The Last Post of 2024

 In this final week of December I have managed to make the last two entries for my 2024 Stitch Journal project. Between the holidays and other things I wasn't sure that would happen. It feels so good to have created a stitchery for every week of the year. In the past I would have fallen behind and dropped out well before December. I make no promises for any year in the future. 😉

The first week of December Kathryn had us make assignments for each of the six sides of a die then roll the die and stitch accordingly. This was fun! My six options were couching, adding a patch, French or Colonial knots, chain stitch (or a variant), Spider web rose, and blanket stitch. In order I rolled a 4, 2, 6, 5, 1, 4, and 4 again. This is how it turned out:

I am quite pleased with this one. 

For week 50 we were to stitch some text. I had so many ideas for what quote or thought to stitch that I couldn't decide what to do. This one languished until today (Dec. 31). Frankly, most quotes were long enough to be intimidating. This is how I got around that...

 Week 51 was a stitched take on grid journaling. My journal pages are only six inches wide so my grid squares are only two inches each. Kathryn stitched her grid in black; I opted to just use a Micron pen to outline my squares.

And to wrap up the year Kathryn had us do some wrapping of textiles.

 I wrapped a satin ribbon off a small box of chocolates I was given for Christmas, a strip of denim off of my husband's jeans (including a bit of the hem), a scrap of muslin, and a piece of batting. The batting is wrapped with a specialty yarn. The others were wrapped with various weights of perle cotton. There's also a gathered/ruched piece of lightweight fabric (the bow?). If I hadn't felt the crunch of time I might have done more decorative stitching in the background on this piece and on the stitched text piece. 

Kooky's postcard prompt for December was Happy Holidays.

Once I found the "gifts" in a piece of quilter's cotton I had a lot of fun creating this one. 😀 

I'm currently thinking I will keep doing Kooky's postcard stitch along next year. However, I think I want to do more of my own work rather than whatever Kathryn has up her sleeve for 2025. There are quilts to be made too of course!

I wish all of my readers the very best in 2025. Happy New Year!

November Stitching

 It's past time for me to get you caught up on the stitching I've done for k3n's stitch journal project! 

To begin with, in the final week of October I couldn't bring myself to do the prompt as Kathryn presented it. She suggested we blindfold ourselves - properly prepared with threaded needle(s) and scissors at hand - and try stitching without being able to see what we were doing. Something deep inside rebelled at the very idea. So I stitched this instead:

The following week Kathryn introduced us to various embroidery stitches often found on kantha, the quilts made by women in India. 

And the week after that she gave us an opportunity to use those stitches (or as many/as few as we chose) the way they are used on kantha, to create a tree of life design or fill in animal or other shapes. 

The last week of November we were inspired by another embroiderer, Sue Benneton. She does something she calls wrinkle stitching. Crumple up a piece of fabric and then stitch on the creases. The next step is to fill in the negative spaces between the stitched lines. In the beginning it looks a bit like a map. However, I found that once I started filling in I couldn't stop!

 KoolKookyKreatures' postcard prompt for November was monochrome (working only in shades and tints of one color). I chose to work in a hue I don't naturally gravitate to:

Now it's time for December's postcard. The prompt is fairly straightforward: happy holidays. Hopefully I'll be back before next year to show you how I've responded to that one. 😊

Not Very Spooky

 Not only have I slowed down my blog posting, we've reduced the amount of decorating we do for Halloween. Which could be a sad thing except that quite a lot of "Halloween" decorations actually stay out on display all year long. 😉 

The prompt for #kookyspostcardsal2024 for October was "spooky cute." Not long after I began to think about what I might do I ran across a fabric sample from the late 1990's. It's a large checkerboard pattern with a border at either end featuring very American country toys. In and of themselves the rag dolls looked a bit spooky to me. I found a spiderweb print and then appliqued the dolls on top. From there I fussy cut a couple of ghostly shapes out of another print that is nothing but pairs of eyes on a black background. This postcard was primarily raw edge applique. I seem to be doing a fair bit of that lately. 

I couched the chunky yarn around the perimeter of the card to represent the dust bunnies one would find in an attic. Oh, and there's a spider charm in the web in the upper left corner. I'm calling this one Spooky Cute in the Attic. (I'm nothing if not literal.)

For the first week of the stitch journal project k3n taught us about enso, a meditation practice. This involves calming yourself, then drawing a circle without thinking about it. I drew my very open circle with a watercolor crayon. Wetting it then allowed the color to spread a bit. I stitched over the drawn line and then added other stitches as seemed appropriate in the moment. 

