Binding

I'm sure you're all sick of seeing the birches. I'm almost done, I promise. I've finished all the free motion work and almost finished the hand embellishing.

I thought I would try a binding with an accent color. Following some comments, I chose a lighter binding for the main color and a gold accent color. I don't think it works. Maybe I'll go back to one of the blacks. If I want to keep the gold, I'll have to snip it all off, as that's all I had.
Or, I could more easily switch it so the gold is on the outside. Decisions, decisions.

This binding with an accent is something I recently learned. As you can see in the photo, two colors are stitched together, one is cut at 1 3/4 inches and the second one is cut at 1 3/8, depending on which one you where. Once they're sewn right sides together, you fold it and iron it wrong sides together just like a regular binding.
It needs to be sewn to the back of the quilt and wrapped to the front so that the accent color shows next to the quilt. The idea is to stitch in the ditch. I'm not very good at that so I'm not sure if I'll stitch it by hand. I have a friend with a foot for stitching in the ditch which I may borrow.

This morning I went to a craft sale at the waterfront where I picked up this concrete garden stone made in the shape of a rhubarb leaf. I plan to set it into the stone path near my back door.

Adding silk ribbon leaves

Today, I added more of the red dogwood bushes. Not sure I like how they ended up being evenly spaced. Also, my open toed free motion foot snapped. I have to use the regular one, making it difficult to see my stitching lines. I'm not quite finished all the brown branches on the left side.

Ive been quietly sitting and stitching some fallen leaves with silk ribbon.

Finally some stitching

Well, we've had a great couple of weeks while my husband was off. Lots of sun and heat. Today he went back to work. It isn't too hot, so I was happy to get something done.

I ironed some fusible to three scraps of fabric for some foreground leaves. Then, for texture, I took some watered down paint and splattered it on using a toothbrush. As you can see I cut each leaf out individually. I had to pick each paper backing off with tweezers before I could iron them on. The things we do for art!

I stitched all the leaves down, added a line of fiber with gold flecks in it and stitched more of the red bushes. The picture above just shows a section of the piece.
It's coming closer to being finished. I've chosen a couple of binding options, and I'm just trying to decide if I should add a small highlight with red maple leafs.

I'm thinking of using one of these for the binding. I have a couple other black and whites I'll audition as well.
Finally, I feel like I'm getting somewhere. It's nice to be off. But good to be back at my routine.

same old story, hot and muggy

I'm sure you've noticed a certain lack of blog posts and a definite lack of sewing. It is still desperately hot and humid. My husband has been on vacation for the past two weeks as well. At least we've been able to escape the heat at the beach when we needed to.
On Friday night it was so hot and uncomfortable, we brought our supper to the basement and watched a movie. It was called Fly Fishing in Yemen, a British movie which I highly recommend if you'd like something light with a bit of British humor and some lovely photography. Perfect for summer viewing.

This is what I've been doing as much as possible to escape the heat.
Gord returns to work on Wednesday, but I may not have much to blog about until this heat breaks.

Another hot sunny day

It's just too hot to even think about sewing. We're heading to the beach.

I just grated fresh garden cabbage and carrots for coleslaw. Picked them up at the Beresford market this morning.

Zippered bag

I sewed the binding on my birches piece this morning. I'll take a final picture once I finish hand sewing it down.

As I often do when I'm not sure what I'll do next, I cleaned and organized my space. This piece has been tacked on my wall for a while. I wasn't happy with it, but I remembered what a loose outline in black stitching could do for a piece. So, why not? I wasn't going to finish it as it was.

Then I found a tutorial on line for a zippered bag.

http://luannkessi.blogspot.ca/2009/12/quilted-zipper-bagtutorial.html

I sewed on a piece of coordinating fabric for the back, sandwiched it, added lining and free motion quilted it. I actually used the black stitching as the quilting. The back is meandered.

Here you see it inside out with the zipper added . It is waiting to be stitched down the sides.

I always like what a loose line of black free motion stitching can do for a sort of blah design.

Slow growing birches

It was comfortably cool and cloudy when we got up this morning but it has gotten sunny, hot and humid again. We didn't realize quite how warm it was until after we got out on our bikes.

On our way back, we stopped to pick some raspberries that I had seen on a previous trip.

This morning I added a few more painted details to some problem areas and solved some other issues.
I sketchily added lines of free motion stitching in the foreground. Then I stitched a few small bushes to which I will sew on some leaves. Before that though, I want to cut a bunch and splatter some spots on with paint. Once I've added those , I will add more of the red bushes.
I really want some golden ferns in front but I have to practice them first to see if I will like them.

Since i needed a few mor leafy bits, cut up some more snippets of varying shades of fabric using the wavy rotary cutter and sandwiched them between two layers of Glad Cling Wrap Plus. This gets stretched in a hoop and free motion stitched.
The one pictured above with some green bits in it is for a different scene, as I forgot to take the picture before ironing away the plastic.

Here you see the gold leaves after ironing between 2 sheets of newspaper to melt the plastic away.