Amazing Faizon

Got a suprise from my postman just now. But when I saw who it was from and how the enveloped bulged, I thought Faizon sent me a ball of thread, sure looked and felt like it.

I was wrong, it's a crocheted pin cushion which will never see pins in it!! Just lovely and the sweetest blue. She said in her note "to add in your basket of smalls". Ah...such thoughtfulness, hard to come by, hard to come by. It's made by joining 6 granny squares to make a cube, at least that much I know about crochet. Maybe Faizon's trying to pull me into the world of crochet? As she's trying to tat her spell with Nik, who knows? ;)

Faizon also sent me her first publication on tatting, can you believe that?? And I had special mention on the preface...wowee! I am going to be famous!!

What can I say but a humble thank you. Thank you Faizon.

Tower Topper Tutorial

Since Rose and Nik is gonna SAL on this real soon, I thought I'd up the tutorial real quick :)

Gather the following:

1. Your stitching on a fabric the zie of 5" x 5 1/2" (inclusive of seam allowance)
2. Backing fabric of the same size
3. Interface, 2 pieces of the same size
4. Bias binding, colour that you wish about 20" strip
5. Cord, thickness that you wish about 22" strip
6. Ribbon, colour that you wish about 14"

Iron the interface to the back of the stitched piece and the backing piece

Use the zipper footer and sew the cord against the centre of the binding, effectively wrapping the cord with binding. You could hand stitch if you prefer.

Bevel/Trim the top corners of both the stitched piece and the backing piece

Sew or hand stitched the corded binding, on to 3 sides of the right side of the stitching. Then turn up the bottom side and stich the binding neatly behind the stitched piece. Turn up and stitch the backing piece also.

Then sew or hand stitched the backing piece with right sides facing. Omit sewing a short strip of 1/2" at the top centre of the backing piece. This is for the ribbon to pull through.

Turn the piece inside out.

Tie the ribbon to a loop and pull through the opening at the top.

Towel Topper
Design by Prarie Schooler - Cornucopia (freebie)
Stitched on 14ct Rustico with DMC Threads

Bunch the towel through the ribbon and stuff it into the topper to fill it up. And that's it, you have a towel topper!

Sorry about the quality of some pics, if you have any questions please comment and I'll get back to you in the comments section itself.

Comment Notes: WRT to the wedding sampler, I've decided to unpick and stitch it again, not too much trouble. June is right, it's an optical illusion. I thought I'd get it right. Thanks everyone for your opinions, appreciate every one of them.

One month and one day

I've been stitching Joan Elliot's Wedding Sampler from her book Sentiments and Sayings, almost every night for an hour plus since 16/12/2006. I finished it on 17/01/2007, just before midnight :)

Towards the end I was stitching till 2 am! But as Nik correctly puts it, it must be a labour of LOVE. And yes it was. It's a wedding gift for my sis. The date's not been fixed yet, so that's the only stitching I need to do once the date's been confirmed and before I send it off to the framers.

The colours are quite sweet and demure, and the backstitching was troublesome! The borders were rather monotonous and not too quick a stitch that I imagined it to be.

Wedding Sampler by Joan Elliot

Stitched on 28ct Jubilee with DMC threads
16/12/2006 - 17/01/2007

Note: Need to ask you good folks an opinion. Do you think my sis's name is a little to the right? Should I unpick and just shift it to the left by one square? Unpicking is not a problem, I want to this perfectly.

To another finish...ah yes I am already skipping :) The Thistle Motif, a quick stitch in fact, lovely mottled colours and little fancy basketweave stitching going there. That's destined for my scrap book cover :) Lock on right here for updates! :)

Thistle Motif by Martha Schmidt of Needlemaid (freebie).
Stitched on 32ct Vintage Belfast with DMC threads
8/01/2007 - 16/01/2007

And now I go back to my regularly scheduled program i.e. the Sara Hathorne Sampler. Can't wait, she's a beauty just waiting to be stitched.

Exchange from Nik

Got my exchange just now and I immediately off the vacuum cleaner and opened the envelope. Sit back on my chair and relishing the moment :)

It's a lovely, lovely biscornu. Imacculately stitched and so meticulously finished. It's really small and so darn pretty. And I love that DMC 115!! The biscornu goes directly to populate my basket of smalls!!

What can I say Nik...merci beaucoup!

Stitching Corner

We've been having a lil discussion on NNC with regards to stitching rooms and corners so here's mine all tidied up after my weekly chores and definitely before I take this picture ;)


Since I am on Google Reader I suppose Sue is right as I do not really need a list of links on my side panel anymore. Other bloggers will know that I read/stalk their blogs when I comment on their blogs anyway.

Lacy Wall Hanger

I finally finished the wall/door hanger last night and have taken everyone's suggestion into consideration. Thank you so much for your opinions. I've gone with the suggestions to add lace, at the bottom and to add another row of lace. I've improvised (what's new!) the two rows of lace with a tiny strip of black ribbon. The lace reminds me of dresses from an era...Charleston anyone?

Nevermind my commentary here it is:


Beneath is yet another piece of faux pashmina that I bought from the Pasar Malam (night market) guy. Of course I got my usual discount...I am a charmer ;) This colour suits the motives I've been tatting for the 25 Motif Challenge more closely.

I've also started on yet another small, a freebie titled Thistle Motif by Martha Schmidt of Needlemaid It's gonna be for a cover of my scrap book or as Jess would say "inspirations" book. She's got a way with words that girl ;) I got tired of all the white for the Wedding Sampler, but I must try to finish it quite soon as I hear mumbles, something to the tune of 30th January...oh dear!

So I'm using my itsy bitsy hoop frame on my gigantic craft stand. Looks quite absurd huh?


