Odds and ends, this and that, part 2....

Here is an all black pieced block that I've been doodling with for months. I used bright colors in the threads and ribbons for embellishments, and they really pop off the blacks. I really love doing the fancy fan corners like shown here in the bright yellow thread. I've done quite a few, and no two are alike. You just start with a few stitches radiating out of a corner, and keep going back and adding another layer, then another. The back ends up looking awful, but the fronts are lovely.

This is my latest attempt at doing some iris. I've been enjoying a DVD of Di van Niekerk's that I borrowed from our library, so I tried doing an iris more like hers, larger and looser, and really like how they turned out. This is some 7mm ribbon that I dyed with food coloring; it came out mottled rather than gently shaded, but I like the purple/pink variations.

This is a picture of a very brave father letting his 13 year old daughter drive his new toy through a tight spot between the house and the truck. All went well.

Here is my grandson Zack, who is 22 months old and a very busy guy. He kept going to the refrigerator yesterday and asking for something that sounded like "pickles" to me, but I know he doesn't really like pickles. When I took the jar out and showed him he just shook his head sadly, like he thought it was such a pity I didn't understand English. His mom translated when she got here; he wanted a bagel. Now I know.

Corbin and Zack doing the brother thing, watching a movie.

Another video I borrowed from the library is called How Art Made the World. It's a BBC production and I found it fascinating. It begins with the Venus of Willendorf, and asks the question, "why did so many ancient peoples make these female figurines?"
It goes on to cover cave paintings and Egyptian tomb art and Greek statues. The last episode is about death, including some interesting theories on why the crucifix is such a compelling image.

More spiders...

This is some of my work on Gerry K's block in the round robin. I did the web in gold metallic thread, and the spider is two yellow beads. I also did the seams above and below the patch, using Wildflowers thread in the variegated color called "Rain Forest". I made cast-on stitch flowers (that match the salmony pink color of the large crocheted flowers) for the feather stitch vine that someone else did. Then I added 3 of the little bees around the block and tucked in one of the fly buttons, 'cause a spider's gotta eat. Click on the photo for a close up.

Needle books

One way CQers use CQing in a practical way is to make small needlebooks. On CQ4Newbies, Mary L. in Louisiana is hostessing a swap for needlebooks, pinkeeps, and scissors fobs. I made these two needlebooks for the swap. They each have 4 felt pages so needles of different sizes and uses can be kept separated. These are the fronts:

And these are the backs:

As usual, I used DMC perle cotton in size 8 for the embroidery on the dragonfly one, but on the goldish one, I used only Caron's Wildflowers (a hand-dyed cotton) thread in a color variegation called Rain Forest, which is blue, rust, lavender, gold, and green. I think it goes really nicely with the lace motif and the gimp trim, both of which I dyed.

Spiders and webs, Marya's block

Here's the second block I've gotten to work on in this RR. It belongs to Marya in CA. I started with a long Venice lace motif, which I cut up to make it fit the corner that the seams formed, then I stitched it down and beaded it. Then I added the spider and web, the button cluster, and the vines. Last, I stitched two tiny bees. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge and you can see details, including the funny little fly button in the cluster.

This is a block I made for a "hearts and flowers shower" that we do on CQ for Newbies. It went to Violet in Australia who was injured and lost friends in the fires that raged there earlier this year.

CQ pillows

A friend asked me to make two pillow tops for her to give to friends. She even sent me a huge box of velvet scraps from Taylor's Cutaways and let me keep what I didn't use. That's including some of the velvet that she embossed herself with leaf and sea shell designs. She chose the color schemes, but other than that, she let me have free rein.

So I did some SRE sprays, and just had fun with the seam treatments. I don't usually work with such big patches, so I made my seam embroidery bigger than I usually do, and I did some whimsical motifs, too.

Rose SRE tutorial, part 2, the bud

Make a short straight stitch near the full rose. Come up at the point where you will want the tip of the bud to be...

... go down at the "hip".

Come back up at the tip end of the bud.

Wrap the ribbon around the straight stitch 3 times, making the first wrap the tightest, the second one a little looser, and the third one the loosest.

Go back down into the fabric 1/8th of an inch away from the straight stitch.

The finished rose and bud.

Add more buds if desired. Add a ribbon stitch leaf at the base of each bud, one going to each side of the bud, and then tuck some ribbon stitch leaves around the full rose. Add stems of twisted ribbon in a straight stitch to connect the buds to the rose. The rose and buds are done in 7mm ribbon, while the green is 4mm.

Rose SRE tutorial

I've had a couple of people ask about how to do the rose bud in the previous SRE pieces, so I thought I'd post some photos of the process of both the full rose and the bud. Here's how to do the rose. I learned this from the book Learn To Do Ribbon Embroidery in Just One Day by De Selby. This stitch is called the stem stitch rose in the book. It begins with a French knot for the center of the rose, and as always in SRE, don't pull the ribbon too tight.

Bring the needle back up close to the F.knot to begin the first petal. Basically you're taking a stem stitch here, you're just going to do them around in a small circle, leaving a nice soft bit of ribbon on top for the petals. A twist in the ribbon here or there is actually beneficial for this flower. The book says to come up on the inside of the stitch, closest to the flower's center, but I've been doing it on the outside of the stitch, and it works fine, too. Maybe one way or the other will work better for you, so try both.

First petal in place, now on to the second....

....and keep going around the circle.....

....until the rose is as big as you'd like it to be. As you can see, this rose is really nice when done in a variegated ribbon (as here), or with two colors of ribbon, as in the orange roses on the green moire a few posts back.

I will try to post the bud photos tomorrow!