kerrykatiecakes

This luncheon cloth is the last find from my treasure hunt at the thrift store last week. I have to confess I have a special weakness for chicken scratch embroidery, also known as snowflake embroidery. With very simple stitches gingham is transformed in a most charming way. This piece struck me as special because the gingham check is much smaller than most of the pieces I have. There is a lot of work here - if you click on the picture to enlarge it you will see the number of stitches involved. I have also included closer pictures of the border design as well as the center motif. The edging is crocheted with a varigated crochet thread.

I have been working on a block of Hideko's as a "round robin angel". The angels stitch on blocks to replace lost ones or to fill in where others have had to drop out. This block was from a favourite book round robin - the book Hideko based her block on was "Lark Rising", and in particular the chapter on a May Day celebration. I hate to admit defeat but this block was difficult for me. I knew what I wanted to create - a SRE May Day bower as described in the book but could not do it justice and at that point nothing else I could think of made me happy. Also, the stitchers before me on this block were some of the best around and they were a very hard act to follow. I dithered for quite a long time before finally realizing I had to get on with it and get the block moving again. I didn't do as much on the block as I would have liked and it isn't as good as I would have liked - but at least the block is on its way again, heading to Jo in NZ, who I know w...

Here is another portion of my finds from my "treasure hunt" at the thrift store last week. Aren't they adorable? I just love them! They show some signs of wear, which is to be expected, but are really well made. I'm not sure what I'll do with them but wanted to share my find.

Well, it's Sunday again so here is the framework for Week 5's seam. Like Week 1, it is semicircles but this time they are offset against each other. I think this will be another good one - lots of room to explore here! Excuse the irregularities in the stitching - did this in the car today while travelling. Have fun with this - I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

The Mailblocks group on Yahoo has monthly quilt block lotteries. Everyone makes 5 or so blocks in a specified pattern and colours and then a name is drawn from everyone who made blocks and they are all sent to the lucky winner. I resolved not to put my name in any month until I had the blocks completed. Don't need any more unfinished projects hanging over my head! So, for October the pattern chosen was Jacob's Ladder and the colours are blue and cream. I have just finished my blocks so can now allow myself to run over and put my name in the draw! This is all part and parcel of my wanting to learn to make "sane" quilts. Each month I take part gives me a bit more practice on making blocks. I am quite pleased with how these turned out - they are more complicated than I would have chosen so were a challenge. I am pleased though that I managed to match most of the points - I'm starting to see an improvement!

I was asked if I could do up some information on printing ciggie silks so I'm going to do it in sections since there are several techniques that can be used. I thought I would start here though at what seems to me to be the logical place to start - where to find the images you will print. Once you get interested in this you will find lots of places to spend your money! Dover Publications has a wide variety of copyright free clip art books available for purchase, with or without accompanying c d's . Above you will see a few. The advantage to these books is the fact that the images are copyright free - that is something you will have to consider and make your own decisions on. If you find a great image somewhere and are not sure if it is copyrighted, chances are it is. I'm not going to get into the whole discussion on copyright - I think it has been done to death elsewhere and discussed by people much more knowledgeable about the subject than I am. Do consider it though an...

I came across several items I couldn't resist at the thrift store yesterday. The first one was this dish towel. I picked it up simply because it felt wonderful - like it had dried a lifetime of dishes and could easily dry enough for my lifetime as well. I was also charmed by the care that had been taken with the embroidered edge - that someone would take the trouble with a plain white dish towel. It wasn't until I washed the towel and was pressing it that I got a surprise. I'm not sure if you can see it because obviously great care was taken to bleach it out but if you look carefully you can see the words, "Keynote Enriched Flour". My lovely little dish towel started it's life as a flour sack! How cool is that? So, here it is in it's place of honour. No one else will notice this faded writing but I know it is there and it pleases me! I have other treasures from yesterday's thrift store treasure hunt and I will share them later.