Needlework, Finishing, Designing, Quilting, Some Discoveries and Adventures in Stitching from Windy Ridge Designs

Showing posts with label Client Projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Client Projects. Show all posts

Saturday, March 23, 2013

MARCHing Along

I just realized that I have only posted once this month.  What a surprise that was.  I have missed you all and will try and do some catching up this weekend.  We got the peas in the garden on St. Patrick's day.  I was always told that was when you were supposed to plant your peas.  Although, I guess, if you live in - say - Maine - that probably is not when you plant peas.  Here in the Virginias, it seems to work pretty well.  The remainder of the garden still waits for spring.  And, speaking of SPRING (I feel if I shout it, it might hear me and come to me!) that stupid groundhog!  I hear that there is a prosecutor in Ohio who wants to try the groundhog.  Wants the death penalty.  Well, I think a life behind bars, eating nothing but wheat germ, would be a fitting end to that stupid rodent.  I am never listening to him again.  We're going to be freaking three weeks late  for spring, now; according to our local weather prognosticators.  AND, we have "Shovelable" snow coming tomorrow night into Monday. 

But I digress; there is needlework to talk about.

First, Peg C.  If you don't contact me before the end of the month, I'm going to draw another name from the folks who entered the giveaway and find someone else to send the Prairie Schooler chart to.

Now, the things I've done lately  . . . .


This chart came out of an old Cross Stitch and Country Crafts magazine.  I think it's charming.  See how they are marching?









A while back I showed you progress I was making on this crewel farm.  Well, she's all finished.  Zoomed in pics of the cornfield and the tomato garden; I think they're my favorites.



 I've been doing a little applique.  Above is the second block I've finished of the six I have.   When I was working on this the other night, I actually sewed one of the leaves to my finger.  That was a surprise! At the left is the next one I'm going to do in this Tulips in the Park series - yes, I know the picture is upside down, but you can still see the block, right?  It will not look like the finished piece as I have only half the patterns; but close.








This is Gentle Susan, the sampler I'm working on for Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year (logo in sidebar).  I cannot remember if I've actually posted this on the NSLY2 blog yet.  I have gotten a start on the next tableau down, but gave it up to stitch other things for awhile.




Yesterday I went and picked up a few things.  First, my granddaughter's quilt came home from the quilter.  Top is a peek at the quilt top and bottom is a good look at the backing fabric.  Siobhan (who is doing a LOT of applique lateley) told me that the fabrics are designed by Pam Kitty.  I absolutely LOVE the backing fabric.  Apparently a lot of other people do too, because when I went to the shop to buy it, I needed 5.5 yards, but could only get 5.25.  With a little fineagaling I was able to get it to be big enough through inventive pieceing.  This print reminds me of percale sheets.  I love it so much that I am sure I have a quilt like this in my bedroom's future.  I chose to have the quilting done in a petal pink.  Emma vascillates between pink and purple being her favorite colors.  My son, Mitch, says she'll be fine with the emphasis on pink.

I also picked up the label for the Civil War quilt.  That will be attached to the quilt sometime around beginning of April:


Also awhile back, I showed the in progress photos for this bag I'm making for a friend.  He is a former White House gardener and specializes in trees.  I think he's gonna love it.





          WOODLAWN


I have now been twice to the Needlework Exhibition at Woodlawn Plantation in Alexandria, Virginia.  It is held each March.   There's still time if you can make it.

What was on display this year?  Well, it seemed to be less of a variety, but very, very, very, very good.  Once again, it was a map that took my breath away.  It was an original design, US map.  I think that the linen was painted.  Then, in the Appalachian and Rockies section, the maker had done something like trapunto, to give it a 3-D effect.  Then, in two corners, there were heavily embroidered sections of landscapes.  It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!

Unfortunately, they had hung it high on the wall - well over six feet up.  The piece was relatively small.  I'd say it was about 9 inches high by about 15 inches wide.  Which, hung over six feet in the air, is not so big.  It was very difficult to make out the details because it was hung so high.  And it won one of the very prestigious awards.  I was sad for the maker whose work was under-appreciated.

Another piece that ended up being my favorite was a sampler called Susan Rambo 1839.  It has, as my friend put it, demonic looking squirrels on it.  But, I liked them.  My favorite part of it is the outer border.  It's very pretty.

Another that I saw was a personalized Christmas Garden sampler that was designed by Blackbird Designs.  The stitcher had stitched an on-point square in the center and put (I guess, her) one initial in it that happened to be a "K". 

