Mary Wigham, ATC/NTC, Pebble

Well, talk about stress!   They've changed Blogger on me so wish me luck on posting this blog as it all looks soooo different!
Well, what have I been doing?  

First of all, my progress on the Mary Wigham sampler being done in Facebook, "Sampler World".

With regards to the Mary Wigham sampler, when you download the free pattern, you are not able to download a photo of the completed sampler, as done by Mary Wigham.  Well, you can download it, but it is so small that you can't really see anything very well.  When I was first stitching the sampler, I found errors in the pattern.  At first, I was making corrections.  I then realized that the pattern may be following Mary's sampler exactly, errors and all.  And I was trying to figure this out by looking at this very tiny photo of the sampler, which I wasn't too happy about doing.  My eyes just aren't cut out for that! 

As I mentioned before, I am using some 22 count beige Hardanger fabric that I had at home and am stitching the sampler over one thread, using one thread of DMC.   I have been stitching on this sampler Monday evenings at stitching guild and Wednesdays with friends.  I think I have two or three more rows to do!

Well, I went looking for your link to view the Mary Wigham sampler and it is gone!?   I will have to take a look at the site when I have more time to see what is happening.  This is where it used to be:
http://needleprint.blogspot.ca/

I spent an enormous amount of time lately looking at blogs.  I'm sure we've ALL been there.  You start out at one blog, and that person has a gazillion links that you MUST visit and three hours later, you are left gasping for breath as your mind is swirling and whirling with all the new and exciting things you have seen and you wonder where the hell you are going to start!!!   All I can say is, I am totally overwhelmed with the depth and scope of imaginative talent out there!  WOW!   And it is all at there for our eyes to behold, after just touching a few keys or moving a little mouse.

Well, having said that, I decided to make my first ATC.  Artist Trading Cards, though I do not profess to be an Artist, so they are NTC's for me.  Newby Trading Cards.

This is the first I made.  There are a number of "firsts" for me in this NTC.  Its the first  NTC I made, the first time I made a scene out of fabric, the first time I used a stamp, (the trees with acrylic paints) and the first time I tried free motion stitching!   OH MY....   Those weird swirls are supposed to represent a windy sky!   When you see them on quilts, they look so simple and wonderful and so easy to make.   I beg to differ!   Go try to make a few!  Freehand, with no drawing to follow and I don't know if I even could have followed a drawing!!!

NTC number one

I was lucky to find a fabric that represented a colourful sunset but it had greens in it and I had to cut off a piece at the top of the NTC and add another piece so that there wouldn't be bushes in the sky!



My second NTC:

I've had this idea in my mind for a while about making a wall hanging, that sort of looks like the NTC, but a little fancier.  It is loaded with stitching and beads, and sparkle, etc.  So I decided to try an NTC first.  All went well, except I wanted to make some of the organza grass 3 Dimensional and so fused them turned half way.  Which was very time consuming but I liked the affect.  But, when I ironed the backing fabric onto the NTC,  I flattened the 3 D grass!   So NTC's are great to do especially when you want to experiment with something to see how it goes.  I found it physically impossible to cut little circles to put on the fish, so cut narrow strips and made squares instead!    And, I did try to stitch on the grasses before I cut them out but the stitching looked horrible so I left them plain.  Also, I fused two pieces of organza together but found them a little stiff this way so have some thicker fused organza grasses and then some one layer organza grasses.  I was going to stitch the tips and the bottoms of the grasses to the background, but then realized that the stitching showed so decided to fuse them to the background and thought this was such a brilliant idea.  Until I fused them and saw that the little tiny squares of fusible web were showing if you looked closely.  So, back to the drawing board on the grasses before I make a big wallhanging!

And finally, I have been working on my Pebble which was discussed in the previous blog entry.   I have stitched as much as I can on it and probably stitched to much.   More than anything, I LOVE this kind of stitching.  I could do this for hours and hours and hours.  In the course of cleaning up my craft room, I placed my cardboard or mat board in a very safe place.  So safe that I can't find it.  When it is found, I can complete the Pebble!

This is my Pebble:

There is a fuzzy little thing near the top left.  I was trying to make some sort of floaty leggy watery creature, an anemone?, and searched through my "The Embroidery Stitch Bible" and found the Rya stitch.  It was hard doing that stitch in a very tiny format but I did it in a double circle and cut the threads when I was done.  totally thrilled with it! Otherwise, there are bullion stitches, french knots, straight stitches, star stitch, woven picots, woven circles, buttonhole loops, and perhaps a fly stitch or two.  It was a learning experience for me to make both tight french knots and very loose french knots.

I am off  to Charlottetown on Wednesday!   I am taking an all day workshop by Kathy Tidswell.   I am really looking forward to this workshop and hope to come back with my imagination flying higher than it already is!

The grass is green, and though we've had some really wonderfully warm days around 20C, it is back to normal spring temps of 8 or 10C.  Still cool, but at least work is getting done in between all this wild imaginings!   I am now off to do something totally exciting!   Hang the laundry on the clothesline! 

And watch the dog...

 Enjoy your day!