The Sampler

Ugh I was sure it was ruined but the pen washed out! - PHEW!  Not that its moved since I washed the top half of it mind you.  Probably should remove it off the heated towel rail before someone dries their hands with it.  Although both hubby and Miss P wouldn't dare haha.  But Dad is probably coming for tea tomorrow and he would! haha.

Tea or Coffee?

Well I did as I said and randomly sewed together all my wee tea and coffee dyeing swatches.  I just needed to get moving on something, I was going crazy.  

I didn't think about it, I just paired them up into twos where they were about the same size, or at least the same length on one side.  Then repeated the process until I had a piece about A4 size and blow me down I kind of like them!

Now I had a cool piece of fabric (when I say cool as I generally stitch on plain white calico, anything thats not that is cool haha) what to do with it?    There was a doodle image that my eye kept getting drawn back to while I was trying to find something new to stitch.  
I thought it could be quite a good piece for using a pile of different stitches, sampler-esque even 😀.  Now usually when I look at these things and think 'yeah all different types of stitches' it never works out that way when I sit down to plan it out.  I'm sure it won't this time either.  But at least I know that going in right? 😀.  So I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to use a gazillion stitches, I'm just going to go with what takes my fancy at the time.   Its supposed to be fun, not stressful after all.

So I've got fabric, I've had my reality check about all the stitches I probably won't use.  While I like the original colour scheme, I don't think its going to work on my fabric, so I decided I'd stick with the tea and coffee theme and tried to match the darkest of the fabric colours to a DMC thread which I did and then I picked a few others in that range of colours.

Its not my usual colour scheme and it definitely has a lot of that very dark colour right now, but there is something about it that appeals.  As you can see I've got the design roughly drawn out on the fabric.  I haven't put it all on there, just the bigger bits, as I'll tweak it as I go so it works as an embroidery.

If nothing else,  I just feel so much better for having something to work on - yay!!!

Ta ta for now!

Oh bother!

I haven't done any stitching for days and days.  Why?  Because I can't make up my mind what my new project should be.  While I love Pinterest, I am sure at times, its not healthy for any 'creative' person.  There are too many beautiful things to look at, too many various techniques to try.  And I don't know about anyone else but I find I just end up giddy with all the options.  (head shake).  So this last week I have been looking, looking, looking but not stitching.  

I've picked half a dozen things and thought yes I'll do that.  

• Boro - I love the look of Boro but my stash is pretty limited and I just couldn't 'see' the fabric combination.
• Embroidery collage - I love the look of those lace-y, ribbon-y, collages of embroidery.  But I'm not a ribbon-y lace-y person and not feeling confident enough to make a start.
• A Cat - I found a drawing of a cat, similar style to Mr Bear.  But I just did that.
• Stitch & Slash - where you sandwich lots of diff fabric between two pieces and then cut through varying layers to reveal the inner.  Again limited stash put paid to that for the minute.
• Sharpie 'painting' - Miss P and I had some fun with sharpie and isopropyl alcohol a week or so ago.  Didn't come out anything like the tutorial.  But I do have some colourful fabric that I could use for appliqué maybe or the stitch/slash.  But just not feeling it.
• Stumpwork beetles - I love those framed embroidered bug collections.  But again just not feeling it.

I think my mojo is just off.  Any of those things could be fun. 

I love the idea of samplers, so I've spent some time today trying to come up with a plan for a stitch sampler than I can turn into a fabric book.   Trying to find something that takes my fancy is proving difficult, then I remembered I already started a sampler.  Yes!    

Mid last year I realised that my chickens were never going to make it onto a wall and decided I wanted to make a sampler that I could (maybe) put in a frame.  I wanted to use small cliparts I found on the internet, all the ones I'd found while looking for chickens. 😀    But I came to a grinding halt when I found I had a pile of 'line' style stitches that I couldn't figure out how to incorporate into wee clipart type images.  Now thats perfect, something to stitch while I figure out what to do next.  Something I can pick up and put down in between projects.  Yes!

So I dragged it out today tried to photograph it as it was, didn't work - too many wrinkles from being stuffed in the drawer for a year.  So I ironed it of course.  Now I have the sinking suspicion I've just ruined it.  Its still got all the washable pen on it which I've in effect just heat set.  (insert all sorts of rude words here).    Sigh.

