The Stitch Up

Desert Scenes

I’m close to finishing a cross-stitch project I started a few months ago. This was my “travel project” for our trip to west Texas in March. The designer is Fireside Originals and the pattern is Desert Sunset.  It uses some cool variegated thread that creates a very pretty desert sunset look.

I bought this cross-stitch kit at Old Town Needlework in Scottsdale Arizona during a previous desert vacation. It felt appropriate at the time as I was already inspired by the desert and mountains of Scottsdale. Weirdly, the designer, Fireside Originals, is an Ohio company which doesn't have a lot of deserts but they capture the desert sunset pretty perfectly regardless! In any case I love this design and am excited to be close to finishing it. Currently, I’m not sure how I’ll use it. I have a western theme quilt I’ve got in the planning stages, but I’d like to make this the star of a tote bag or maybe another up-cycling project for a denim jacket.

I'm always drawn to desert scenes - in art, crafts and travel.  I grew up in a little agricultural valley in the middle of a desert and consequently it’s the landscape that I love the best. I think it’s the mixture of nostalgia and the very real beauty of the desert sunsets, the stark loveliness of cactus and the deep browns, reds and purples of the surrounding mountains that keeps me coming back to desert projects.  I think I have taken hundreds of pictures of desert sunrises and sunsets (Check out my Flickr page for some highlights!). I am convinced that each of these pictures has beautiful details with different colors of the sky or they may capture different seasons of the desert and that makes them distinct from the hundreds of other desert pics I've taken.  I can't help myself!  Whether I’m in Arizona or Texas or New Mexico or California, I just find the landscape inspiring.

I'm also always interested in how the desert has inspired artists I admire.  Specifically, Frank Lloyd Wright whose architecture and designs can be found all over Phoenix and Scottsdale has said about cactus:

"A cactus bloom is beyond any bloom, I think, manufactured by plants anywhere in the world. And there you have an interesting syllogism, haven’t you? The desperate nature of the armed plant and the exquisite, beautiful efflorescence it produces. Something to think about. There you see, revealed, some processes of nature, the significance of which I don’t gather at the moment."

This is the Saguaro Cactus forms art by Frank Lloyd Wright that is in the Arizona Biltmore hotel in Scottsdale.  I also have a great cross stitch pattern of this design that I hope I'll get to start soon.

I’m not sure if it’s helpful to try and delve into why something inspires you or if it’s best to just enjoy the feelings that a landscape, piece of art, color, or texture inspires in you. But I do think that you can identify the different aspects that bring you joy and use them to create art of your own. I know for me, the inspiration comes from the consistent palette of colors in the desert landscape, the starkness of the desert that makes the various plant life more precious, the vastness and the quiet.  These projects help capture those feelings even when I can't physically be in the desert. 

Hoping everyone is feeling inspired and enjoying some sun as we wrap up the Summer!

 

Wrapping Up Summer WIPs

The end of summer is fast approaching and I’m happy to report I did finish a couple of the projects I've been working on.

First up, I FINALLY finished my Mountmellick project:

Overall I’m happy with the way the purse came out and I think Mountmellick is one of my favorite embroidery techniques.  I’ll definitely be doing another Mountmellick project soon.  However, my finishing work leaves a little to be desired. I think juggling multiple WIPs can result in my just trying to finish one or two of the items I’m working on rather than focusing on just one item until it’s done.  I would have a more refined result if I was willing to rip out bad stitching and start again when something goes wrong. In this instance, my attachment of the purse frame to the exterior and interior purse design is a bit sloppy since I was forcing it all to fit.  You can see it in the photos of the interior:

Ultimately I do have to be honest about how I craft and the truth is I just get bored sometimes with one project and I need to pause and work on something else. After I've started and stopped a few projects there’s a point where my craft room gets messy and disorganized with various half done projects I'm working on and I realize I have to crack down and actually finish a few.  My plan is to find a way to organize my disorganization so I'm less stressed about the various projects I'm juggling.  Thankfully, a lot of crafters seem to have this same problem and I've found some suggestions to corral the chaos.  I'll try out a few and share any that seem to work!

