Stitched Blessings, Squares 1 and 2

The beginnings of my blessings…

Me and my hubby, John, are the best of buddies…and we love to snorkel. Living here in Hawaii , we are blessed with (just about) 365 days a year in which we CAN and are ABLE to snorkel. Go warm weather and sunshine!

Can you see the resemblance?

The bottom edging is a Stem Stitch-Portuguese Knot, the sides are Feather Stitch, the top is a Running Stitch with an interspersed Double Cross Stitch. I think of it as corals below, greens and seaweeds for the sides and sunning skies above.  All the edges are stitched with a multi-color dyed Caron Watercolor thread.

What’s snorkeling without some water and waves.  Here is some embroidery with a ‘twist’ for the wave action! Stitched with Blanket Stitch-Detached Twisted Bar and some good ‘ole DMC thread.

Did I mention that these are 1 inch squares?

Very tiny faces. Very tiny squares.

This has been a great start! I’ve already had some fun!

Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun! –
smiles,
alicia in Hawaii

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White on White Squares

As I am setting up my 100 squares, I am tackling some stitching logistics.

Here is one of my solutions. Instead of a pencil line or washable ink line, I’m trying white on white, backstitch outline, to delineate the squares.

This is over 2 threads, 40ct. fabric.

A 1″x1″ square

It’s mostly visible and I think it will be easy enough to embroider/stitch over as I add outlines for the “boxes” as they get stitched.

Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun! –
smiles,
alicia in Hawaii

Stitching 100 Blessings

This morning, simply by ‘chance’, I opened an email from a cross stitch/embroidery group and learned about a stitch-a-long that involves 100, 1in. blocks, each depicting a ‘blessings’.

Now, blessings have been keeping me afloat lately. Not exactly the blessings…but the RECOGNITION of those blessings.  And that journey started when a fellow plurker asked for people to join her with “Simple Abundance” journey. I have been reading through that book and trying to keep up with that here… Simple Abundance ~ Curiosities808. Well…I couldn’t help but wonder if the message of the Universe was to PAY ATTENTION  to the coinciding messages here…and get to stitching!

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My thoughts? Well…this is what went through my head…

“100 blocks! OMG!”

“1in. blocks! OMG!”

“Blessings…Simple Abundance…wow…”

“Hey, this could be a lot of fun”

“Another large project…it will never get finished…”

“But, wow…that could be a lot of fun…”

FUN WON!

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I looked at the link provided in the email. (here it is, …don’t forget to come back here after you take a peek…)  Counting My Blessings and after looking…and thinking…and wondering…and dreaming…

I started digging. Digging DEEP into the supply bucket of fabrics. The whole while I was wondering how much detail I could pack into a teeny tiny itty bitty 1″x1″ fabric area.

And then I found it.

40 ct. fabric.

Yes.

40 ct.

Only problem…I only had a 5″x5″ square of it…and I will need at LEAST a 10″x10″ to stitch in 100 squares of wonderfully thoughtful blessings.

So, needless to say, my wonderful hubby, who

a. knows how much I love to start projects

b. knows how important it is for us to ‘count our blessings’

c. is always and ever supportive of any creative project

volunteered right away with ideas and solutions! Off we went to the Local Needlework Shop, Fiddlesticks!  Where I was able to get a piece of 40ct. large enough to start my layout of 100, 1″x1″ squares to stitch 100 blessings!

(See the 40ct. fabric…sooooo tiny)

Now you’ve seen the stash…I am off to card up the threads, mark in the squares, and get set to GO!

I’m posting this also in a separate “100 blessings only” project blog:

http://curiosities808countingmyblessings.wordpress.com/

Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun! –
smiles,
alicia in Hawaii

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If you’d like to sign up to join the stitching fun, follow the links and info on Amy’s Counting My Blessings blog.

I’ll be happy to add you to my links as well, so send me an email

curiosities808@gmail.com

or leave a comment here if you are planning to stitch along with the 100 blessings blocks!

The Scarlet Letter, Golden “A” embroidery

The embroidery is done on the Scarlet Letter project!

I embroidered krienik gold braid on the red velvet using stem stitch to outline and define the letter “A”.

The complete “A” here, in contrast, to the black side of the mat.

The red side of the mat is red velvet, the reverse is a black velvet-type fabric. The pieces are sewn together, then turned. I hand closed the last seam and topstitched the edges.

A custom piece in it’s final presentation…

Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun! –
smiles,
alicia in Hawaii
See my Store! http://Curiosities808.artfire.com

The Scarlet Letter

Well…it is Scarlet…and it is a Letter…lol.

Here’s an embroidery project. And although the thread is not going to make the “A” scarlet, it is going on a scarlet velvet fabric.

First, here is the outside and flipside fabric. Outter bound, red…Inner bound black-ish.

I would like to embroider a Gold thread “A” in the lower corner of the Scarlet fabric. My plan: to get a hot iron transfer design onto the red fabric, then embroider with gold thread.

To get a good sample of my signature “A”, I blocked off a workable size by folding some printing paper and creating some size boundaries. Then, I just wrote in several “A”s and picked one of the samples as my final “A”.

After picking out  the “A” that I want, I got out my trusty Sulky Hot Iron Transfer Pen and some scissors.

To make the iron on transfer, trace the BACKSIDE/WRONGSIDE of the design with the Sulky Iron On Transfer Pen. Be sure to make the line dark so that it will transfer well. I used a brown pen here.

Now, cut apart the design area you need. Be sure that the sulky pen side, the reverse design is FACING the fabric. Here you see the reverse “A”.

Flip it over so that you see the RIGHTside of your design and place it where you want it. Here I have placed the “A” where I want it to be on the Scarlet fabric.

Heat the iron to cotton…apply heat to transfer…

and after a bit of heating and moving the iron to all the places in the design…

voila!

My Scarlet Letter is ready for embroidery! Now, let me get the gold thread ready!!!

Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun! –
smiles,
alicia in Hawaii
See my Store! http://Curiosities808.artfire.com