And this is a close up of what the design looks like so far. Don't mind the stain, it's Vintage Belfast! :)


Comment Notes:

Lillie it's a 6" square. June and Faizon...what can I say...I've got to comply ;) Otherwise I'll be thrown out from the tatting group. Yeah Jess...call it 'craft combo' :D Radha, you can do it too, common just pick up that needle and thread. And to all a big thank you!

Links wiped out

by moi :(

I was fiddling with the sidebar last night and I deleted it. Accidently I assure you. I'll get it slowly back up as I scour the blog world and steal their URLs. I'll build it up slowly and I might just add more then I started with ;)

My sincere apologies to all.

Shall I lace it?

I've finished the sewing of the wall hanging, with a layer of batting and ribbons to tie into a bow. Now leaves the question of shall I add the tatted lace? I've not finished it, but wanted your opinion. It's my favourite one shuttle design for edgings and it's tatted on Cebelia 30. I am thinking just the bottom edge of the ornament, or shall I go all around? Or shall I ommit the lace all together?

French Redwork Exchange 2007

Azie has posted on the board that she has received her exchange yesterday. Am glad that she liked it. So I can now show them to you good people. A little about the FRE. It is very special exchange in many ways. The FRE is the inaugural exchange on NNC (a small, relatively new, lively group) and we had real good response. The exchanges are coming from far away places, i.e. Shanny in Switzerland and Jess in Australia. The other participants are within Malaysia. Not to mention it is my first ever exchange and certainly not my last. We've got the Valentine Stash Exchange (VSE) being finallised right this moment by Nik ;) and Pin Cushion Exchange (PCE) in the pipeline on NNC!

The organiser for the FRE was none other then Margaret Wong, a maestro in these things. She was so helpful with ideas and links to the French sites. Marvellous job indeed MW (how she is fondly known on NNC) :) Thank you!

Without further a do...

Front

Back (Azie's initials )

Inside (contents not included :p)

This design was stitched on 32ct Antique White Linen with DMC thread, finished into a stitchers' case. It houses a pocket with a ribbon to hold on to the scissors, a felt piece for the needles and a long compartment for floss. The design and alphabets were from PCB .

Comment Notes:
Thank you everyone for visiting my humble blog and being so kind with your lovely comments.

Off to a patchy start

This is what I manage to 'patch' up last evening. As there are 9 squares to the patchwork that is as many times I unpick and sewed it up again :( Aligning the squares was a nightmare. But the result is super. I salute quilters, what a massive task they undertake. And I am struggling with a 9 piece square...sheesh...

The calico beneath will be it's backing piece. Changed my mind, it's not going to be finished as a pincushion afterall. It's gonna be an ornament to be hung on my room door. I've got some black ribbons for the hanging, just not quite decided about adding some tatted lace around it. Let me tat up some black lace and we'll see ;)

A finish and a start

I finished my Doily Tat-A-Long last night. It's designed by Faizon for our SNN group. You could continue tatting this same motif again and again and join them to make a bigger piece. So it's quite versatile really. But I will stop here as I am contemplating to applique this motif to a book cover I want to make. Hmmm...the idea's still brewing...


Stealing an idea from Jess of NNC, I am going to finish this tiny piece of quaker stitching from the Quaker 6 Mains Ensemble into a 9 square pin cushion. The stitching will be for the middle square. Jess has been doing up hexagons, but I thought "OK I am adventurer but I am no fool!!". Hexs are mighty difficult when I walk through the finishing in my mind.

It's gonna be a rather big pin cushion i.e 6"square, but my basket of 'smalls' will fill up much quicker ;) I think the pieces of fabric look quite classy...we'll have to wait till it is finished though.

Happy New Year!

2007 is here. Sure right what they say, time waits for no man (or woman). I have some resolutions that I'd want to see fulfilled in 2007. Not any earth shattering ones, just some "plain should have been done in 2006" ones :p

There's the weight issue. By golly, this is a real monster. I am only looking to lose 2 kg! How hard can that be?? The last stretch is always the hardest huh? OK that has to be settled this year, for pete's sake enough is enough. Randi use that whip! :)

As for the stitching front, I am looking at a slow down. I am so enamoured by the one project at a time thingy. I like the concept but I am struggling to achieve it. Try I must. This is how I see it, work on a main project (any size/craft) and other smalls are allowed like exchanges, the finishing SAL's that's lined up for the year at NNC, little gifts etc... That should make be terribly happy.

Here are a couple of finishes since Christmas.

I unpicked the Needlework Roll I did a couple of weeks back and swapped the flannel with a matching piece of cotton fabric. I thought it would be much nicer and so it is.


At NNC we're having the Boxy Lady Project and I've bought a lovely heart shaped tin that's perfect for the project. The stitching was easy. It's a freebie from a French designer of which I can't recall and I am using Anchor Variegated, but I must remember to use linen instead of aida the next time I try this. The aida was kinda stiff and it didn't 'wrap' too well. I will give the Boxy Lady Project another shot, I've got some more ideas brewing ;)


And at SNN there's the Tat-A-Long that Faizon has organised. The design is all her own and very versatile. I've finished tatting two of the corners after I took this photo, the pic of the soon to be finished doily will be for another time :)


Then there's my current WIP, the Wedding Sampler for my sis. It's going smoothly but have not stitched it for a few days now, because my sis was chilling in my room so darn often! Just note that the chart has some mistakes so be careful if you wanna stitch this piece by Joan Elliot.


Most of all I thank everyone that has dropped by and all that have commented. I do appreciate it and it surely makes my day. I hope I have helped somewhat with the simple toilet roll tutorial or the polymer clay tutorial. I have learnt so much in 2006, from blogging and people who blog especially craft related sites. So I say to my fellow Internet friends, good health and happiness always!