The next week we did some 'scrapplique.' Kathryn and many others made a butterfly image with two or more layers of fabric to decorate the wings. I chose to make a heart to celebrate Gracie's addition to our household. 

The theme for week 42 of the stitch journal project was "all of a piece." We were to take a single layer of fabric and pull threads from it to stitch with. Kathryn used a piece of linen with larger threads and a coarser weave than anything I could find easily in my stash. I ended up using a piece of muslin. 

Part of the muslin was dipped in tea to provide slightly different color threads to stitch with. I pulled my threads from the other side and stitched where the tea stained the cloth. The threads from the muslin were so fine I had a hard time seeing to thread the needle. I did not enjoy stitching through the single layer of thin fabric either. It's an interesting concept though, to use the threads pulled from your cloth to stitch back into it. 

Last week we explored stitching for the senses. Various textures of fabrics of course, but also paying attention to the sound of the thread going through the cloth, any scents embedded in the scraps, etc. 

In the upper left corner I have a piece of huck toweling that had been dyed in a tea that left a faint scent behind. Just below and underneath it is a strip of paper ribbon. I played with a few French knots and a tiny bit of turkey work to create more texture. Felted wool is the foundation for this piece, and the green square dead center is another bit of wool. There's a lot to feel when you close your eyes and run your fingers over this piece. 

As I write this I am debating what to do about the prompt for this final week of October. Kathryn has invited us to blindfold ourselves and see how we can stitch without sight. With appropriate preparations I can see this being a very enlightening experiment. Unfortunately, my gut reaction to this prompt is one of fear. Not of stabbing myself or anything like that. I don't want to make myself that vulnerable, even in my own studio space. I don't understand entirely where this is coming from. I do suffer from a degree of PTSD; maybe that accounts for it. In any case, I need to decide how to address this in my journal. I could write on the page where the stitchery would go, explaining my reason there's no stitched cloth there. Or I could just stitch something else altogether. I haven't yet decided what I will do. In the meantime, those of you who celebrate, have a happy Halloween! 

June Wrap Up

It's not quite the end of June as I write this but I have finished a few things and want to share before I forget. 

I'm very pleased with the postcard I made in response to the #kookypostcardsal2024 hosted by Tori Chatfield at KoolKookyKreatures on YouTube. The prompt was Yellow Brick Road. I confess that I struggled with this prompt, obvious though it was. Finally, as I was waiting for sleep to come a few nights ago it occurred to me to piece 1.5" bricks of yellow to create the road. That didn't seem like enough however. Eventually I hit upon the idea to put Toto, Dorothy's dog, on the yellow brick road. My attempts to create a template for Toto failed miserably - no surprise there as I never have been able to draw a recognizable shape without the benefit of graph paper. Hubby located an image from the original illustrations in the book and print it out for me in several sizes. This is the end result:

I added the sequins for a bit of the magic of Oz. 

The first week in the stitch journal project was an opportunity to play with blanket stitch. This was more challenging than I expected. I've become comfortable with doing the blanket stitch over straight lines and edges. This approach was more like working backwards to my mind. It certainly gives a cool result though.

The instigator of this stitch journal project, Kathryn at k3n.clothtales, celebrated her birthday early in June. My birthday happens to fall in the middle of June. To celebrate still being crazy after all these years Kathryn had us crazy piece a block one week and then embellish it the next week. I've dabbled with crazy quilting in the past but for some reason this block did not come easily for me. 

It was time to dig up the fabric booklets/bundles we'd buried at the spring equinox during the week of the summer solstice (here in the Northern Hemisphere). I'd put this scrap of crochet on the cover of my booklet...

And stitched this phrase inside.

I wrapped this up with bits of a pinecone, onion skin, and a sprig off our arbor vitae and then bound it with twine. The bundle went into the ground under the arbor vitae. This is what I was left with after carefully unwrapping the bundle and rinsing it well.

The crochet seemed to have disappeared entirely. The onion skin and the pinecone have left color behind. The twine was very fragile and in pieces. My stitching, done with plant dyed threads, is mostly intact but very faded.

To add this to my journal I carefully stitched it to a scrap of vintage hankie. Kathryn encouraged us to just respond to our cloth with stitches in whatever way felt right. Mostly I just tacked down raw edges. In a couple of places I stitched over tears with herringbone stitches or cross stitches. There's one small patch of needle weaving. I couched bits of the twine in place as well. This was a pretty cool experiment. 

