Since the beginning of the Personal Library of Stitches class, my poor baby has been a bit ignored. I have finished one side of the flowers on the longest row, so I feel like I am half done with that part. Getting a little anxious to finish it..grin
As I am involved right now with Sharon Boggon’s on-line Personal Library of Stitches class from Joggles.com, I was looking for some ideas on embroidery alphabets and came across The Victoria Sampler . Their free patterns are lovely and there are many of them. Inspirational to say the least.
~firefly of I live on a farm initiated a project last fall called Project Gracious Parcels. If you are looking to bust your stash this would be a wonderful way to do it. 7″ knitted squares are done, mailed to her and she joins them together into blankets for Habitat for Humanity. More information is on her blog…
If you are looking for some unique knitted square patterns, smariek knits has some lovely patterns up… Have a look…
I recently took up naalbinding… With a sliver of oak and a file, I made my first naalbinding needle and off I went into this ancient craft. Well…. in 900 AD they didn’t have acrylics. While the relic pieces that have been found in Viking ships were degraded, it was still possible to see that there were no knots in this work. The wool yarn ends were felted to each other as the need arises resulting in one long piece of yarn with no joinings. …. But what about today with all the acrylics …
I came across this tutorial for Russian joining at Auntie M’s and was instantly in love. This is intended for work with crochet and knitting, but could be used any time you need to join threads… I’m in love… While you are at Auntie M’s, have a look at her free patterns page…
I’ve often wondered why the idea of bed-warmers seems to have gotten lost in the warp of time. Being one of those frozen feet persons who takes until about 3 in the morning for her feet to warm up, I fell in love with this idea from the get go. Not only that…I will keep in my end table drawer because my feet don’t wait until bedtime to get cold. I am posting this without a pic because I haven’t had time to make one yet and I know it’s really cold in Kansas right now….not to mention Michigan.
Ashley of dogged.-A girl, her mutt, and some yarn has shared a tutorial showing how to make her rice filled bed-warmer. Wonderful… Have a look…
Several years ago I received a Christmas card in the mail that had the most wo
nderful thought printed on it. I kept it and one day decided I wanted to cross stitch it. So I did. When I decided to give it to my son and his wonderful partner for Christmas, I needed to find some small pattern that would coordinate with what I wanted to say. As I put the pieces together, it worked beautifully.
For anyone wanting to put together their own sampler or for crazy quilters who want small and easily done cross stitch patterns for their embellishments, Offe’s Cross Stitch is the perfect resource with 80 or so free patterns. Her small patterns are free online with the choice of color or black and white patterns. There are tools that can be used to calculate the amount of design size, fabric size or stitch count. There are tutorials for cross stitch and alphabet work. Have a look….
What a resource for quilters! Victoriana Quilters is a membership site, but it also has many wonderful free quilting resources. As I am into my first quilt, I found the Quilting Designs very helpful as I am deciding how I want to do the actual quilting on my quilt. The Library page has links to such useful information as Calculator Charts, Quilting Techniques, Quilt Styles…and more. Have a look…..
A while back I did a post on Michael Cook and his HGTV segment about the ancient craft of tablet (card) weaving. On his website, Wormspit.com, he shows that card weaving is only one of his accomplishments. Saganishiki is the Japanese weaving technique that uses lacquered or gilded rice paper warp and silk thread for the weft. The photo at right is Michael’s work during a workshop with Mihoko Karaki. He includes photos of her work on his page and it is more than worth the click to see her beautiful work.
It seems he is not only a talented spinner and weaver, he also knits. And makes his own knitting markers… with the tutorial here. Wish he lived next door!
edit….. I’m sorry, but Daily Stitches is no longer online.
I have found another great blog. Daily Stitches is a new quilting, stitching, knitting.
..the needle arts… blog by Joanne W. And such talent! This is one of my favorites of her quilts. If you click on the pic it will take you to her Flickr site where you can see it in detail…lovely.
Since I have been working on my first quilt ever, I found her tutorial re: truing up quilt blocks that came out too small very inspiring. Nothing drags down my desire to finish something faster than finding that I screwed up about 10 hours ago in the first layer and thinking that I will have to go back and undo..redo…put back together and practically start over. This was the answer for me.. It’s an article that was written for a quilting magazine that she is now sharing with us for free. It’s called Sashing Undersized Blocks and is in pdf. format. It’s great… Have a look…
If you love dolls or just need some inspiration, this is it. Linda Apple at Apple Arts has created some awesome little lovelies… elves, goblins, sprites… and they live in the village of Appleshire. They all have hand made clothes, aprons, books, clocks…etc. They are wonderful. Have a look…
