August 2011 - ReveDreams.com

Feeling Stitchy Stitchalong

Feeling Stitchy hosts a stitchalong each month, with different themes. Often it’s a pattern that everyone embroiders in their own way. This month it was about embellishing printed fabric with embroidery. That’s something I’d been wanting to try for a while, so I went to Jo-Ann’s and looked at the fat quarters, picked out a black and white piece on which to embroider colored details, and went to work.

…except that project seemed insurmountably big and didn’t really hold my attention. I had given up hope on participating in the stitchalong until this weekend, when I was pondering the upcoming employee art fair at work. I would like to submit something, but the deadline is a week from today and has to include a photo of the piece. With nothing begun nine days before the deadline, what could I possibly accomplish?

Answer: a small art quilt. By small, I mean six inches square. The thoughts flowed while I ironed prewashed remnants Saturday morning, and while the original idea I pulled fabric for was not the one I settled on, I was decided by that afternoon.

Of course stitching didn’t start until Sunday afternoon. It was a perfect Irene-rain activity. The quilt isn’t done, of course, but here are the first two bits of embroidery.

I started with a fun tropical orange fabric with dotted-line drawings and just stitched along the lines and doodled in the open spaces. Next I chose a classic pink and indigo fabric and embossed its design.

The quilt is likely to include bits from the following fabrics as well:

Sushi fish

Oh man, did these ever take forever for me to finish. According to my Ravelry records, I’ve only been working on them since mid-April, but it feels much longer.

But without further ado:

Fish to sushi, a clever pattern from Irene Kiss, AKA Irka. She also has a chicken-to-egg pattern and a rags-to-ballgown Cinderella pattern. The post is in Spanish but there is a link to an English pdf at the top.

I just had difficulty, unrelated to the complexity of the pattern. The first sushi rolls I made were too tight, so I remade them in a soft acrylic instead of cotton. Then I apparently miscounted drastically on one of the seaweed wraps, because when I went to sew the rice on it was way too short. I decided it was easier to start over on that one (and I’d only sewn the solid rice side onto it, the easier one to redo).

I did have trouble with the fin and tail patterns, and ended up designing my own instead.

Then, of course, there was all the sewing. So much sewing! Four fins and two eyes per fish, all the way around twice plus the seaweed seam per sushi roll, and finally sewing the roll to the fish. I don’t think you could achieve the same effect without all the sewing, but I have trouble forcing myself to sit down and just do it.

A note of advice to anyone who wants to make this pattern: crochet loosely. Go up a hook size from what you would usually use on the yarn at hand (actually, lately I use an E hook with worsted weight, and used an F with this – and I wish I’d used a G or H). Nothing has to be stuffed, and looser, more flexible fabric will make the transformation much easier. Mine are kind of hard to stuff back and forth, though I’m hoping they will ease up with use.

Sketchbook update

Oh boy. Unless I pick it up, this is not going to be done by the deadline. Anyway, I have scheduled myself monthly update posts, so as to give me intermediate deadlines to have something new done.

I did a little more than what I’m about to show you, but did not complete any other pages. The one I finished, front and back, was the first page of the book:

I should be getting my sewing machine back from the shop tomorrow, so I’ll have it to try out per melydia’s suggestion.