Weekly Stitch Entries for March (photo heavy post)

 In case you didn't know, I'm keeping a stitch journal with Kathryn on YouTube this year. We're not learning new embroidery stitches though. It's more of an opportunity to do some relaxed hand sewing each week. 

For the first week of March Kathryn was inspired by Emily Dickinson's phrase "Hope is the thing with feathers..." She showed us the type of feather quilters have historically used to hold together the layers in a quilt and then encouraged us to create our own fantasy feather. I ended up riffing off of an ostrich plume I have.

The following week we made samples inspired by the kawandi that are made by Siddi women in India. 

The patches in true kawandi would have their raw edges folded under. I went with a raw edge method. The corner decorations are called phula, which means flower. The quilt is considered naked without phula on the corners. Kawandi are made without batting as we here in the US know it. Instead they use layers of cast off clothing or other linens. There may be more than three layers depending on how warm the end product needs to be. My sample is only two layers, the top and the back.

I used a large-ish scrap from a recent quilt for the back of my kawandi. 

Kathryn had a special project for us the week of the equinox (spring here in the northern hemisphere). We could make two little folios of fabric. One went into our stitch journals and the other was buried outdoors somewhere to be retrieved at the solstice in June. Kathryn wrapped her fabric with elements from nature and a bit of rusty metal. The whole idea is to let nature do whatever she wants with our bundles and to see what that will be. 

I put a scrap of crochet on the covers of my two folios.

And this phrase stitched on the interior conveys the whole purpose behind the exercise.

My second booklet looks much the same on the outside.

You can see I didn't even bother to press the muslin I used for the folio.

I wrapped my buried bundle with some onion skins and a clipping from the hedge outside my studio window. I think there were a couple more items but I don't remember what they were now. Guess I should have made more notes! I did at least take a photo of where the bundle is buried so I know where to dig in June. (It's under the rock.)

For the last week of March Kathryn wanted to celebrate the friendships that have been created in the stitching community. She turned again to traditional quilt making techniques and had us make Friendship Stars. Hers was hand pieced. I machine pieced mine but then had fun decorating the background with star stitches in a variegated perle cotton. 

That's the first quarter of the year complete. 😊 So far, so good!