Welcome August and the First Sunday Slow Stitch!

 

Wow what happened to July?  Is it just me or is the summer flying by, I noticed a few days ago the days are growing shorter.  I feel like I blinked my eyes and summer is nearly over.   It was a very hot and humid July this year with quite a few record high temps.  I am actually looking forward to the end of summer which will be upon us in a flash.

I actually stitched the August blocked for the Kathy Schmitz Woven Wreaths SAL. This little smiling sun took quite awhile to stitch.  

My pieces for the K3n.clothtales for weeks   Week 31 which is a Shisha style piece. I used a foil covered circle of cardboard for the Shisha mirror. I love the weekly prompts of this SAL, I am learning so many interesting ways to stitch.

Zokin was week 28, Traditionally Zokin cloths are used for dusting or cleaning in Japanese households.

Stitched leaves was week 27 I chose to do fabric leaves instead of real leaves because with the humidity here in Florida leaves tend to get moldy when drying.

Week 30 was folded fabric where we stitched bits of fabric while making folds while stitching. 

Week 29 was to stitch a mandala, instead of making a traditional mandala with bits of fabric scraps I decided to make a mandala of wool oak leaves adding an acorn button in the center.  As Katharine always says "You do you." and the oak leaves mandala is me doing me.  I will link to Kathy's Quilts here https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2024/08/slow-sunday-stitching-olympics.html

The end of July brought some Happy Mail, the 1st thing is the Ingrid's Wildflowers hand embroidery kit order from Missouri Star QuiltCo . https://www.missouriquiltco.com/  

The kit includes 20 stick and stitch wildflower motifs, full size balls of perle cotton, needles, needle threader, scissors and needle minder and the instructions to make a quilt all packed in a lovely tin box.

The kit contains everything you need to stitch the 20 blocks using the 20 stick and stitch patterns 

The included stitch book has the color guide and stitch guide for each motif.  A bonus motif was available making a total of 21 motifs to stitch and an added surprise was a download for each motif in 3 sizes 3, 4 and 5 inches.

The 2nd piece of Happy Mail is the DMC Eco Vita boxed set of natural dyed organic wool floss which is stranded so you can separate it just like the cotton floss.   Included was the DMC needle minders

Here are the colors close up, there are 30 colors in the boxed set.

Inside the booklet are 2 patterns and number/color card.  When I received the email alerting me the kit was back in stock I immediately ordered it, a few days later it was delivered.

One piece of mail that arrived was not happy mail at all, it was a ruined issue of Somerset Studio magazine, apparently either the mail sorter or the mail carrier spilled coffee, tea of a soft drink on the issue which was in a plastic bag.  I don't know how long it sat but half the issues pages were stuck together.  I was livid.

It took 5 days for the pages to dry completely, I was able to separate the pages except the last 5 in the back, about a quarter of the front of the magazine pages are fine, the rest of the pages are stained light brown and warped.  Sadly this isn't an isolated incident where magazines were delivered with coffee spills and cup rings on the pages. The cup rings stopped when the magazines I get started arriving in plastic bags which are compostable.  Complaints to the post office doesn't help. A replacement copy is on the way.

Slow Stitching Sunday: The Summer Goddess in Progress

 I can't believe we are halfway through the month of April, this month is just flying by.  We have had some crazy weather here in north central Florida, from hot sunny days that feel like the middle of summer to wicked rain storms and tornado warnings to cold mornings and glorious afternoons.

The Solar eclipse came and went without much fanfare here, though I will say the sun appeared extra bright and the birds were quiet for a while.  For the K3n.clothtales SAL our weekly prompt was the Sun which seemed right with the star and moon prompts the previous weeks.  The weekly prompt included the eclipse.  Here is my piece for week 15 along with the moon with wolf and friendship star pieces. I am coming to embrace the wonkiness of my pieces, I love the raw edges and the layering of fabrics. I have always admired the work of others yet never imagined I would love the process as much as I do.

I have been working on several goddess pieces in the slow stitch style, I am currently working on the Summer goddess.  First, I pulled out lots of yellow fabrics, many scraps from my stash. Then I cut or tore them into strips. I traced the template onto muslin then began to randomly stitch them on where you can see a vague figure.

Once each piece is stitched onto the fabric I stitch vertical lines of running stitch down the length of the entire piece, once that is done I stitch around the traced line of the template.  Once all the stitching is completed I cut out the goddess shape and then mount her onto a background fabric. 

Then I just build onto the piece with some fussy cut pieces, hand embroidery, other embellishments as I work. 

The fussy cut piece I added is from In the Beginning, Sun Moon and Stars by Jason Yenter.

I have also mounted the purple goddess onto the background fabric and will begin work soon, I have autumn and winter in the planning stages.

I finished the Kathy Schmitz Woven Wreath's SAL block piece for April and March which I didn't post. 

I changed a few of the stitches on both the bee and the bunny, preferring the back stitch over the stem stitch.

I began the stitching on the Stitchdoodles SAL last week, the SAL began on April 3 and post each Wednesday.

I also have a hand embroidery started a moon gazing hare I just started it on Friday night using the DMC Etoile floss for the moon

The purple goddess is also on her background piece and I will start adding bits and pieces in the coming weeks ahead.

I'm adding my post over at Kathy's Quilts here https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2024/04/slow-sunday-stitching_0587940416.html

Here are the links for the 

Kathy Schmitz SAL https://www.youtube.com/c/TothePointwithKathySchmitz/videos

K3n.clothtales:https://www.youtube.com/@k3n.clothtales/featured

Stitchdoodles:https://www.stitchdoodles.com/

Welcome March with Some Slow Stitching and Tea Dyeing

 

March arrived this morning warm and cloudy with a chance of rain coming later in the day.  I have been stitching along with K3n.clothtales and this is week 9: wonky 9 patch applique.

Week 8 was Pojagi aka Bojagi style, prompt was Both Sides now.  In traditional Pojagi the piece is the same on both sides. This one was a bit of a struggle for me and a few others because we couldn't get the double stitched seams on the same side.

Week 7 was a stitched heart, I can't recall the prompt word but the heart turned out lovely.

Some time this week I will start the Woven Wreaths March block of the Kathy Schmitz SAL, I watched the video this morning while drinking a cup of coffee but my eyes were not ready to stitch.

I have been doing some tea dyeing using spent teabags and tea balls from the cups of tea I drink during the day.  

I drop the spent teabags into a jar with some hot water and add scraps of fabric. The results have been quite pleasing. The top of the photo is before I dropped into the jar and the bottom piece are after.

I placed the fabrics into the jar dry, the next time I went the cloth and tied off in two places.  I  love the results.

I haven't taken a photo of the piece dry yet but I do love the look of the piece.  Last night I decided to try red hibiscus tea.

This time I used 2 fresh hibiscus teabags and pulled out some vintage floss from 1973, a white and an ecru and a piece of old white cotton muslin about 20 years old.  I wet everything, tied the fabric in 2 places and bundled the floss.

I will leave it until Saturday or Sunday.  This is a small jar, just right for small scraps for slow stitching and other projects.  I don't use any mordant and the color holds well.

I want to try Solar Jar dyeing in a few weeks.