Another Kantha Stitching

Do you remember this little piece that I made a few years ago?

I decided to try to make another one, a bit larger. For both of them I made a quilt sandwich and then quilted a grid on it. Some of the design elements go through the grid, but most designs are kept inside of the grid.

When I looked at this older one from a distance, I could see that the lighter lines provided some kind of design element. So I decided to do that more purposefully on the new piece. I filled in all the lighter lines first, and then put in the brighter, darker designs. Finally, I got out my darker thread to fill in the backgrounds.

Its funny, with most anything I do, there comes a time when I am bored with it. I usually don’t put it away, but I just won’t pick it up and stitch on it for quite a while. And then one day, I pick it up again, and just keep stitching until it is finished.

To finish it, I cut one edge off at a time at about 1/4 inch, and satin stitched it with #5 perle cotton thread. (I cut one edge at a time because I didn’t want it to get frayed as I worked.)

Here is the new piece:

And some close-ups:

Here is a picture of the back of the piece. I hope you can see the grid that I quilted before starting the embroidery. This piece is about 14″ X 11.” The grid is just a series of squares and rectangles.

This is a fun project. I recommend trying it. It is already quilted by the grid. So the running stitches just go through the top and the batting for the most part.

A Home Retreat

This fall I considered going on a self-retreat. I usually go up to Lake Tahoe. The prices are reasonable in the fall, and it is one of my favorite places to visit. But for some reason I really didn’t want to leave home for a week. So I decided to do a home retreat. This takes a bit of discipline and preparation. I try to cook food ahead of time so I don’t have to spend time cooking. I also make a schedule for myself, and try to stick to that schedule to accomplish what I want to do during the retreat. The purpose of this retreat was both spiritual and creative. My goal was to spend a couple of hours in the morning reading and praying, and then work on a specific project in the afternoon. The project I chose was  what I call “the water quilt.” Remember when I dyed all that silk organza? I had the idea that it might be used to represent water. I already had a verse chosen for it. It amazes me how much I got done by limiting myself to one project for that week!

Here is the water quilt.

After I took this picture, I washed and blocked it. This technique I learned from a collage quilt artist a long time ago. You do tight stitches around the border of each component, and then sometimes a nice velvety looking fringe appears. I thought that might add to the look of the rocks. Here are the pictures after it was washed:

All in all, it was a very successful home retreat!

Here are a couple of other things I was doing before the retreat–I finished another quilt top, and I have been spinning quite a bit of fiber. So fun!

I hope you all have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

Where Have I Been? What Have I Been Doing?

Well, I’ve been working away at my usual crafts. Just not taking time to blog about it. I’ll try to catch up with everything this week. But one thing I’ve been working on consistently is that big quilt that I was using a pattern for. The quilt was published in The Quilt Life magazine six years ago!

First I quilted all the churn dash blocks.

Next I drew hundreds of pomegranate designs on the quilt and quilted them.

Then it was time to add a couple of big rows of leaves and vines.

And THEN there were two big rows of feathers. I also decided to put feathers all the way around the outside border. That is the only change I made in the quilt.

And finally (even though you could see them in the previous pictures,) I started adding hundreds and thousands of bubbles to outline the pomegranates and leaves. Just about every day I would spend some time working on these. My eyes got very tired, and I asked my long arm friend about it. She said I needed to blink my eyes more!

And then on Friday, all of a sudden, I was done with all the bubbles! Saturday I put the binding on and washed it. I am too short, so even though I was standing on a stepladder, I couldn’t get a great picture of the finished quilt. But you can get the idea. Just in time to keep me warm all winter. Its fun having a quilt that hangs over the edges of the bed more than most of my quilts do.

I’m working on several projects (of course) and am enjoying spinning and knitting as well. I’ll post a few more times this week to try to catch up on my projects.