Next, I also finished weaving the pink scarf I was working on. This is the second project I started in the weaving class I took in January. I love weaving! The casting on process is still going to be a learning curve for me, but I’ve found some good resources on youtube and I've been checking out the blog Hello Hydrangea  which has a lot of amazing tutorials so I’m hoping to slowly progress with this new technique.  My goal is to make some gifts for the holidays – I’m thinking dish towels or something similar.

I also fit in a quick project for my friends. I’ve been trying my hand at macramé and had seen some cute car air fresheners I wanted to make. I have two friends with birthdays coming up and decided to make this cute craft for all my ladies.

I’m still learning the various macramé knots and the process of learning knots has taught me a bit about how I learn things in general. There are some GREAT youtube videos which helped me understand the whole process for making the air fresheners. However, I often need some kind of illustration when I’m learning a new knot. I need a real step by step this string goes over this string’ type of explanation to really understand what to do. Once it all makes sense to me thanks to the diagram, I can follow along with a video. And can I just say there is such an art to making a great video or written tutorial. I’m so appreciative of people who can take a detailed process and explain it so that others can follow along. The awesome video I used for this macramé car air freshener is from Macrame Princess here.

Lastly, I started a new project (of course) because I just can’t help myself.

I'm starting on a Sashiko Quilt.   This is actually turning out to be a fun project and the process of using sashiko embroidery for each square is a pretty quick process. It’s also fairly portable as I can just stick one or two squares in my purse and stitch whenever I have a spare moment. It will take some time to finish all the squares I need for a complete quilt, but I’m off to a good start.

I still need to calculate exactly the number of squares to complete the quilt but I kind of changed my concept once I pulled everything out and put it together. My original plan was to do one side of the quilt in just Sashiko embroidered squares and then on the back use a couple Tenugui Towels I’ve bought at Japanese book stores in the past. However, once I pulled everything out, it really made more sense and creates a much cooler look to use the blue and white Tenugui Towel I have with the squares I’m embroidering in white and then on the flip side, go with the colorful Tenugui towel I have which I plan to partner with embroidered squares in bright pinks, blues and purples.

And that brings me to the end of summer and starting to inch toward fall. Soon I know I’m going to get the itch to start on some knitting or crochet projects so, once again I need to shake my tail feathers to get a couple more things done before diving into new projects. I hope everyone is enjoying the end of Summer, looking forward to Fall and progressing on all of the projects you might be juggling!

Crafty Status Check

I know the saying is that 'time flies when you're having fun' but it also seems to fly when you're just working and meeting deadlines.  I always feel like I should have more to show – craft-wise – after more than a month since my last post.  Truthfully, I've been working away on a few things, but my day job and some back yard projects have been taking up the bulk of my time.  That said, I wanted to update the blog with my current WIPs and upcoming projects.

I HAVE completed one project - the “travel project” from my Texas trip. I turned the embroidered piece into a textile necklace.  I'm happy with the end result but I learned a lot of things for my next "jewelry" project.

After I finished stitching the pattern I designed, I used some fabric glue to attach it to a cream colored felt.  It gives it a bit more structure and gave me a way to attach a necklace cord.  I outlined the design to reinforce the attached backing.  I used black embroidery thread for the outline which had the added benefit of giving the design a bit more pop as well. 

I wasn't quite sure about attaching cording or chain, so I ordered necklace cords in a variety of colors and sizes to see what color and texture looked best with the design.  I decided to use a black cord that I cut in half and stitched to each side of the design.  It worked but I did not anticipate the cord fraying like it did so I ended up doing a combination of glueing and stitching the cord to the back of the design.  The next time I do this I will use more of a formal connecting ring or something for the cording.  I enjoyed this process enough to read up on it a bit and try a few different things until I get it right.

I am SO close to finishing the Mountmellick purse is as well.  I’ve sewn the outside and inside purse panels together and now it’s just a matter of sewing in the purse frame.  My problem with THAT is I did not fully understand the process to attach the purse frame - which - honestly is not exactly difficult.  But I thought the frame would be attached on the inside of the purse and I could fudge a bit with the size, but it's actually attached to the outside of the bag which made it obvious that I had ordered the wrong size purse frame.

