Take It Further Challenge - January

I had my sewing day yesterday just as I had intended and I sewed up my January Take It Further Challenge block along with a few other things.

I started by pulling the DMC thread colors that matched Sharon's color palette and I thought to myself, "EWWWWW"! They just weren't colors that I would normally put together.

I doubled checked the DMC colors against my monitor and printout again and they did match up, however, and quite thankfully I'll admit, I did not have any fabric that matched DMC #964. The closest match I had in fabric is more like DMC #504. With a sigh of relief, I went for it:



My photo is a little fuzzy but this is the ready to stitch block with the original DMC floss colors. Since my light green fabric matched DMC #504, I switched the thread color as well and began stitching:



I did add some black crushed velvet to my palette to give it a very Victorian feel and to bring out the black in the image.

Now, onto a few special things about this block! First, the lace that I used on the bottom is from an actual Victorian cuff. It's hand crocheted and some of the tiniest crocheting I've ever seen! I bought it a flea market a few years ago and have been saving it for something special as it was quite pricy. I bought a second cuff at the same time, a little different than this one and hope to use it for this challenge later on.

The gold braids were a gift to me from one of my readers, Sandra G. I believe Sandra told me that the braids were from Germany and that they were old. I love my old stuff! Thank you Sandra! Again, I've been saving these for something really special.

The spider web of course, is a traditional Victorian crazy quilt motif and ya'll know I had to put a spider web on here or I just wouldn't be able to sleep!

The Herringbone stitch at the bottom left is an example of me not wanting to stop stitching! For some reason, I just kept on adding to that border until I couldn't add anymore. I thought perhaps some of my readers might enjoy using this seam treatment so I charted it out:



Click on the image to go to my Flickr site where you can download the large version.

So that's where I'm at for now. I pulled out my Penny McMorris book, or rather "the Holy Grail of crazy quilt books" as Allison called it earlier this week, to get a feel for more of the popular CQ motifs from the Victorian days. Not only did the Victorians love their elegant and ornate things, but they had a true appreciation for nature. Something I can very much relate to! This block definitely needs flowers so I'm thinking of either some pansies or some violets. Oh, and speaking of Allison, do stop by her blog to see her January block! She does some gorgeous and very creative things with flower images.

One last thing that I want to mention is that DMC #333 purple is quite, I'll use the word "loud"! I will be using it but I'll limit that color to beads. The color will be there, but it won't jump out of the block like it would had I used it for the stitching.

My plans for today include sewing up my latest cellphone pouches. I'm not sure I'll get the handwork done today but I at least want to assemble them. I also want to do some heavy duty stitching on my January block because at the moment, I'm really into it and it's all I can think about!