Snake Stitching

 

Got a chance to sit and stitch today for quite a while over at my parents' house. I've now reached the age where I'm getting to dad-sit on occasion. Not complaining, I'm glad that I have the time, live close enough to do it, and that he's still here to hang out with. It's all a new weird thing, but we're figuring it out as we go. So it's good to have an easy project that's ready when I'm ready to work on it.

I've been working on Snake In The Garden for a long time now. I started in a class with Pamela Allen in 2007.

I was getting pretty dense with these lines, but I like how it's looking.

Almost finished the bottom brown section. I like the variegated brown/green/yellow Eleganza (Wonderfil -Sue Spargo) that I'm using. After hours of stitching, I can report zero tangles happened which is really unusual for me. I'm sold on using this nice smooth embroidery thread.

The First Tiklis Added

I've made it almost all the way around my Kawandi piece for the second row of stitching. And as I went I started adding in a few small square-ish bits of the same gold/rose shot silk fabric which are called tikli. 

The way Sujata described the use of tikli it is like adding sequins across the surface, just little flashes of color or brightness to move the eye. All of these edges are being turned under as I stitch.

 

All The Way Round

I made it all the way around the outside of my Kawandi, with one line of stitching, so I put it up on the design wall to see how it was looking. And yes, my quilt rectangle was intentionally not quite a rectangle as per usual. I guess that I like it that way. I'm finding it fun to hand-quilt, piece and design all at once.

The green thread that I chose looks pretty nice on this fuchsia silk. So my stitches on the edge aren't exactly the most even or straight, I'm working on it.

The second line of stitching was quite a bit easier to do as Sujata said it would be.

And I ordered my teacher's book from her website, Cultural Fusion Quilts. It's got a lot of blocks that I like and many inspirations from cultures around the world.

All the tools, this is going to be a fun project that will keep me stitching for a while. Wow, do I ever like this Spagetti thread, it's so smooth and easier to stitch with.  
 

Slurpee Squared

 As part of my second quarter FAL goal, I'm working on getting the Slurpee quilt finished. I actually have it squared it up!

 It's been in an un-squared form for so many years (12 now!) that it's mind-boggling to see it with these square perfect (almost) edges.

The stitching got a little wonky so I had to add some little slivers of fabric on the edges to have enough to square up and then add the planned facing. Basically I didn't want to cut through any of the hand-stitching getting it squared because it'd probably come undone. Hopefully the bits of new fabric will blend in enough on the edges, if not I'll add a few hand stitches. Hopefully that won't take another 12 years.

Unintentional Slow Stitching

 Slow, I'm just plain slow at hand stitching anything. And not on purpose, not for any cool intentional Slow Stitch reasons, it's just not a skill of mine. Not one I've ever really worked on improving. I wish I found it to be reliably meditative or relaxing, but it's usually just frustrating. Of course that's likely related to not having the skill completely mastered. I do have some actual right-hand control/stamina issues due to the double surgeries to repair pinky finger tendons and arthritis in both knuckles of my forefinger. It's not that handwork really hurts, I just can't do much stitching with good control for very long at a time. Now that I think about it more, I'm probably nearing the stage of "use it or lose it", so I'm going to choose "use it"!

I was just working on this quilt on Friday when I took this close-up. This is a quilt that I last talked about on here back in 2009. But I started it in a CQFA Laura Wasilowski class in 2007. All of the hand-dyed Perle Cotton thread is from her, some bought at the Houston IQF show.
And looking at it close up, as much as I love the look of it, I'm not thrilled with the bits of batting coming through some of the thread holes. sigh. More texture right?

I'm within sight of the finish line on the hand-stitching required for this little quilt though, only a very small amount of surface still needs stitching. Maybe I need to just keep this project out and work on it, instead of packing it away in my creative to-go bag. It has lived there all these years with my sketchbook, pencils, and portable watercolors which have definitely gotten used much more often. This project has traveled with me to all sorts of places over the years, and rarely ever gotten worked on. I guess when I'm out on a trip somewhere I'd rather pay attention to that. And while at home I've never really liked hand sewing stuff while watching tv, because I tend to watch tv that needs one's eyeballs not just one's ears.

But now that I'm listening to podcasts while I sew...there's a unconsidered possibility. I have a few episodes left of Ars Paradoxica to catch up on, maybe I can finally get this thing done.

Postponed Stitching

Wanted to do some hand-stitching on this piece that I've been working on for five years.  But remembered that I had to stop last time because I'd run out of the hand-dyed multicolored embroidery floss. I hate it when that happens!  So instead of  getting any new stitching done, I ordered some more of the same colorways in the right size of floss from artfabrik.  It really is beautiful stuff, it stitches so nicely, and I love how it sits so strong on the top of the fabric.  Back to work finishing this once I receive the floss in the mail, this piece has a deadline now as I've decided to give it to someone for their upcoming birthday in November.  After 5 years it has probably been long forgotten so it will be a good surprise for them.

Conveniently Quilted

I added quite a bit more stitching to this work in progress from a Laura Wasilowski class (way back in 2007) on our recent driving all-over-and-back-again-vacation. It gave me something to concentrate on besides the stop and go traffic in various locations. Drives me crazy as a passenger.

There is more to do in the background, then I'll have to decide what to do with the edges of the objects. I noticed that the fusible was lifting up a bit, probably from being in my handwork project go-bag for so long (and in hot cars!). So I feel it should get anchored down somehow. But hand-stitching on the objects doesn't seem like it would really work well. There is so much color and texture already I don't want to add even more. Invisible thread zig-zagging the edges maybe?

I do marvel at all those hand stitches, done mostly in the car.

Convenience Store Quilting

One of the things I worked on while we were away on our vacation was more adding some more stitching to the Simpson's/7-11/Slurpee/Laura Wasilowski quilt that I started way back when. I've got almost all the foreground done, and a bit of the background. Not sure how the actual shapes will be stitched, I may resort to machine stitching those with a satin stitch

I really like how the hand stitching is looking, but it sure is taking me a very looooong time. And it turns out to be pretty challenging to thread a needle with Perle Cotton while in a moving car...Well maybe if the Giants end up in the Series I'll finally get this quilted. Hey! It could happen.

Quilting Olympics

Diane at Going to Pieces has a great idea for a Quilting Olympics.

Hey why not? You know you're going to be watching a lot of the Olympics anyways.

I'm looking forward to the swimming and track events the most, and I hope they show the new sport, BMX off too.

As far as a project to do in close proximity to the one and only TV in the house, I'll have to finish up the hand quilting on my two class projects.

One from the Pamela Allen class and the other from the Laura Wasilowski class. Hey those rings almost look like Olympic Circles... I haven't made much headway on either, so hopefully I can get further along while cheering on Team USA.

And I can look up more info on Joey Cheek being denied an entry visa into China likely because of his work on the issue of Darfur with his group Team Darfur. A group of athletes who care about the issue of ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan and are trying to raise awareness about it. But at least one of their members, Lopez Lomong, a former "lost boy" is carrying the US flag today in the opening ceremonies. How cool is that!?