Preparing these quilt pieces has taken a lot longer than I thought. Of course, I’ve done this lots of times before, but I never really kept track of how much time I spent (since I didn’t have blog deadlines). First, I only had enough of the smallest size salesman sample triangles for half of the…
The elephant was finished several days ago, but I have been busy pressing, drawing, cutting and sorting a gazillion little vintage triangles for the sashing strips. Although I had settled on the pinwheel pattern, I tried several different versions — all prints, scrappy prints & white, scrappy prints & solids — but finally decided on…
Thank you to all the people who have commented on this series of blocks. It’s so nice to hear from other embroiderers and quilters. This Jack-in-the-Box is stitched with my new Anchor multi-colored floss which I think looks just right on him. For most of the block I used just one thread because of all…
This is the perfect Pacific Northwest item for the letter U. This one went lots faster, so maybe I will be able to post a block every other day if I continue to trade off between the easier and more complex drawings. This weekend I am going to lay out some of my vintage triangles…
My plan was to post one of these blocks every other day, but I’m finding that to be a pretty tight schedule. Anyway, here’s my new block — N is for Nurse. I think she’s sweet and I really like her hairdo. Some blocks are less complex, so I think I’ll start trading off and…
This clown was made with a skein of vintage American Thread floss. I really like the colors, but when I started stitching, I realized that the sections of color are much longer than the DMC or Anchor variegated and multi-colored floss. To me this gives the clown a very different look compared to the puppet…
I intended to post this bear last night, but just as I was finishing up the last of the fur, I caught my cat, Jack, urinating on a pile of clothes in the laundry room. Because this is a bad habit he has acquired lately, I grabbed him to toss him outside and he decided…
I love this lion pattern and the variegated thread looks so great on his mane. See…..I’m not always all negative about stuff I make. This ABC project is so much fun to stitch. If you are interested in making any of these blocks, I have placed a link to the pdf (52 pages) just below…
I love this doll, but I must say I could use some more practice on my back stitch — it’s hard to make all of the stitches the same size. I wonder if it would be easier if I were using more than one strand of floss. I am going to make all of the…
This puppet design is so cute, but my thread choice ended up being a little pale. I used an Anchor multi-colored floss (rainbow) that I thought would be perfect. I do like the effect, though, and plan to use multi-colored floss on the clown and the jack-in-the-box as well. The doll is in the hoop…
This owl took almost the whole skein of floss — and most of it was done with just one strand. It’s hard to see in this photo, but I used another variegated floss — sort of a brown/rust/red combination. It’s subtle, but I like it. I promised myself I would only do two of these,…
I’m pretty excited about this ABC quilt made from the coloring book I posted earlier. I should be working on the wool quilt, but I just had to see how these were going to look. Instead of the two smaller drawings, I decided to make letters instead and fill them with a pattern copied from…
Only four more rows to go — that’s 22 more embroidered squares. I still haven’t figured out what to do for a border, but I’m sure something will come to me. It would be fun to embroider a vine or something on a dark border. Although I’m still enjoying the stitching, I need to search…
This time I waited until I had two new rows to post. Pretty soon the quilt will become more squarish and I’ll be able to fit it into one photo. Probably everyone is getting tired of looking at this quilt, but at some point in the near future I am going to run out of…
Row 3 is done — only 8 more rows and 44 embroidered squares to go. Although I love the wool, this is probably the most difficult fabric I’ve ever used for embroidery. I have to draw the design freehand since it’s on thick, black fabric, and because the wool is a bit fuzzy, it’s impossible…