 It's a shame that they don't allow even non-flash photography, because just the little tweaks that these stitchers put on their pieces make them look outstanding.

Let's see, they had a room where purses were on display that had been stitched.  One there was all beaded.  I felt quite put in my place in that room.  The thought went through my head that I'm just not that good, when there are stitchers - and finishers - that can do that work.

The only thing that they didn't have was quilts.  Of any kind.  Yet they have one on their booklet.  And isn't quilting considered needlework?  I don't know, maybe they host a separate quilt show sometime in the year.  Overall it was very nice.  I got to see lots of different stuff and be inspired by many wonderful stitchers.


Then it was on to In Stitches, (link to the blog) the shop that Glenna writes so well about.  The nice thing about going to In Stitches (link to the shop website) in late March is that they are fresh back from market with lots of new stuff!

I discovered two new-to-me designers, picked up a couple of things I've been looking for, and found some lovelies to add to my collection.  I will, throughout the coarse of the year, show you the new charts.  Here are the lovelies:


Little red storklette scissors and another red pair I could not resist!  My friends and I celebrated the birthday of one of us (not me!) with lots of wonderful prezzies and late lunch at TGI Friday on the way home.  It was a l-o-n-g day.  I'd left my house at 8:30 and didn't get home until after 6.  Just as I was getting to my highway exit, there was an awful accident - I was pretty sure it had just happened because there were still people milling about on the highway and emergency equipment was arriving as I was crossing the bridge.  A semi lost control in the lanes I was in, went across the median, across the southbound lanes, through a fence, across a road that parallels the highway, into a ditch and up into the back yard of a house.  It gave me chills, because I thought, oh, what if there were kids playing there?  Fortunately, it was supper time and all the kids were indoors, because they do, indeed, play there!


Had an appointment in Winchester yesterday and killed the afternoon running errands.  But, made it a point to get by one of my favorite thrift stores.  I found the above, Prairie Schooler, number 9, Johnny Appleseed.  It's in really rough shape, but I think if I iron it and then press it between some books, I should be able to get it back to good condition.   I don't have it in my collection and they wanted too much for it on Ebay, so it was nice to  just find it - for a DOLLAR!
I think it will look nice if I stitch it  up, changing the colors, like I did on Adam Names the Creatures (you can see that one in my header picture).

OH!  Almost forgot to tell you - I was able to find a copy of the Prairie Schooler Garden Samplers chart and sent it off to Maggee to give her a great day!  YAY!  So, we can call off the search.  


I will leave you with this.  It's sunrise and the black splotches in the field are the deer.  I call it "Deer Rising".  I love it when the sky looks like this.  I call it fire-sky.  The only time I see sunrises like this is in February or March.  In cold weather.  I think that it has to do with virga which is rain that doesn't reach the ground.  Except at this time of the year, virga would be ice crystals because it's so cold; right?  And I think that these sunrises are made because the sun is reflecting off thousands of tiny ice crystals.  I'm no meterologist, but I think that's what's going on.  All I really know is that if we HAVE to have crappy, cold, snowy weather; then at least we have sunrises like this one.

Hope you enjoyed!




Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Hope That Groundhog's Right!

 "Cause this days wasn't fun.  Dateline - Last Friday - We keep getting these Alberta Clippers; note to Alberta - you can keep your clippers, thanks very much!  This one came through, dumped about a half inch of snow (just enough to make the roads really dangerous and then the wind came in behind it.  Blew and blew and blew and blew!  Made it look like it was still snowing.  I took my quilts over to the quilters and passed a car up-ended in a ditch.  At first, all I saw was the State Trooper's cruiser and he was sitting on his backseat sideways, with his feet out on the ground.  At first, I thought there was something wrong with him, but as I came by, I saw the car.  Good grief!  Our back roads were really tricky and if you weren't driving smart, stuff like that could happen.  I am so ready for this to be last winter, it's not even funny.  And yet, there are still idiots out there wishing for a blizzard like we had three years ago.  Ugh, excuse me, do you remember that we couldn't get out of our houses for like three days????? 


 A friend of mine, my oldest friend, in fact, has a birthday coming up this year.  I found this chart and made it into this at right.  I used a 32 count Belfast linen, I think it is Amsterdam Blue, but didn't have a label on it, so that's just a guess.  I thought I'd use up some of the leftover Raven from Gentle Art that I have.  Well, I did, but I still have lots of leftover Raven.   It's going to be put in a regular photo frame.

