Category Archives: embroidery

Year of the Stitch: Whimsy Lane #10

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My big distraction right now? Seed catalogs. Perusing the colorful illustrations distracts me from the 10 inches of snow covering my garden beds. And as I complete the final embroidery stitches on the Whimsy Lane quilt, I imagine Spring, Spring flowers, and sunny days.

To decorate the Whimsy Lane sun I use fly stitches around the pinked edges and make arcs of fly stitches inside the sun shape. This hot color for a hot sun, a size 8 Oranges thread, is the same as used on the rooftop and center of the flowers. Each fly stitch is accented with a French knot made with a size 12 Aquamarine thread. There. I feel warmer already during this Year of the Stitch.

Year of the Stitch: Flowers!

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Today it is 11 below Fahrenheit in my garden. But inside it is warm and cozy and I dream of summer and flowers.

The rooftop garden on my Whimsy Lane quilt hosts a variety of pinks or dianthus flowers (a genus of about 34 species in the family Caryophyllaceae). Not only are my pinks pink but the edges are cut with a pinking blade making them pinked pinks.

The skinny stems are decorated with straight stitches placed across each one. Don’t you love how the size 12 Peas in a Pod thread stripes add a little whimsy to the flower stems?

Flower petal shapes are stitched with a size 8 Lettuce thread. It takes 3 types of embroidery stitches to finish each pink petal: the stem stitch around the yellow dot, the back stitch around the petal edges, and the fly stitch for the pinked edges. Add an orange French knot to the center of each flower and call the pinks a distant cousin of the Caryophyllaceae family.

Year of the Stitch: Pattern Building

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One can never have enough pattern in a design. And the easiest way to build pattern when making a fused art quilt is to cut a bunch of small elements (see wacky squares above) and use them to decorate your background fabric.

What Was I Thinking!

I sure loved cutting those blue squares with a pinking blade. And I sure loved building the checkerboard pattern on the pink background fabric. So much fun! And then it came time to stitch it.

What was I thinking! Each little square has to be stitched with fly stitches and straight stitches to outline the edges. Lucky I enjoy stitching with this size 8 Butter thread. Notice how that warm buttery color repeats the color of the house? Yum!