my creative week A finish! "The chalice"

 

"The chalice"  10.5" X 14.5"

For this week's creativity round-up, I painted, sewed, embroidered and learned ...

I started the quilt above as a way to sew tiny strips together with no goal in mind.

and planned to use the painted fabric for my table scraps challenge this month, embroidering all over it.

 

then I looked into my orange scrap bin, since the color of the month at RSC is orange, and saw a little cup shaped piece left from cutting flowering snowball blocks one year... ohhhhhh. 

orange on orange

I glued it on, put the strip+cup on batting, sewed a quick zigzag stitch around to secure it, and started hand embroidering it. First a black thread size 8 perle cotton for outline stitch around and on the base. Then a thick gold (bratty and easily frayed) thread for accents to make it look Medieval. 

Joy challenged us to use embroidery on our table scraps this month. I did a running stitch, then pistle stitch alternated with a single chain like stitch hanging from it. I purposely didn't sew the chalice itself down to the batting so it would puff up when I machine stitched along the tiny strip set to push back the background

Next up along the side borders I did a sort of lazy daisy decorative element and a running stitch along the top. I was surprised at how pretty the thick gold thread was hand stitched onto the surface. 

I made good use of the latest needle book, made in zen stitch workshop a couple months ago

It's now my favorite needlebook and so useful

The strips themselves were random sizes, uneven and raveling. I sewed them one to the other, without worrying about the width, as I like organic lines. None of them were more than 3/4" wide cut.I like to sew tiny pieces together to see what emerges.

after the edges were polished off, I wondered what would imply fun coming from the cup... a little magic in our humdrum world today. I got out the iron on crystals, hearts and diamonds. Yes I have a stash of iron on embellishments. arranged them and pressed to set the adhesive. 

from the old days when I wandered the aisles of Joann and Michaels stores. 

outline stitch creates the base, and french knots the golden lines near the base

I don't know where this will go or how I'll use it. Table Scraps challenge is to make something to cover a surface any size. 

I changed my rotary cutting blade this week.....life changing... wow!

it takes little effort to cut fabric now! Why do we put up with a dull blade for so long??  One nick in the blade leads to another, and it dulls slowly. I would go over and over a line to cut it.

 Reminds me of cleaning the microwave. You get one spot, then another and you'll clean it later it's not THAT bad and when you finally get around to cleaning it, you're so happy and proud!

a friend of mine, after cleaning her microwave had her daughter come in and exclaim, "so clean! Is grandma coming to visit?" 

so now cutting is a breeze and I continue to make these X blocks for what I don't know. 

 I watched this video and plan to watch her tutorials on youtube later

what an embroidery show! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u41Q7z9KMkE
 as I mentioned, I painted also this week but plan to share that next week...they deserve their own post! 

Linking to

https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2022/08/august-2022-table-scraps-challenge-link.html

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

patchwork Sunday                    

oh Scrap Sundays

 slow stitching Sundays

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays 

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays  

http://www.myquiltinfatuation.com/ 

off the wall Fridays   

peacock party

tgiffriday

finished or not