Beaded necklace

My sister started beading this year and loves it. She came up to the mountains with me in October and we had a beading marathon. One of the things we did was each buy the same kit and make it. We decided on this one from Melanie Potter called Marsha.

French knots

Here is a sample of French knots only. It was fun and easy, but net time I want to do it with a plan or design in mind from the beginning.

Couched stitch sample

I am trying to create multiple sample pieces that explore a single stitch. This one only uses crouching, during the coming year I hope to do a few a month. Sharon boggin's Take a Stitch Tuesday's is a great source for inspiration. Many of the threads used in this piece were hand dyed in New Mexico.

Fiber forum piece, contemporary embroidery

Last April I attended the fiber forum retreat in Santa Fe. I was juried into the group the year before and have been very excited about attending. Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn led the workshop. This piece was created on a piece of fabric that I made from small scraps of sheers that are pieced together with an embellished. For more information about Fiber Forum, check out The Embroidery Guild of America.

Japanese bead embroidery, phase one

This is phase one of the Japanese bead embroidery. It turns in to glass case. The piece is pretty basic, but turns out nice. The point is to learn the structure of Jen and how it differs from other forms of bead embroidery.

Japanese Bead Embroidery, phase three

I haven't posted in almost a year. I mentioned to someone at work that I had a blog, so I decided that I had better get back to it. I am going to try and post some of the work from the last year. This is my phase three certification project for Japanese Bead embroidery. I plan on staring on phase four in January. This pieces had tons of couched lines (which needed to be straight), but the really fun part of this was the three dimensional aspect of the poppies.

Complex Stitched Design Four, Chapter Eight

Complex Stitched Design Three, Chapter Eight

Layer one: sheer machine stitched down

Layer two: painted wonder under

Layer three: machine stitched grid on Water Soluble

Padded layer of yellow (don't have a clue how it became so lopsided)!!!

Last, I hand stitched to bring out the yellow and to integrate the design. I also have been having computer trouble and no longer have my Photoshop! It was old anyway and needed to be upgraded, but in the meantime, it is hard for me to crop!

Complex Stitched Design Two, Chapter Eight

OKAY! I really tried to go complex on this one! I used kunin felt as the base with another layer of kunin felt pressed together using an embellisher. I then "created" a square of fabric with ribbon yarn using water soluble and machine stitching. This was then treated as a layer which is machine stitched down. The yellow layer is then padded with batting. The yellow felt triangles where added last.

Complex Stitched Design One, Chapter Eight

I really wanted to start simple with this chapter's assignments. My base layer is only machine stitching. I bourt a new computerized machine the year before and really haven't used the some of the special stitches "muscle" yet. I programmed a stitch size that I thought would be appropriate for the size and density. For the top layer, I purposely choose a computerized stitch what would work with instead of fight the satin fabric's tendency to fray.

Stitch Design Six, Chapter Seven

I really wanted to add a fourth layer to one of these samples; however, when it came time to add a top layer, I decided against it.

I used Kunin felt as a base and then my hand dyed purple burlap. The burlap really turned out wonderful and added great texture to the piece. I then added a piece of my stamped fabric on top. I really liked this sample.