse. I still remember how grown up I felt, and how proud I was to have my own dressmaker!

 It was a delight to find a bit of the left over fabric in mother's stash, many years later, and I am so happy to add the fabric to this quilt, although I must admit there is only a little bit of green in the print.

HC quilt
I have had the chance to add quite a lot of quilting. While working I have been listening to audio books.

Are you beginning to see what it is?

TASTy Tuesday - Second Helpings 64 - 70

Food is often used to describe colours, think of 'salmon pink', 'lime green' and 'oyster'.

These Second Helpings of TASTy stitches, would you say they are appetizing? Are they 'cookies and cream', 'chocolate' and 'toasted almonds', or are they 'lard', 'rice gruel' and 'cold oatmeal'?

From top:
64) Top Knotted Buttonhole Stitch (had to look up both name and instructions)
65) Buttonhole Bar
66) Coral Stitch
67) Fancy Hem Stitch
68) Slipped Detached Chain Stitch (had forgotten the name)
69) Buttonholed Double Chain Stitch (had to check the instructions and practice before I got going, but still looks awful on AIda; this is a free embroidery stitch!!!)
70) Crested Chain Stitch (remembered neither name nor instructions)

What will be on the menu next week? We're moving into the gray zone... I might skip my meals as I'll be busy with other things than embroidery.