floss choice

I was going to post this quite a bit earlier, but my computer decided to act up. I used three patterns from the Spaced Out pattern sheet (which Sublime Stitching so kindly sent me last week) on my band sampler - they cover two of the panels - and I've been working on them tonight. I had a hard time deciding between two color sets - here are the pictures.

I ended up choosing the pink because my sampler has so much pink in it, but then when I was working on her clothes (the darkest pink, on the end) I decided to use the sparkley green (pearlescent effects, like the pink on the other end of the pink "pile") for some of the stuff in her helmet. THEN I decided to make her skin green, like an Orion chick from Star Trek. :-) I haven't started on the skin yet - the belt took quite a while, I filled it with tiny little chain stitches except the buckle, which has one algerian stitch, and now I'm working on her hair, which is in the variegated floss third from the right end (on the long thing, not still in a regular skein), and I'm a little disappointed. Had I used the second one from that end, I would have expected her hair to end up looking rather white, but I expected the one I used to look more pink than it does. I think I'll end up adding some stripes of a solid light pink when I fill in her hair (which I wasn't really planning to do until it came out that way).

I'll post pics in a bit.

Mail rec'd!

The holidays kind of got me off track with posting about this, but:

Saturday, I got an envelope from Sublime Stitching! In it was not only the Spaced Out sheet, but also the Bon Voyage sheet!!! How cool is that? I am on my way upstairs to iron the Rocket gal on to my sampler - will post pics later today. :-)

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. :-)

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!

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!