Slow Stitch

 I have noticed on various internet platforms for embroidery the idea of Slow Stitching.  I looked it up and found it had a number of definitions.  One view is stitching by hand a piece where you make the design up a you go along; the idea of being improvisational.  Another view was stitching by hand any type of pattern or design including things you would normally do by machine like a doll or stuffed animal.  While the definitions seem to be different, the one thing in common is stitching by hand.  That is slow stitching.  You can’t go very fast when stitching by hand. 

And it doesn’t matter if you have a pattern in mind or you don’t.  What matters is to enjoy the process of stitching.  It can be very therapeutic to have the needle and thread go in and out of the fabric.  Just the fact that you need to be still when doing it is therapeutic in our fast-paced world.  Ever try stitching while on an exercise bike or while taking a walk; kind of hard.

This idea of slow stitching is based on the concept of mindfulness.  Mindfulness is concentrating on the act of doing something.  It can be anything.  Take washing the dishes.  How many of us really pay attention to what we are doing when washing the dishes? You just want the chore to be over.  Have you ever paid attention to how the water feels on your hands while doing the dishes, how the light reflects off the soap suds, or the wet dish or the flowing water?  Try it sometime and you will find that washing the dishes becomes a new experience.

That is how it is with slow stitching.  Pay attention to how the fabric looks in your hand? How does it feel in your hands?  Can you hear the thread sliding through the fabric?  Concentrate on the color of the thread against the fabric?  You are not looking at it to see if it contrasts or blends well but just simply how it looks.  Look at how interesting the piece looks with that one stitch that is just a little wonky.  Don’t rip it out.  You want that kind of wonky.  We are looking for contemplation in our stitching not perfection.  And you are not on a deadline so the piece you are working on could take a day, a week or even years.  That is all OK.  What you are involved in is the process of stitching, not the finished product.

Next time you want to try something new, just pick up a needle and thread and a piece of fabric and start stitching, slow and thoughtful.  You might find you come away feeling more relaxed, more inspired and maybe with something beautiful to look at.  Happy Stitching.

 

©2022 Cheryl Fillion

 

 

 

 

Quilt Block Challenge – Ruby Heart- Part 2

In the last blog, I wrote about our Quilt Guild block challenge.  The theme is Ruby Red Celebration for our 40^th quilt show.  I decided to do a pieced red heart with all dark fabrics that had the appearance of solid fabrics.

I call this kind of piecing – collage because it is what you do with a paper collage.  In a paper collage you have construction paper or poster card stock as a foundation and then you glue pictures on top until you cover the whole piece.  What I do is similar but instead of glue, I use needle and thread.

I always start in the middle with this type of work.  This time I start with a square of the accent fabric provided (the kit included a white background fabric and then 8” of an accent fabric so there would be consistency throughout all the blocks) and pinned it to the middle of the heart.  You can stitch it down but since the other fabrics will be sewn on to it, I decided to pin this to hold it in place. 

Then I cut a shape from my second fabric.  It does not have to be square; in fact, it will give some interest to the piece if it is not square.  The thing with sewing the pieces on is that you will stitch and flip the fabric so you want to make sure the fabric when flipped will go in the right direction.  I laid the second piece down and before I stitched, I held it in place with a pin, flipped it and instead of lying it next to the center piece, it flipped on top of it.   

 

What you want is to lay the next fabric over the sewn one, right side of the fabrics together. Then sew it and then flip it and it will lay in the right direction.

Once you start adding fabric you just want to go around the edges of the sewn fabric again and again until you get to the edge of your design.  

Every time you add fabric, make sure you are covering the raw edges of the pieces already sewn.  Raw edges will cause the fabric to start unraveling which will not look nice and may take out the sewing. The long lighter red piece on the left in the picture above is pulled back in the picture below to show the raw edges of the previous sewn fabric.

  As fabric is added, eventually I got to a point where it was hard to cover all the raw edges with the sew and flip method.  This ended up being along the edge of the design.  So I began to applique the pieces on.  This way I could hide the raw edge of the piece I was adding by turning the seam allowance under and stitching it down.  It also meant that the piece had a curve in its design which I liked.

So I kept adding fabric until the entire interfacing heart was covered.  I then traced the heart design on the red fabric of the design, so I knew where the edge of the design was to turn under and applique to the white background fabric of the block.  Because the seam allowance was thick with layers of red fabric (I added the fabric right over the seam allowance so no raw edges would show on the top), I decided to baste the seam allowance down.  This way I wasn’t fighting with it while I did the appliqueing.  

The last step is appliqueing on the background fabric and the challenge block is done.

©2022 Cheryl E. Fillion

 

 

 

Quilt Block Challenge – Ruby Heart

 

Every year our quilt guild does a Block challenge.  You are given a background fabric and an accent fabric to create a 12 1/2 inch block.  You can piece it, applique it, anything you want, it just has to be in the theme of the challenge which is usually our Quilt Show theme.  For this year our theme is Ruby Red Celebration for our 40^th quilt show.

When I heard the theme, I immediately thought of the jewel Ruby partly because it is my birth stone.  My second thought was of a TV show I had recently watched which contained a ruby in the shape of a heart as part of the story line.  And since I am rather found of hearts, I thought I would make a red pieced heart for my block. 

What I thought of was a foundation pieced heart, not really a paper pieced one, but more of the crazy quilt style of foundation piecing.  So my first job was to find a heart shape I liked.  I wanted a very rounded one so I enlarged my Heartfully Cheryl logo and chose the biggest heart to use.  I decided to create the heart and then applique it to the white background fabric.

With this kind of foundation piecing, it is good to use a sew-in interfacing or some light weight muslin.  You don’t want anything too heavy or it will make the appliqueing difficult to do and make the whole block too thick. I decided to use the interfacing. 

The first thing I did was  cut out the interfacing.  I traced the heart design and cut it about ¼ inch from the traced line.  Even in applique you have to have a seam allowance.

The next step was to gaver my ruby fabrics.  I decided I wanted the fabric in different shades of red but with very little other colors.  So I picked those reds that would appear from a distance to be a solid

So I have my heart pattern and my fabric, the next step is to sew the heart.  And that will be in the next blog so stay tuned.

 ©2022 Cheryl Fillion