BCQC, Sewing Myself Into a Corner

I've been working on my BCQC block, but I'm still not done. My problem is one of my own creation:  I beaded the upper pink section so heavily that I need to do more embroidery to balance the block.  So I'm still working on this:

I had no brown silk ribbon to use for the basket, so I used some old brown craft ribbon of unknown origin (polyester, maybe?).  It was stiff and could not be pierced by a needle, but I made it work for this basket.  Baskets are super fun!  I love the weaving.

Linking up:  Supermom No Cape

Thankful For My Sewing Room

In our house, company coming means the sewing room gets cleaned.  I don't want to have any traces of quilt gifts hanging around in case someone wanders in and sees what I'm working on.  We are having 25 people here for Thanksgiving.  This is a smallish crowd for us as it will be just my sisters and their families this year from my side.  My three brothers have other family obligations this year.  We'll see them all for Christmas and at Andrew's burial.  

Anyway, this is what my sewing room looks like when it is clean, which isn't very often.

In addition to the usual quilter's junk and scraps, I keep my unquilted tops, large pieces of backing, and shirts to repurpose hanging up in this closet.  It saves me from having to buy even more storage bins.  

I love the light I get during the day from this big window.  At night I could use more light.  Maybe Santa will bring me a new lamp for this room.

I keep my stash (mostly scraps) in the white tubs, sorted by color.

This year I am thankful for my  new sewing room!

Smart Phone Quilt Along

I finished the Facetime block this weekend.

Here are all my completed blocks.

I need quite a few more to have enough for a decent sized quilt, but this project is officially on hold now, so I can start Bonnie Hunter's new mystery this week.  I don't anticipate this mystery being completed as quickly as the others because I'm going to cut for my tumbler quilt as I go along, and I'm doing a lot more hand sewing in the evenings than I was.  

Linking up: Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday

BCQC Continued

I worked on my BCQC block this weekend.

Saturday night I wanted to work on it but hadn't been sent the next step.  My original plan was to save all the embellishing until the end, but I wanted to stitch, so I started beading.  

I  love the beading!  It is so much fun.  Kathy the teacher is a planner.  I am not.  I just started stitching, adding more and more beads and French knots,  It was so much fun!

My friends and family have asked what is it going to be, as if I need to turn this practice block into something else.  I tell them that this is a teaching piece.  I am learning how to crazy quilt, and if the block never gets finished or framed, that is ok.  This piece is for me to practice my stitching, and that is enough.

Linking up:
Super Mom No Cape

BCQC Update

I've completed all the seam stitching for my crazy quilt class.  Yesterday I started on the silk ribbon embroidery.  I've only done a little silk ribbon embroidery, and every time I do it, I have a hard time getting the tension right.  Silk ribbon needs to fluff a little, so you can't pull the ribbon taut and get beautiful flowers.  I am far from making beautiful flowers yet, but I'm satisfied with my irises.

 Wish I had made the flowers a little smaller to make room for some taller leaves.

 Have I interested you in crazy quilting yet?  Here's a link to the blog of Kathy Shaw, who teaches the free basic crazy quilting class.  BCQC

Smart Phone QAL

I'm way behind on my Smart Phone blocks, but I finished 2 this week.

You Tube:

And iTunes:

iTunes is a little wonky, but I think I can square it up when I add sashing.  This block was a bear!  No way I'm going to remake it!

BCQC Progress Picture

This week I've been working on my Basic Crazy Quilting Class project.  I've had a few minor difficulties, mostly caused by my own impatience to get stitching.  I ordered pearl cotton and silk ribbon online, and they were both supposed to be here by last Monday.  When the silk came, I realized that it was not going to co-ordinate very well with the pearl cotton I chose.  So I decided to look through threads I already had and see if  I had any threads that would work.

Years of cross stitching and picking up threads here and there have left me with a collection of WDW, GAST, overdyed silks and a few ribbons from various makers, Waterflowers, Waterlilies and a whole set of DMC flower thread I got when that was being discontinued.  I don't like to work in pastels very much, and the silk ribbon I had chosen from the online pictures was very pale.  I decided to use some of the fibers I already had to get started on the embroidery.  

I should finish this assignment today or tomorrow.  I only have the French knot flowers to finish.  (A note about my French knots:  they are really colonial knots, which are easier for me to do,) The French know flowers are supposed to lean in a pattern: right, straight, left, right, straight, left.  Mine do not.  I don't have that much control over my knots!  My flowers are random.  I thought random would look better than trying and almost succeeding at the pattern.

I'm not crazy about the overdyed silk floss I used for this herringbone stitch.  I started with 2 strands, but it looked too thin for the length of the stitches used, so I went back and stitched with 6 strands which looks a little messy to me, but I'm not ripping it out again.  

I am having a hard time getting used to the GIANT stitches in this piece.  I'm used to cross stitching on 32 ct. or 28 ct linen (16 or 14 stitches per inch).  Most of the stitches in this piece are 3/4 of an inch long.  To me, that calls for a heavier thread than either #8 or #12 pearl cotton. But since this is a class piece, I'm going to have to trust the teacher (she is great!), and do what she recommends.  By Thursday my pearl cotton arrived, and I was able to use some of that even though I think it will look a little garish with the silk ribbon colors I have now.

I have had some difficulty learning to use the templates for the seam stitches.  I can't seem to keep the templates straight on the line, so I have some extraneous pencil marks here and there.  I'm hoping the busyness of the embellishments will hide some of my imperfections. Again, I'm used to working on linen and using the threads to keep my stitches straight and uniform.  If I end up doing a lot of crazy quilting, I will need to use templates that I can see through,  printed on vellum or plastic, to keep my stitching lines where they need  to be,

Linking up:  Supermom No Cape