I am a big proponent of guiding principles in sewing such as "measure twice, cut once".  Everything works better if you read all the instructions, work with precision and follow directions.  But I am also the great granddaughter of Ida Tunnell and her more organic, "It'll Never Be Seen On A Galloping Horse" type of crafting, so sometimes I have to learn the hard way.  The lesson here is that with purses that utilize a frame you should really be making your purse pattern around the frame rather than making the purse and trying to find a frame to fit it later.  WHICH I KNOW NOW.  I think I've found a frame on etsy that will work and the purse will come out cute despite the hiccups.

While wrapping these two projects up I’ve been fitting in some time to work on my second weaving project.  It’s basically set up to be a scarf although I might see if there’s some other way to use it.  I do want to experiment with embroidery on weaving so I might use this finished project to try out some different techniques.  I also finished another square for my "Spanish Ladies" quilt and did a couple of “quickie” up-cycling projects.  

I’ve been collecting patches from places we visit over the years and also some patches that I’ve seen when shopping that I just find cute.  I used them for fancy up two items.  I used a beautiful bird patch I found at World Market to class up an older blazer that I don’t wear much anymore but I think I’ll get a lot more use from now!

Most of the other patches I put on a denim jacket that I bought on Thrifted.  I love that this is kind of a wearable souvenir display.  There are patches from our recent trip in Texas, from Vegas trips, New York and other spots.  Plus I'll also be attaching patches that I make, like the swallow tattoo design that was a previous "travel project".  

I’m excited to keep adding to this with more patches from future trips.

Summer took a while to get going this year, but it has officially arrived and we are soaking up the sun.  We’ve been fitting in some pool time and grilling every chance we get.  I really love to slow down and spend time outside once the great weather starts so I focus on portable projects I can take outside on the patio or to the pool.  My next project is going to be a Sashiko quilt.  I’m planning to use denim I’ve up-cycled from jeans we don’t wear anymore that I’ve cut up into squares.  To start off and kind of "learn" the process I bought a cool pre-printed Sashiko kit on Etsy.  It comes with everything you need to start.  I'm finding it's a different way of working with thread.  My plan is to use this for the back of the quilt along with some really cute printed "tenugui towels" I've bought.  The Sashiko process requires some practice to try and get the stitch lengths equal and thats working WITH a preprinted pattern.  I think this is a good way to kick off learning this technique and it's helping me work up the confidence to try some free form designs for the front of quilt squares.

I hope everyone is enjoying great weather and finding time to stitch in the sun!

Travel and Inspiration

I've been doing a little traveling over the last month or two and it felt GREAT!!!!  It was so nice to get out of my usual routine, see some new places and get inspired.  

I've been wanting to explore West Texas for a while so we planned a trip to hit Alpine, Marfa and Marathon. We also managed to fit in a side trip to Fort Davis and basically saw a ton of beautiful scenery while road tripping around the area.

We started out our trip in Alpine, TX which is so cute and has beautiful street art.  There are murals all over the down town area and you can just walk around and enjoy art between the cute shops.  

After Alpine we headed into Marfa.  There are a lot of posts from social media influencers about what to see and do in Marfa.  They're pretty good at hitting the highlights of Marfa, but as someone who is a little (a lot) older than the average influencer, my focus is on activities that are not particularly trendy.  With that said, I did feel pretty hip in Marfa.  There are lots of cool bars and restaurants and every place you stop to take a photo looks like a magazine layout.

Marfa is weird and artsy and forces you to slow down a bit.  Most shops and restaurants we went to were on their own schedule.  Some just open for a few hours each day, some only open a couple days a week.  You couldn't stick to a strict itinerary so you had to just go with the flow.  That is not my usual m.o., but it really made for a relaxing vacation.  No plans, just walking around and seeing what's around the corner.

Despite enjoying the laid back vibe of Marfa I DID need a little bit of exercise to balance out the day drinking and Mexican food we'd been indulging in, so we headed over to Fort Davis to do a little hiking.  There are a lot of spots to hike in the state park but we just did some short hikes from the botanical garden - which was spectacular!

The town of Fort Davis is also really cute with some great shops and a lovely downtown.

The last stop on our West Texas adventure was a stay at the Gage Hotel in Marathon.  Marathon is a very small and quiet town but there are several really pretty spots to relax, including the Gage Gardens: a super quirky garden area just a block from the hotel itself.  If you have the chance to check out this hotel you should!  It's historic and beautiful and full of personality.

