Hand Embroidery on Batik

Last weekend a very good friend of mine, Kathy, turned 80. In lieu of gifts, she asked her friends to create something on  a batik square she sent to each of us. 

I had a lot of fun making this for her.

At her party, which was at McPhee's in Templeton, all the squares were displayed 

on a 'clothesline.'  I wish I would have taken pictures of them. 

There was such a wide variety of wonderful craftsmanship.

Happy Birthday Kathy!

Mother's Day

Happy Mothers' Day to all my blog readers who happen to be mothers. 

My mom is the reason I love to sew and garden so much. 

Here's the whole family on one of the many fun vacations we took.  My beautiful mom is to the right of me.  I'm driving (the whole family crazy as always, no doubt).  

This is the last piece of embroidery that my mom was working on.  I still remember stitching on dresser scarves and pillow cases in the crowded car on many a family vacation. 

It is still unfinished, maybe some day I'll finish it for her.  She was in early stages of Alzheimer's and had interesting color choices,unlike the more realistic ones she would have chosen in her earlier life.

Here's a closeup of hand embroidery in one my pieces. 

 Thanks for passing on your love of handwork mom.  I miss you.

Hand Embroidery

I've been embroidering since I was about 10 years old.  I enjoyed it then and still do.  Back then I was embroidering dresser cloths and towels which had stamped designs.  Now I like the  fabric to dictate to me what needs to be outlined, emphasized or filled in with thread texture.

Over on the "And then we started it on fire blog,"  http://andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com/ a variety of artists have  been sharing some great info and pictures of their wonderful hand stitching throughout the month  of March. Be sure to click on my link to the right to check it out.

Here's a picture of a piece I've been working on for some time, which I keep in my craft bag, so I can quickly grab it when I know I may be sitting somewhere.

This piece was made through using Setacolor transparent paints with tissue paper overlays

 and then placed in the sun to dry.  The colored tissue paper was then removed, 

leaving an imprint of the color on top of the paint. 

 Above and below are some closeup areas of some of the stitching thus far. 

Hand Embroidery with thickened Dye Prints

 With it getting  chilly here in California, that means below 30 degrees, as opposed to 30 degrees below 0, a temperature we would have in winters in Wisconsin, where I grew up, I pulled out my cotton velveteen quilt to finish stitching.  It keeps me warm as I stitch on it.  I used thickened procion dyes and had a great time drawing line patterns on it.  This quilt started out as a whole piece of fabric and I painted rectangles of solid, bright colors randomly on it with thickened dyes.  After letting it dry a little, I used a syringe, brush and cardboard tube to draw and print line patterns, again using thickened dyes.  It was a fun afternoon of serious play.   Then I cut it apart and reshuffled the rectangles to repeat the colors and patterns in a more random way.

The next step was to quilt it.  I have loved hand embroidery since my mom taught me years ago.  I can remember stitching on stamped pillow cases, floral designs and girls in old-fashioned dresses and bonnets.  Every time I embroider it brings back wonderful memories of my sweet mom. I still have her old Coats and Clark booklet of stitches, which is actually pretty good, and cost only a quarter, back in the day.

Here is a close-up of some of the embroidery on this quilt.  I use mostly perle cotton, #8.