 Oh, that reminds me - forgot to tell you, the Civil War quilt is at the quilters, as is the small tessellated quilt.  They'll be the first to be done and then I'll rotate in the one for my granddaughter's birthday.


 Customer has given me the tea towel, upper left.  It's Order of the Eastern Star.  She wants me to make something out of it.  So, The photo above is a print out from a blog - I THINK it's Gazette 94, I really, really think that it is, but if someone knows different, kindly let me know and I'll make the correction.

Anyway, I'm going to make it into the receptacle - maybe for mail?  I'm going to stitch the little bird on 32 count white Belfast using all five colors.  Then it will go between the two 30's prints to form the lower section.

 I was inspired by this project in the Sew Beautiful magazine.  But, I didn't like the style of the raincoat.  Good thing, because when I went to the sewing shop to look for a raincoat, it was only in the McCall's line that I could find a child's raincoat pattern.  Very frustrating.  Anyway, the SBM raincoat featured zipper teeth as trim on the raincoat.  There weren't many places to do that on the pattern I got, but I did do it in the raglan shoulder seams.  Don't know if you can really see that in the picture, but I used a yellow separating zipper - they have bigger teeth.  My husband thought that this was really cool.  Last summer I'd bought the fabric - the big polka dot and the floral to do a purse project.  But, the more I looked a the purse pattern, the more I didn't want to do the project.  So, had the fabric, and decided I wanted to use it for the raincoat (for my granddaughter, btw).  Neither fabric was vinyl.  So, I bought iron-on vinyl.  Sounds an oxi-moron, doesn't it?  Actually, it was really easy and initially I was super impressed.  I had to cut each piece from the fabric using the pattern pieces, then to iron vinyl to each piece and trim.  So, a lot of work.  But, few pieces, so it wasn't too big a deal.  The problem came when it was time to sew.  Being woman-handled so much during the sewing process, made the vinyl separate from the fabric AND it got really wrinkly.  I am going to try and iron it again, but don't hold out much hope.  There is a resource online for oil cloth in bright prints, so if I ever do this again (which I probably will as my granddaughter is only 6), I would get that to make another raincoat instead.  The iron-on vinyl would be really great for things you don't have to manipulate too much during the sewing process or something that is already made that you want to make more waterproof.  In the second picture, you can see the hood.  I went out and got a smaller polka-dot flannel that I made the lining out of.  If you don't line them, vinyl raincoats can almost feel clammy - at least, I think so.  You can see a bit of the yellow zipper teeth in that second picture.



A new project, is really an old one.  I love, love, love quilts by Piece O'Cake Designs.  So, back in the 90's I was very ambitious and thought I had enough time to do all these.  Fortunately I had enough sense to just put them away for another time - instead of getting rid of them.  I bought six of these Tulips in the Park kits - they come with all the fabric included!  Not enough for the whole quilt, but enough to make a lovely wall hanging.  These are applique.  So, I've gotten started with one (progress below).  This will probably be a slow go.

 







I don't like needleturn applique, nor do I like the way the fusibles make the fabric feel.  So, I baste under my seam allowances and then applique them down.  Makes for a lot of extra work, but it gets the job done for me. 



I also have the pattern for the Stars in the Garden quilt.  I have done one of the blocks and made a pillow.  I will enjoy making the whole quilt in the pretty bright colors shown.



 I like to use scraps of vinyl from photo albums and the like to make placement layovers.  This one is a mess from being folded up in a box for about 15 years, but it will still work.  I also have one last POC design, Flowering Vines.  I think that this will be my next applique project as it combines piecing with applique.


Here is my progress on Susan Singleton (whom I'm calling Gentle Susan) for Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year.  


Last year I worked on this needlepoint project.  I'm doing a really good job of clearing out all my unfinished objects.  This has become the scissor case it was meant to be, lined with red satin, it has coral ribbon ties and fits my Sajou scissors perfectly.   Front, back and inside.



Finally, this is my blogaversary month.  I think it's four years now.  I have a bunch of things to make into giveaways so keep your eyes peeled.  Hope you enjoyed!

