Day Three- Mimes the Word!

Here is a short update on my mime needle case front, I am still not sure what to put on the back on it yet, Maybe some of you out there can help me think up something unique! 

Mimes the word!

I chose to work on another embroidery project that has a few more challenges to it than the last piece. On this one I will have to work a face. A rather small face, As you will see below the face needs to be filled in before the eyes, nose, mouth details are put on. 

The back ground on this is a two tone silk, I lucked out a few days ago and a lampshade store downtown listed a brown paper bag of silk scraps for free, OF course I jumped on it!!!! I was so thrilled when I got home and discovered that most of the pieces are large enough to embroider on and still have scraps left for a crazy quilt! 

Anyway I am using DMC, Anchor, Finca 6strand, Finca Presencia, A Ver a Soie in six strand, 100/3, Perlee, and a Metallic from them called "Bijoux" that is wonderful to work with! I have also used ribbon from HDF, and some Kreinik size 4 and 16 in silver. 

Pictures of the Finished Piece!

Here are the pictures, you may still see a little halo of red around the strawberries but it is coming out..Slowly!
Right now it is soaking in Oxy Clean, I have no idea what that might do to the silk but I will let you all know!

What to do Next!

I can't decide! I have four blocks for mom's crazy quilt pieced. BUT the boys are home for summer and I don't have a big enough work space for laying it all out till I get them back in school. SO that is on hold for a few weeks. They go back on August 9th.

Then there is Mette which is a SAL with Marie but we don't start till the first and we are only doing one motif a week so that's not gonna help right now....

Then there is quilts for the boys but we run into the same issue as the crazy quilt for mom...No room till the boys go back to school. 

Well I do need a bigger needle book.....I have a wonderful mother who has made me two that stay here by my stitching chair, but one has my beading and cross stitch needles and the other is more of a pocket thing. Not really good for sharp needles......SO do I make a needle book.....Or something else...... 

HELP!

The one thing I am very sure of is that IF I use a RED it will be a DMC! I don't care if it is cotton and the rest might be silk.....I can trust it to NOT ruin my stitching!

So I finished...And it bled!

When I began the sweet bag project I took the Red that I was going to use and washed it laid it out to dry on paper towels and got NO halo from it at all. So I figured there would be no issue when I finished the project. Well I washed it, it dried over night, and the strawberry's bled! I am so mad right now! I  have washed and wash, soaked and it just keeps getting worse! SO the top half of the design is ruined. I am going to soak it in warm water and see if it helps at all, at this point there is no reason not to try it. 

For anyone who is interested I was using HDF (hand-dyed fibers) Silk six strand regular for this project and only the red is being an issue.

There is no picture because my camera won't turn on. I have tried new batteries and it still is not working. Which isn't helping me mood at all! 

Almost done!

Well I have just a few more involved sections left and then the tendrils which are supper easy and go really fast. Then I will be all done with the embroidered part of this project! 

I managed to get four of the base blocks done for mom's crazy quilt, out of 20 total. I am waiting on a few more things I have in the mail before the embellishing takes place. I am not real sure what I am doing so I may not post pictures of that for awhile! LOL 

Neighborhood sale finds!

I don't usually do yard sales but where I live had a big huge sale this weekend. Of course most of them will be out tomorrow but I have too much to do tomorrow to make it so I thought I would hit the early ones and see if I find anything cool.

In a couple of days I am going to be starting a crazy quilt for my mom, she has always wanted one and I was never comfortable enough to make one until now ( I hope) I will be working with yellow and lavender (think cottage style colors) with a few pinks, blues and all cream/white laces.

I lucked out a few days ago, one of the local quilt shops was having a back room rummage sale and I found a ton of yellow and purple scraps and I also hit Joann's clearance section for more formal yellow/purple fabrics and I did find a few.

And today I found some older costume jewelry, and some little girls Sunday dresses that will be salvaged for the trims and embroidered fabrics. I also came across a 100% silk formal gown in a very pretty light green that is suitable for embroidering on! I figure about 2 yards total salvaged out of the green dress and closer to three out of the five little girls dresses. Not bad since the total price tag was under $10 for all of it!

However, I should find a way to leave the five year old at home! He spent more than I did! He managed to get a race track and several cars for it as well as a beanie baby ( don't ask why! I have no clue!) But at least he is playing with it!

Oh and yes that is the FREE rug I found after cleaning and four days drying! Wyatt loves it, He drives and parks his cars on it! 

Close up of a couple days work!

I hope to have this done in a couple more weeks. It looks like I might finish it soon! Anyway here is the eye candy!

Deal of the Week!

So we live in apartments here and sometimes people throw out completely useful items because of one reason or another. It has been raining here and so I went down to throw out our trash instead of making the boys do it. 

In the trash bin kinda just laying there was a braided rug that I recognized right away, this rug is from Target and it was about $85 new. This one was very gently used as you can see in the picture and since we are going Shabby Chic anyway I figured it was worth washing and seeing if it could be salvaged. Those who know me are familiar with my "just paint it" attitude towards furniture. I have almost furnished my house with free furnature off craigslist ( See the Sewing Chair!) 

After about 20 min soaking in bleach and laundry soap this is what I got! 

Right now it is still drying out hanging in the shower. I will show a better picture when I can lay it out on the floor. Total measurements are 3' x 5' and worth the 20min of washing!

Finally the Leaves are done! AND the Strawberries!

I managed quite a bit of work on this today since it was cold and rainy here I didn't go to the football game. I finished the leaves and the strawberries, vines, and strawberry flower and bud! Next is pansies! Purples and yellows will be nice to work with after all that green and cream. 

The lattice work on the strawberries was harder to keep even than I thought it would be, even though I tried very hard to space all the stitches in gold the right distance apart they still are a little wobbly looking! Oh well, it's my first time so I didn't think it would be perfect. 

More leaves.......

Yes I am still working on leaves. I have been kinda busy these last few days and haven't really gotten much stitching done. I want to have it done before the 1st but I am not sure that will happen since most of the work coming up is not stitches I have done before. And as you can see there is still a lot of drawn areas left to fill in! And I won't even talk about the finishing! LOL

COMING RIGHT ALONG!

This is the progress so far in the last 5 days I really didn't get much done on this but I did manage to paint my sewing table and organize the new shelves I put up in there too. I love the look of mason jars and shabby chic which is good because that's all the budget really allows for these days! 

I did receive an awesome assortment of trims, buttons, and batik fabric from Marie a couple days ago which is so awesome! I have so many new ideas floating around in my head for cool and interesting quilts, embroidery projects, and even one with both! 

So without further delay here is the progress on my current project!

Today's progress - A leaf.

SO I finished the stems yesterday and today I managed the thorns and one leaf. ONE!

The thread I have chosen is very thin and although it is very pretty it is taking forever to fill in the little areas!

AND THE WINNER IS????

REDRODI56

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