Anyway, I guess I'll have to give just the top bit of it a wash and see if the pen comes out.  (I still need a lot of the lower pen marks for guides for text etc).  So now I'm sitting here wanting to stitch and I still have nothing to do.  Grumble grumble.

I've put the dreaded photo below.  Each square is about 1 1/2 inch square if you're wondering.  

If anyone has seen my mojo, feel free to kick its butt and send it home.  Thanks!

Until then, I'm going to dig out all my tea and coffee dyed swatches and just whack them together and see if anything comes out of that.   Maybe I'm just over thinking it all and just need to get stuck in.  Worst case scenario I'll learn something right?

Thanks for stopping by. 😀

Mr Bear - He's done!

Gosh this guy has driven me crazy this week.  I've stared at him this way and that, I've picked him up, I've shifted him about.  I spent a day or two playing with my cheesecloth buttonhole wheels in what can only be explained as totally avoiding him.  

The felt pieces were way too thick, they looked ok in the photo, but in real life they were awful.  I thought for a few days about filling the eye sockets with stitches, but that would've put too much focus on those eyes.  Sigh... I think I hated Mr Bear a bit this week.  I even thought about tossing him in the drawer and starting something else.  But Miss P has her heart set on him.  So I rifled through my stash and found some plain black cotton, did a bit of a test.  Decided that a single strand of floss for the eye highlights was too thick, so I used regular sewing machine thread.

Even now looking at the photo I'm regretting that nose.  I tried to put a few stitches across the top of the nose and couldn't get them right, so I pulled them out.  Arghhhh.  Hmmm he needs something on the top of that nose.  I might well end up hating him again this week.

But we'll see.

Oh I found out who originally drew this guy, a Russian graphic artist called Olga Gamynina.  Thanks Olga, hopefully I did you proud.

Nearly there...

I've finished the main stitching on Mr Bear.  I've cut the felt out for the eyes and nose this evening and they're currently just sitting on the fabric.  So far I'm fairly pleased with the result. 

I'm still not happy with the area under the chin, but I unpicked it and re-did it as I said I was going to last week.  And then I unpicked it and re-did it again.  As I'm only using cheap calico I think after three goes at it I was seriously starting to risk the fabric just coming to bits.  So after the third crack at it I made the call, thats it.  It is what it is.  Suck it up buttercup and move on!

I've just noticed posting the photo below that the blending of the eye on the left is a bit lumpy.  It needed a few more stitches but I seem to have created a lump now, so I'll have to have another go at that.  Sigh...

So... the felt.  I always feel eyes either make or break a piece, whether it be a painting, a quilt, a sketch whatever.  The original image has the eyes almost appearing as recessed.  There is no way I'm going to be able to achieve that especially as I'm using felt for the eyes.  But I don't want them appearing to pop out either.  So I somehow need to attach the felt without creating too much height.  And then of course I need to create the accents at the bottom of the eyes and the top of the nose.  Not sure what colour I'll use yet.  White is going to be TOO white. 😁  So I'll have to have a play around to get a light colour without getting a colour that is going to stand out.  That makes no sense does it?  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think the highlights on the eyes and top of the nose on the original image are a focus of the original image.  So I don't want to make them a focus of my embroidery either.  For example the felt for the top of the nose currently looks too deep, but the sketch has quite a light area at the top of the nose, which I was going to fill in with stitches in light thread to blend it into the rest of his nose.  But even as I type this I'm thinking that maybe I should be trimming the felt along the top there and actually using stitches in black on the fabric to blend that area.  Hmmm...

Argghhh!  Why is it the last 5% of any project ends up causing 95% of the angst and effort? Haha.  But while I've not got much of an audience here (although I love you guys that do regularly stop by), if nothing else I'd definitely recommend blogging about your projects.  Taking a snapshot of your progress definitely gives you a bit of distance from it and that different perspective is really useful.  And explaining your thought process to someone else also gives you enough of a pause in the proceedings to allow room for alternative ideas to pop into your head.  I think I understand now why some quilters pin their projects on a wall where they'll walk past them when they get stuck for inspiration.  Its both that physical distance and that mental distance of just not being caught up in the process of getting it done.  

Anyway, I'm waffling (again).

Thanks for stopping by!