Bookstore Browsing

I have a Nook e-reader and use Barnes and Noble for online book shopping because I want to support their brick and mortar stores. There's little more gratifying to me than a couple of hours browsing in a real bookstore. On Tuesday I did it at the store near the Metro Center station in the district (Washington, DC).

 I did some holiday shopping and bought a couple of things for myself. One I bought for embroidery reference will surprise you. It's Tattoo Sourcebook by the editors of Tattoofinder.com. It has 516 pages of mostly tattoo designs. The introductory chapter on tatooing was interesting, but it was the designs that caught my attention. Many of them would make great embroidery motifs. I plan to use some. But not this one:

I do like dragons and here is a sweet one:

And trees. Trees are great on crazy quilts. Here's a nice tree of life.

Here's something very pretty for a music themed block:

The images are divided into categories, each section beginning with a history, paragraph on symbolism and something specific about the tattoos in the category. From this I got some info about symbolism for the "wisdom" block I'm planning. During Betty Pillsbury's class at the Crazy Quilt Adventure in April, I embossed a piece of velvet with the word "wisdom." It's to be part of a block with other words meaning wisdom such as "sophia." I learned that the salmon represents wisdom to the northeast Indians and the feathered serpent was a wisdom god to the Aztecs. With an owl, those images should make a very wise block.

Look everywhere for cq inspiration.

Green Apple Flutter

Last blog I ask for suggestions for a name of my red orange and apple green block. Susan Elliott went on a roll with suggestions as you can see in the comments on that blog. I didn't pick one of hers, but they inspired me and the new name for the block is Green Apple Flutter.

Flutter refers to the butterfly wings featured on fabric in the block from old komonos. Other butterflies have joined them on the block including two stumpwork ones.

I've been flirting with stumpwork for a while. Sadly, sadly missed our EGA chapter workshop by Jane Nickols because I was sick. Very disappointed. But, I have a new book that gives the instruction I wanted: Royal School of Needlework's Essential Stitch Guides: Stumpwork, by Kate Stinton published this year. Mary Corbet reviewed the book recently. She likes it, too.

My butterfly wings were made as "wired fabric slips." They are attached by piercing the block fabric with a stylus or laying tool, inserting the wires through the hole, folding them back and tacking them down. This leaves the wings free for a 3-D look. This close up photo shows I need to do some more trimming of the basic fabric around the edges. The actual butterfly is 1 1/2 inch across.

Silk threads

At the New England Regional Embroidery Guild of America seminar in April, I won an opportunity basket. I regret I can't remember and credit the chapter that donated it, but I thank them. The basket became my granddaughter's Easter basket. The $100 gift certificate to Thistle Needleworks was my treasure. I used it to buy a variety of Soie d'Alger silk floss. This is Mary Corbett's favorite silk floss, as she blogs about here. I selected several runs of one color for use in thread painting. Here is my new stash:

Okay, I had  a little money left so I bought one package of silk ribbon, too. Then it turned out they were out of skeins of several of the colors I chose, so I bought the larger packages of those. Anyway, I'm happy with them. I hurried to try one out on my red orange and apple green block (I need a better name for this block. Suggestions?) Here is a butterfly seam treatment from Carol Samples' book.

I also used it for the seam at the bottom of this picture.

So far, I'm not sure I like it all that much better than DMC cotton floss. Shush! Mary Corbett does say the cotton floss will eventually lose it's sheen. Haven't noticed that.

The stem of the flower above this seam is made of little metal springs my friend Kent gave me. He is an instrument technician for NASA Goddard. These were removed during referbishing from an instrument that flew on a space shuttle.

Another thing I did on the block is enhance the butterfly wings printed on the fabric with couched silver thread, shisha mirrors and beads.

That's my latest update on this block. The too hot weather here is keeping me in, so I hope I can finish it soon. Other projects are waiting.

Red Orange and Apple Green

Here is an update on one of the blocks I took to Connecticut to work on during the Adventure in Crazy Quilting and Sharon Boggon's workshop. The block needs a better name than "red orange and apple green" but I haven't yet been inspired. Marmalade and Green Apples? Citrus Grove? Ummm. I showed this picture in April when I reported  on the retreat.

Folks who looked at this saw spiders in the two major things I had done  on it. I sure hadn't thought spiders when I made them. Well, I don't want this to be a spider block, so one of them had to go. The covered bead is now a flower with heart petals.

The other one, the shisha stitched grow sticker, got legs added to make it into a spider. I hope it's abstract enough so it won't freak out the spider squeamish. I used gold blending filament for the web.

 I also added some flowers a la Allie Aller from her class at the Adventure. I fused fabrics together wrong sides together, cut our circles and then snipped petals around the edge.

I added shisha mirrors to the tips of the butterfly wings and worked a few seam treatments. So here is the status at the end of June.