During the entire trip the landscape threw us beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  My favorite sunset was in Marathon on the last night there:

It really is a beautiful area of the country - check out my Flickr feed if you'd like to see more pics of the trip.  Especially all of the sunsets!

I brought an embroidery "travel project" with me on the trip and actually got a little bit done - I'll post about that next time.  I designed the project with Texas in mind, but after this trip I had so many more ideas!  This trip did exactly what I think travel should do: relaxed and inspired me!

I hope everyone is getting out and enjoying the weather and some travel too!

 

Ukrainian Roses

In 2012 on a trip to New York I visited the "Little Ukraine" section of NYC.  One of the spots I visited was the Surma Book and Music Co. where I purchased some really lovely stuff including a book of Ukrainian Rose needlework patterns.  Surma has since closed it's doors and I had stashed away the needlework book, but with all that's been going on in Ukraine I pulled it out and started on one of the patterns.

The first page of this book has a lovely preface that gives the background on Ukrainian Rose Patterns.  It notes that The Rose is a symbol of love and has been used as embroidered embellishment of women's shirts for years.

The book details how 100 women's shirts with rose embroidery arrived in Surma, and one of the salespersons recalled her youth in Ukraine where she embroidered her own shirt.

"I recall the sweet scent of the blue-flowered flax, and the sound of threshing in the village.  And the warm cottages on cold winter nights where girls gathered to spin the flax into yarn, to weave the yarn into cloth, to talk about a secret love, to sing, and to dream quietly on their own...And then, on summer evenings, after a day's work done in the fields, the girls gathered again.  This time it was to embroider and sew, to complete the work, to fill their hope chests with embroidered towels pillows, and shirts."

(From Surma Book & Music Co., Ukrainian Rose Patterns, (1981))

I'm contemplating all of the beautiful history, the traditions, the art and the people of Ukraine and hoping for a swift end to the trauma that this country and it's people are currently enduring.

 

 

 

Circling Back - Way Back

I know that it takes me a while to get back to projects that I've started, but this one more or less goes back 13 years, which seems kind of crazy.  I posted about our trip to Ireland back in 2009 (!) and the day trip I took while we were there to Mountmellick in County Laois.  The purpose of the trip was to take a class on Mountmellick embroidery at the Mountmellick Development Association and it was wonderful.  I'll let you go back in time to that old post if you'd like to read a bit about the class.

After finishing up the project I started in the class (it only took a year to finish it)  I intended to create my own "Mountmellick" project.  In 2019 I created a design that I had hoped to submit to the Mountmellick Embroidery Competition, but, as often happens, I cut it a bit close and didn't finish.  The project I intended to submit is a purse.  I finished one side, then put it away to work on some Christmas crafts and didn't take it out again until now.

Looking back through the blog I realized I didn't write anything about the design, what my plan was or how it relates to the traditions of Mountmellick embroidery or the class I took back in 2009.  So, as I'm picking this project back up, I'll try to remedy that now.

Essentially, in reading about Mountmellick embroidery and in my discussions with the instructor, I learned that the motifs used are usually inspired by nature.  I wanted to create something that, while referencing the Mountmellick embroidery designs I saw in Ireland, incorporated the flowers that are distinct to my region.  So my design is daffodils and cherry blossoms - with a few leafs and berries thrown in for effect.

I managed to finish one side before packing this away and "past me" did "future me" a solid by making a stitch guide I could use when I picked this back up again.

I wanted to use at least one of the stitches that is specific to Mountmellick embroidery, so I've used the Mountmellick stitch here along with stem, satin, french knot and coral stitch.

I've got the first few stitches going on the second side.  It actually stitches up pretty quickly which is great, but doesn't really explain why it's taken me so long to finish it in the first place.  I think it's primarily the never ending list of projects I want to work on and the battle to focus on them one at a time.

For this one, once I'm done with this side, I'm hoping to line it with a fun fabric that will give it a pop of color when you open the bag.  As I'm working on it, I'd like to focus on some history of Mountmellick embroidery and provide links to some great resources.  Look for that next time when I update on this project.

 

New Year, New Skills

I kicked off the New Year by learning a new skill - weaving!  I took a rigid heddle loom class and too my first steps into learning how to make my own fabric.

The start of the adventure was just putting the loom together.

