Sunday

Photos for recordkeeping: these are the two quilts I've done for the Alison Glass Stitch Club Kantha sew-along.

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Wednesday

Embracing change rather than resisting it ...

 

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Stitch Club 22

I've spent a little more time refining my color array for the Stitch Club kantha project.  The large-motif moth fabric will be my focus blocks, and the color strips will be alternating blocks. 

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Feathers and Stitch Club

A final photo of my completed Feathers quilt, from the Alison Glass sew-along earlier this year.  It's taking me such a long time to accomplish anything anymore.  But now it's finally quilted, bound, and ready for action :)

And I'm getting organized for the Stitch Club kantha project, which begins April 19.

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Stitch Club

 Alison Glass STITCH CLUB 2022

I was very excited about this announcement!  I did the Stitch Club series in 2020 and thoroughly enjoyed it.  In fact, a recommendation from Alison led me to the Dropcloth Sampler series, which I've been stitching on ever since.

This new Stitch Club series will focus on kantha stitching and running stitches.  We did a kantha project in the earlier Stitch Club: I'd hoped to make my stitched piece into a jacket, but then I got waylaid with moving twice.  My piece was made up into a large pillow.  Looking forward to seeing what I end up with this time!

 

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Stitch Club

My participation patch for 2020 Stitch Club arrived -- how fun!  I guess I'll need a badge sash, like Girl Scouts.  Looking forward to the 2021 Alison Glass Stitch Club series.

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Stitch Club - November

November brings the final installment in the Alison Glass Stitch Club series. 

 This month's topic is wool applique.

Several different styles and techniques were discussed in the newsletter, but the "look" that caught my eye was Sue Spargo's work.  I stitched up a fun pincushion using some wool and buttons for embellishment.  For the back, I finished some of the strands of floss left over from the front, using the kantha stitch that was presented in the first month's Stitch Club. 

I have enjoyed participating in this monthly series, exploring a different style of handwork each time.  I enjoyed doing "stitching" at many earlier times of my life, and it was pleasant and relaxing to revisit this type of work.  There is already talk of a new Stitch Club for 2021, and I will be looking forward to it!

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Stitch Club - October

This month's topic at Stitch Club was embellishing printed fabrics.  Techniques such as broderie perse and crazy quilt patchwork were included.

Hand embroidery work has been a soothing pastime for me recently, so I was interested in exploring an October project.  I found a nice fat quarter that featured a moth motif and some surrounding floral designs that seemed like a promising place to start.  I wasn't sure what parts of the fabric I wanted to use, so I cut around one entire repeat of the print, thinking I could trim it down later when things were more defined.  But as soon as I cut into the fabric, the moth and flowers were no longer what I saw.

 Here's where I began:

And here's where I ended up:

My project became a calavera, a representation of a Mexican sugar skull for

  Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dead.

I'm calling her Clara, 

after Clare of Assisi, patron saint of needleworkers.  She is keeping watch over my sewing room.

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Ring Toss

Ring Toss by Dropcloth Samplers

done in October-ish colors. 

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Turning over a new leaf ...

... or a new palm frond, in this case.

Well, I must say: our recent move has taken a lot out of me.  To begin with, we were not at all enthusiastic about relocating -- it was done for practical reasons, for family reasons, but emotionally it was very difficult.  It all happened so quickly, and the red house has already been sold.  And physically, it was a HUGE amount of work in a short time.  An additional stress factor was a massive wildfire threatening the mountain communities at exactly the time we were packing and loading.  In fact, we were under evacuation notice the day the moving van came up the mountain to load our furniture, and we felt fortunate that they got the job done.    

This new little house is nice, but so entirely different from the old one.  My things don't seem to fit here spiritually, but maybe eventually it'll all settle in.   And the climate here is just about as opposite as it can be from the high mountains -- it's tropical and humid, just a stone's throw from the ocean, so we get socked with the marine layer fog every night.  I'm yearning for cold dry bright weather and golden aspen leaves, but I have palm trees and plumeria and pomegranates now.  It's also very urban and lively here, as opposed to the silence and solitude we were accustomed to up there in the forest.  Sigh.  

