Saturday, March 10, 2012

Slow Quilting of a Different Sort

It's been all about embroidery the past few days chez 3F.  First, I finished my Week 10 Take-A-Stitch(on)-Tuesday block remarkably early.  The stitch de la semaine (of the week) was Running Stitch. (I had great fun with this since this was also the week that my jogging moved up a notch closer to running.  I've gone from an estimated 12 minutes/mile to about 10.78 mpm, and with warmer weather, have lightened up the layers and taken off my hat!)


The wee charm on this piece was resurrected from my jewellry box.  Back when I was a Serious Runner (30 years ago) I wore this on a chain around my neck and was rarely without it.  The cute tape with footsteps on it was a recent find (Wednesday) at a scrap-booking store in Stettler (Pages in Time -- sorry, no website to be found).

But the focus of my work this week has been the 12" square piece I've been working on for the SAQA Western Canada exhibit, "Meet the Best of the West".  This piece hasn't come easily to me, as regular readers no doubt know.  I've struggled and sampled my way through it, fighting the Voices In My Head every step of the way to get my vision from photo into fabric.  I began to make some progress, though, when I began to hand stitch on the piece.  Here's just a taste of it:



While I've stitched I've been taking in online Inspiration to Quilt Expo -- interviews with the nominees for "Most Inspiring Teacher of 2011", quilt galleries, a demo area and of course a merchant mall -- and some more episodes of The Quilt Show, which I absolutely love.

Third in the embroidery line up is a project about which I'm not prepared to say much, but here's a peek:


I'll tell you this much: it's red-work.  This is the first of six embroidered blocks, to be assembled into a quilt with six red-and-white pieced blocks, plus sashing. Stay tuned...

And for a break in the evenings...some knitting on the Dr. Who Scarf, on which I'm making very steady progress:




2 comments:

Gina said...

The grain sheds are coming along nicely; I like the texture in the grass!

...The embroidered church reminds me a little bit of the old blanket I have that Aunt Alice did nearly 90 years ago.

Raphaela said...

I really like your grass stitching.