I bought a Schacht Cricket Loom and it comes with pretty good instructions, but in case you need a little extra help (which I did) the company has a number of really helpful videos that explains he assembly of the loom and then the process of warping and weaving.

My local yarn store Fibre Space hosted the class which consisted of two three hour sessions.  It was really great.  Within the first three hour class we'd been given basic overview of the weaving process, warped the loom and started weaving!

We were able to spend the week between the first and second class weaving our scarves.

As with most of my craft projects, I had "help" while I weaved at home.

We finished up our first scarf in the second class, taking it off the loom and learned a bit about various methods to finish up the fringe.

 

I love the way the fabric came out.  Using variegated yarn I think the possibilities are always really interesting.  After finishing up the first scarf, the teacher gave us some basic information on how to calculate the amount of yarn needed for a project, the length and warp and the different sizes of heddles we might use.

We then still had enough time to load up a new project on our looms before heading home to finish it up ourselves.

Luckily my helper is still standing by.

 

 

2021 Wrap Up

A lot of the projects I worked on in 2021 were on the time consuming side. 

The only one I'm carrying into 2022, however is the Spanish Quilt project, which I'll hopefully be able to wrap up early this year.

The plan for 2022 is to learn some new techniques and mix up big projects with some quick and fun stuff.

I've already started on my plan to learn new techniques.  I took my first weaving class last week! 

Hope everyone's 2022 is starting out well!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

My last Christmas craft for the season.  I finally managed to put the finishing work on some fabric I bought in Paris years ago to use it as a tablecloth.

This is one of those projects that I pull out around the holidays but have never finished.  I actually thought I'd bought more fabric and would need to cut it down to an appropriate tablecloth size, but ultimately it was a bit short of standard tablecloth length.  These are maybe the risks of purchasing fabric in a country where you don't speak the language AND don't use the same system of measurement.  BUT - for my small kitchen table, the size ultimately worked just fine.

Because the fabric was essentially pre-cut this ended up being a VERY quick project.  I used a wide size quilt binding tape to finish the tablecloth and I think it came out really nice.

I like the way this came out.  It is a Christmas pattern but I think I can get away with it for Valentines Day as well?  I like the pattern so much I hate to pack it away for just once a year.  

After all the crafting, baking, shopping and wrapping, we're having a very quiet Christmas and it's a perfect way to start winding down the year.  I hope everyone is finding peace, calm and having a Merry Christmas.

Angels We Have Heard On High!

My friend and I were finally able to do our Christmas craft exchange.  I always love seeing our different takes on the craft for the year.  This time we chose Christmas Angel tree toppers and as always it was a super fun project and really put me in the Christmas mood.

There are a number of different ways to do this.  I used a few different tutorials to get me started and give me some ideas.  If you're interested in this project some good places to start are with a few youtube videos that walk you through the process.  I liked this one from Carly Sunshine Crafts and this one from Mi Cottage Crafts.  You can find the porcelain angel faces and hands on Etsy.  The cone I used is available on Amazon.  My friend actually found a pre-lit plastic cone that she was able to use for the base.

I started with decoupaging a little message onto the cone for my friend.  

I'll say that if you use the paper mâché cone, it might be a good idea to paint it white as it does show through a bit through a white satin or other fabric.  As I ended up layering my fabrics it wasn't too much of a problem.

My friend is Italian so my "vision" was to come up with a design that celebrated some Italian aspects of Christmas.  I came up with a nod to the feast of the seven fishes and a ribbon banner reading "Buon Natale".

I didn't do much sewing.  It was mainly draping and then hot gluing fabric in place.  The only sewing I really did was to embroider the banner and then some fish designs on the back of one of the fabrics.

I loved this angel porcelain doll head I found - she looks like a botticelli angel!  

I layered a green silk on top of the white that I had embroidered with fish.  I'll have to upload my sketch as I included some italian words in the design, but it doesn't show up too well.

I added some additional gold silk over all of it and hope it looks very angelic!

My friend is an avid thrift store aficionado and estate sale pro.  Her take on the tree top angel utilized tons of vintage costume jewelry that she's collected over the years.  The angel she made sparkles and shines even without being lit up.

But when she does light up - she is the perfect Christmas tree topper!

I am fully in the Christmas spirit - I hope you've all had time to enjoy the season and are getting ready to snuggle in for a wonderful holiday!