Finally, in this last week of June Kathryn gave us the opportunity to make a single large hexagon (relatively speaking) for a quilt as you go project. The idea was to bind the edges of the hexie by folding over the backing piece of fabric. Then you have a smooth back with no stitches evident and you can whip stitch the hexies together to create whatever you choose. She was also inspired by Jeri Bellini who is doing a dot a day with stitch. I knew that binding would be too fiddly for me so I have blanket stitched the perimeter of my hexagon. 

While I admire the look of hexagons and what can be done with them I do not enjoy the process involved in making and using them. 

I have also assembled the huswif/treasure book I've been working on for a couple of months. I will do a separate post about that so stay tuned!

Stitch Journal Entries for May

 The first week of May Kathryn introduced us to a new book called The Pocket, A Hidden History of Women's Lives by Barbara Burman and Arianne Fennetaux. Women's dresses didn't have pockets in previous centuries - and don't often have them even now. To remedy that they made pockets that could be tied on, most often under their skirts. There were slits in the skirts that allowed access to the pocket but were hidden in the folds of the fabric.  Kathryn's reading inspired her to prompt us to make pockets of our own. A few ladies have made full size versions but most of us made little ones to fit into our journals.

There was some concern that women could spread revolutionary pamphlets without detection by secreting them in their pockets.

The following week Kathryn took inspiration from the Japanese practice of kintsugi. Cracks in pottery are repaired with lacquer dusted with gold or silver or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

On week three Kathryn gave us the opportunity to take a ride on her magic carpet to whatever secluded place would best rest our souls. Food and other comforts would be provided magically but we could only take 8 items with which to stitch and they had to fit into a theoretical pouch no bigger than about 6" x 6."

This was particularly fun for me. I even had fabric scraps  (and thread) leftover at the end of my stay.

The next week was meant to be a boro inspired entry in our journals, another Japanese technique. I couldn't bring myself to do the challenge as presented. Mine turned out to be a way to preserve some precious scraps of feed sack fabrics.

This week I felt a bit more brave and created another piece, much more in line with Kathryn's goals for week 21 of the stitch journal project. The idea was to sew small scraps together to create a new piece of cloth. This technique is used to preserve jackets and other textiles to give them longer usefulness.

Both sides of the worked piece can be presentable. I don't consider this work finished; there's room for more stitching.

 

And finally, for the last week of May we were to make "comfort cloth" inspired by the blankies little children often carry around. Kathryn was able to use a piece of one of her father's handkerchiefs and a bit from a pair of his pajamas over a piece of wool suiting. I used flannel and a piece of one of the hankies leftover from the bag I made last month. I did a bit of needle weaving and then freestyle blanket stitches. Blanket stitches for a replica of a blanket, get it? 

There have been other slow stitch projects that I've just realized I haven't yet shared here. I must do something about that...

April Entries in My Stitch Journal

We began April in the weekly stitch journal project with Kathryn of k3n.clothtales using multiple layers of cloth to honor the moon. Kathryn cut a primitive wolf shape to use as a silhouette for the final layer on her moon. I couldn't resist using a large-ish charm I had on hand. 😉

The following week was the week of the solar eclipse. Even though k3n is in France and the eclipse occurred over the United States she suggested this representation of the event.

 I understand that some folks who were in the path of the eclipse but not in the zone of totality created a representation of their partial eclipse. This piece was also an opportunity to practice stacked running stitches and split stitch. 

Having done the stars (last month), the moon, and the sun Kathryn figured it was time to honor the planet on which we live. This prompt occurred just prior to Earth Day too, making it that much more appropriate.

The brown and green strips represent the roughly 30% of the globe that has land mass and the blue strips convey the 70% covered by oceans. I added a bit of crinkled seam binding for the foam of the waves on the beach and rick rack to help indicate the movement of the waves through the water. 

Kathryn threw us a plot twist for the last week of April. We were to pick a printed fabric that we could embellish or enhance with thread and stitches...

And then mount it in our journals with the back of the work showing instead of the front. 😁

One of her goals is to help us break free from the idea that the back of our work needs to be as neat as the front, thus causing extra stress and less enjoyment of the process.

Kathryn and others made journals in which to mount their work each week. I was reluctant to make something that might end up being too small before the end of the year so I purchased an 8" x 6" sketchbook similar to this one:

 

We're only a third of the way through the year and I had to remove the coil binding. I chose to replace it with 3" binder rings. 

I figure they should give me enough room for the rest of the year. I can do something prettier in the end if I feel the need. The rings make it a bit awkward to lay flat on a desk top at the moment but I can remove one page to stitch my piece onto if I want and then put it back in the book. I may very well end up using a box to store this in rather than trying to put it on a shelf like a regular book!

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!