Monday, January 28, 2013

New Projects, New Tools, New Finishes

 You'll remember that I like to pick up vintage needlework at local thrift and antique stores.  I finally started on this find last week.  It's a crewel kit of a farm scene.  I have made some changes.  First of all, there was one color of yarn missing - dark gold.  Good thing I also pick up bags of crewel and needlepoint yarn when I find them; I was able to make a substitute.  The barn was originally supposed to be white, with coral accents and a gray roof, like the gray you see in the chimney of the house.  Nuh, uh, no way; said I.  Went to Michael's this weekend and picked up a Paton's wool in the red, a dark charcoal gray and a medium charcoal gray.  The grays I will use to do the roof of the barn.  I had to stop working on it this weekend because my thumb is really sore from pulling the needle through the work.  Am I doing something wrong?  Anyone know?


 I wanted to tell you about some tools.  First up is a kit of Needle ID Cards.  I first read about these on Mary Corbet's blog.  Because I pick up needlework smalls, sewing kits, etc. at thrift, antique and garage/yard sales, I have ended up with an extensive collection of needles.  But, what needles are what? 

These cards give you a close up view of the needle and you lay the needle down on the picture of the needle on the card and figure out what the size is. 

Honestly, a sharp needle is a sharp needle is what I say.  As long as I can get the thread through the eye and not leave a hole in the fabric when the needle passes through, I'm good.  But, I found the kit really helpful when it came to sorting out the darners, tapestries, and crewels amongst others.

I purchased this kit through Anita's and I recommend it.



Another thing I recommend is the new ruler I picked up this weekend - at, of all places, Michael's.  I did a lot of fussing about my rulers; not being able to see through the thick yellow lines to know exactly where I was, etc.  Well, seems as though Olfa has been hearing that from a number of folks.  They came out with this new "frosted" ruler.  It costs about $2.00 more than the regular yellow one.  The frosting lets you see both dark and light fabrics well.  I agree, I can see the lines on both dark and light (see photo).  The other thing I really like is that the lines are thiner - much more precise.  That was much easier on my eyes.  Other cool thing is that this one is marked with all sorts of angles for block cutting.  I found that helpful too.  Well worth the $15.00 price in my opinion.

Back in the 90's this Poinsettia applique pattern came out in, I think, Better Homes & Gardens' Quilting magazine.  I made a bunch of them and gave them away as gifts.



I made one for myself too, but never got around to finishing it until just this week.  Yay!


Here is the overall view.



The blocks are  latte and white log cabins.   Those are what you make first; then you applique the poinsettia leaves and petals on.  For my petals and leaves I used a pretty family of batiks.








The back was done with blocks of the latte fabrics.  For the binding I used the lightest of the petal batiks.










This is a closeup of the poinsettia "flower".  I waffled back and forth over the yellow flowers in the center; how to do them . . . beads, embroidery, french knots, what?  Ultimately, I decided that I didn't want something on there that would make anything I placed on top unstable, so I settled on some satin stitched roundish things.






This is one of the "blocks" in Robert's Baltimore Album, the cheater quilt I've been working on getting out of my "to do" box.



 And to the right is one of the lemoyne stars I put in the corners when I realized the border panel had been cut too short for me to miter the corners with the borders.



And below is the whole quilt.  I put it together this weekend. 

Now all I have to do is figure out what fabric I want to use for the backing - I'm thinking something in the coffee-colored range.  And then pick up some batting and it's ready to go to the quilter too.



Lastly, a little bit of client work.  She did the needlepoint and I made them  into stool pads for her.  I'm working on a sort of matching tablecloth that's made up of odds and ends I've been hanging onto for her the last couple of years.  We have to put our heads together and move forward.


Hope you enjoyed!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Real Quick -

Many thanks to those of you who have wondered why I was MIA.  You know how we women are - can't learn to say "No" well enough.  I've just had a lot of stuff going on that I've said "Yes" to and it's been keeping me from doing the things I really enjoy doing.  I've also had a bit of a health scare, but I'm OK; not to worry.

What I am putting this post up about is my Blogaversary.  Blogger tells me that I made my first post three years ago.  Wow, I can't believe it's been that long!

To celebrate, I'm having a giveaway.  Two weeks from now - or so - on the 14th of March - I'll draw the winner.  What's the prize?  Well, it's all my gently used Lizzie Kate charts for Christmas Rules.

It includes all the charts, the freebie header in case you want to do it all as one like I did, and the bonus chart "Jingle All the Way".  Most people didn't put the bonus on their piece, but I did.  What is NOT included is all the little buttons and things.  Leave a comment on this post or put on your blog for a second chance to win. 

Granddaughter's birthday is coming fast, and this was a Make-It request.  More on that in another post.

I am totally stoked about the trim I designed for this pillow that I'm delivering to a customer today:



Hope you all have a wonderful Leap Day tomorrow!