kerrykatiecakes

Well, I actuallly finished something!  This is a little cross stitch Christmas ornament for the Embroiderers' Association of Canada (EAC) Winter Ornament Exchange.  This is the first year they have had this exchange and I love the idea. This ornament is made from a pattern taken from one of Canada's Christmas series of stamps for 2013.  The stamps themselves were designed by Helene L'Heureux for Canada Post.The needlework on the stamps was created by Claire Belzil. There are three stamps in the series:  the reindeer seen above, a Christmas tree, and a musical horn.  Patterns for all three will be in the next issue of Embroidery Canada as well as on the EAC website shortly. If you are interested in reading more about these stamps, visit the Canada Post website .:

I recently had the pleasure of taking a class from Marnie Ritter and we used the technique of flower pounding to prepare our canvas before we worked on it.  Flower pounding is an old technique which was popular in Victorian times.  No special equipment is needed for this technique. Above is an example I made on gold glitter congress cloth.  Rather than the traditional way I had learned before, Marnie showed us how to use only one leaf or petal at a time (instead of pounding the entire blossom with a hammer on the background cloth). Simply place the leaf or petal where you want it on your background cloth and use a Popsicle stick or your thumbnail to rub it into the cloth.  Your petal with disintegrate in the process and after you scrape it off, you will see the colour revealed beneath.  Note that petals do not always give you the colour you expect them to! After you have all the colour you want on your background fabric, in this case congress cloth, allow...

I came across this license plate in the underground parking of the hotel I stayed at in Kentucky and I love it!  I like these personalized license plates and they are like little puzzles sometimes trying to figure out what they mean but this one is pretty obvious - Needlepoint!  I have no idea whose plate it is but love that the owner is advertising her stitching passion!

Boring post with no photos but I just have to say I am home again after four months of working in the campground with virtually no internet connection - torture!  I have arrived home with piles of work to get through - setting up for a weekend of meetings in Regina, getting ready to attend EGA Seminar in Kentucky the start of October, a house that has been under the care of DH for four months (can we say deep cleaning needed? lol), work on the exciting new online chapter of EAC called  Virtual Threads, guild meetings, etc etc  I wish I could clone myself and put one of me on each task!   But.... I am ecstatic to be home again!  After seven years of this, I am happy to say there will be no more "working away" in my future!

The work of AAQI is drawing to a close at the end of this year.  I have really enjoyed supporting this wonderful grass-roots organization that has raised funds for research into Alzheimers and other forms of dementia.  All good things must come to an end though and the goal of the organization now is to reach  a million dollars raised before they are done.  I think they will make it!  My personal goal is to have my little quilts raise a thousand dollars.  With this in mind, I went into a stitching frenzy as the last day to register quilts for donation and managed to register six on the last day. These first two are entitled Flower Girl 1 and Flower Girl 2.  I found the vintage pieces of surface embroidery in a thrift store and made them into small quilts.  The stitching reminds me of the stamped embroidery I did as a child with whatever threads were available for me to use in my mother's stitching supplies.  I love the exuberant colour...

You can see where this stitch got it's name, can't you?  It looks like a basket!  Basically, it is just a simple herringbone stitch with the top and bottom Vs meeting.  It has some fun possibilities though.  I hope you will enjoy it if you decide to give it a try. I decided to use my sample to make a basket motif and here is what I came up with.  Adding a row of chain stitch at the top and bottom made the basket come to life.  I experimented with making a handle by braiding three group of two strands each of DMC floss.  The handle experiment was not a success but it disappeared anyway when I added the flower filling for the basket later.

Finally some photos from the lake!  I couldn't resist when I saw someone had built three  inuksuit along the shoreline.  Inuksuit is the plural of  inuksuk.  The words are Inuit and these can be found in the far north from Alaska to Greenland.  There is an inuksuk on the flag of Canada's newest territory,  Nunavut.  As the world seems to get smaller, these are not just seen in the far north now.  People build them anywhere they find rocks to do it with and they are now even used as garden and yard ornaments.  The original purpose for inuksuit has been debated.  It is thought that they might have marked food caches, hunting grounds or travel routes.  In the tundra there are few natural landmarks so they were surely a guide of some sort. Finding these at the lake put a smile on my face.  Besides their natural charm they feel distinctly Canadian to me so I always enjoy seeing them, wherever I might find them.I ...