Sunday, April 26, 2009

Algerian Stitch

Working on a fiber postcard - it's not the band sampler, but it the next stitch I will put on there, if I can figure out how to get it evenly spaced!

Turns out my 4x6 Weavette is perfect for postcards! Used Lime Stripes Sugar & Cream yarn, and a variegated DMC floss for the Algerian stitch. Haven't figured out what to do in the center yet. I love it, though, and this gave me SO many ideas for embellishing stuffed animals before I even take them off them loom and stuff them! I could do a lot more complex embroidery while they are still on there.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Website update

The Altered Art Version of Sheeptopia

I updated - after three years - my second website. When I was in NH in 06 I removed all the ATCs, collages, scrapbooking info, beadwork, embroidery, etc. from Sheeptopia in order to make it an exclusively weaving website. I created the second site for all the stuff I had removed, but never put it on there. Now, it's there! There's only really one example of embroidery - a doll with SRE, beading, and regular embroidery on it. It's on the beadwork page - I have several bead embroidered dolls.

Enjoy!

First stitches

Well, all I've done so far is put my initials and the date on my sampler, which I did Tuesday night (and after I took the picture, I realized I didn't finish the A!), but I thought I would post a picture of it anyway. I didn't do any embroidery yesterday - I'm staying with my parents right now, and my mom was coming back from Nashville so I tried to clean and stuff, and my dad and I went out target practicing when he got home from work at about 3:45, and then I actually ended up going to bed early for once (well, early for me).


So here is the picture - chain stitch is my favorite stitch, so I used it for the date, and I decided to try detached chain for my initials, but discovered that while it seems pretty easy at first, going back and filling in the spaces with another color of detached chain can be a little more difficult... I think next time I'll try filling in the spaces with something else!



I actually did the lettering in April uneven on purpose, but now that I look at it, it just looks sloppy. I think I'll have to go back and add some kind of wavy likes under it or something. I'm also going to add lines of chain stitch on either side of the detached chain in the lettering - pink on the outside, the orange/yellow on the inside, to tie together the alternating row I already have.

I think I need to do something like stitch another strip of fabric to the top in order to do embroidery that high up, then remove it - I hadn't thought of that until I was trying to do the very top of the "A."

What I was doing as I was working on it: watching old episodes of the X-Files (started at the very end), West Wing, and either an episode of Psych or Law and Order (Criminal Intent) - I can't remember. Part of that time was actually spent sewing together the end of the coffee-dyed panel - I think that was during Psych. Yes, I realize this is of no interest to anyone but me, but I'm going to try and keep track anyway. :-)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Band sampler all sewn together!

I finished hand sewing the pieces of both panels of my band sampler! Since I really liked the look of Sharon's sampler, with the six inch working width, I'm just copying it on mine. I didn't worry too much about the width when I was cutting (er, ripping, actually) the pieces of fabric - I just tried to make sure they were close to nine inches wide (as you can see from the picture, I was not always right). After I ironed the first section (haven't ironed the second one yet), I took a six inch wide quilting ruler, laid it down the center of the panel, and marked lines down the sides of the ruler with a silver quilt marking pencil. I was lazy. :-) But I can do a border over it.



The first panel, oddly (since I stopped measuring the lengths of the strips I was cutting after a while, and although I THINK I can still eyeball a 1/4 inch seam allowance, I can't imagine I got it perfect on every one), ended up being exactly 32 inches long. I haven't measured the second one yet, but it looks like it's three or four inches longer. Plenty to start with!



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Since my sewing machine is in Texas and I am in Kansas, I hand-stitched the panels in the band sampler together. My stitches were a little too wide, so I went back down the row and went in between each stitch. The white in the picture is actually the white fabric that the pink is sewn to, not just a background!

I am currently finishing up sewing together the other set of fabric strips for the other panel of my band sampler. I did one of all unbleached muslin and coffee-dyed fabrics, and one that had not been coffee dyed and had only white muslin, no unbleached muslin. I'm going to start on the white one first, but I wanted to get the other one put together before I started on it. I do still have a LOT of strips in a zip lock bag that I can add on to each, but at least now I have quite a bit of space to work on before I have to sew on more strips.

In the Beginning... :-)

I decided to create a new blog for my band sampler. Here are the blog entries from Roving Weaver where I have pictures of the pieces as I was first thinking about it and then putting it together (they are in chonological order):

http://rovingweaver.blogspot.com/2009/04/stitches-in-time.html

http://rovingweaver.blogspot.com/2009/04/embroidered-band-samplers-and-coffee.html

http://rovingweaver.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-coffee-dyeing.html

http://rovingweaver.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-coffee-dyeing-and-band-sampler.html

Next, to upload more pictures from my camera!