In any case, we are safe and comfortable, if not entirely at ease, and are just a few minutes away from family.  Lorenzo and Lucci come over to visit Grandpa and Grandma almost every day.  So: onward with life.

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I haven't done anything quilt-related for many weeks.  I have been stitching along now and then on this quirky Red Stripe Sampler, just to keep a spark of needlework creativity glimmering in my spirit.  I do miss working with colors and fabrics though, and I'm going to look for a new project to get myself going again.

 

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Red Stripe Sampler

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Stitch Club - September

September Stitch Club was about hooped embroidery, an old favorite of mine.  I don't have much time to spend to this right now because of packing, but I stitched up a couple of quick dishtowels.

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Stitch Club - August

The topic this month at Alison Glass Stitch Club is couching and filled stitches.

I had a nice array of chunky yarns available, so I worked up this rainbow sampler to get started.  The vivid colors are brightening up the cloudiness that's been in my spirit recently.   I have a couple of other possible projects in mind also -- we'll see what else I get done.  

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Stitch Club - July

I just finished this mat for July Stitch Club!

The theme this month is sashiko.  The pattern I used is a classic 'asa no ha' design, but my color choices are non-traditional.  

I enjoyed this relaxing and soothing stitchery technique.  I have several more of these preprinted sampler squares, and will definitely return to this technique to make something larger. 

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Stitch Club - June

I've been sporadically working on some hand stitchery for Alison Glass Stitch Club.  Finally made it to the final section of my ochre kantha project, and I'm still expecting that a soft jacket will eventually be the result.  

This month's technique is sashiko, and I'm ready to begin puttering with a small square of that also.  Absolutely nothing in the way of sewing has been happening lately -- I'm totally on hold with quiltmaking, and seem to have lost my mojo entirely.

We'd been hoping (fantasizing) that a trip to Boston to visit Nick, Stacey, and Rhiannon would be possible this summer, but it seems more and more evident that travel isn't advisable. We have also been discussing the possibility of moving.  We'd like to be closer to the kiddos, and downsizing a bit certainly wouldn't hurt: this is a big place to take care of and we're not getting any younger.  But the daily news continues to be so disheartening … we're feeling very challenged about making any life-changing decisions right now.  

So, just drifting through the days here.  And I'm afraid things are going to get worse before they get better.
   

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Ochre

I enrolled in the  Alison Glass Stitch Club a few weeks ago, and I received the first month's club journal the other day.  It's a beautiful publication, filled with informative articles, links to additional resources, many color photos, and detailed instruction for several projects involving the month's featured technique:

 kantha stitching.

Kantha is a traditional stitchery technique from India.  It involves stitching layers of cloth together using rows of large running stitches.  The resulting textile, with no batting between the layers, is soft and drapey and slightly puckered.  

The example photos featured bright saturated color combos, so I was inspired to develop a vivid palette for my project also. 

 I settled on 'ochre' as my inspiration:  

A class of natural earths, mixtures of hydrated oxide of iron with various earthy materials, ranging in color from pale yellow to orange and red, and used as pigments.

I pulled an array of ochre fabrics, including a couple of backing possibilities. 

I've been serenely stitching along on kantha rows for the past few days.  I'm particularly enjoying the portability of this project, spending pleasant hours out on the deck!

 

Depending on how long my attention span continues, my length of stitched cloth might possibly become a soft little jacket some day -- not making any commitments at this point though :)

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Stitch Club

I've decided to try something a bit different for the summer months -

Alison Glass STITCH CLUB

I've been intrigued with the Alison Glass palette and style this year, and this activity caught my eye.  Stitchery sounds like a nice change of pace.  These will be once-a-month projects with an emphasis on process rather than product.  I'm looking forward to stitching in the gazebo on summer afternoons.

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