St Patricks Day Tussy Mussy's

Today's offerings are Mom's latest St. Patricks Day Tussy Mussy's:

I just love St. Patrick's Day!  I think it's because it's the beginning of Spring!  And after a day of 6 degrees below 0, I am so done with Winter!  The only thing that made todays cold temps tolerable was the sun has been out all day!  I'm so looking forward to the Robins coming back.  I love their beautiful song!  And believe me, when I see my first Robin of Spring, ya'll be the first to know about it!  LOL!!!

Broiderie Perse Piece Finished

I have been stitching away on this little Broiderie Perse purse!  LOL!!  Yes, this will be a purse.

Here's a little something I wanted to point out:

I thought this piece of lace was a little boring looking.  It just didn't show up on the block.  I didn't want to take it off to hand paint it so, since I had my Rayon threads out, I decided to embroider it:

I satin stitched the little circles and then stem stitched the leaves.  This really defined the lace.  I went on to add some beads to it and them silk ribbon embroidery.

This is the finished stitched piece:

I have the frame to put it on so I'll get this sewn up either over the weekend or the first part of next week and I'll post another photo of it.

My next piece, which I'll start stitching on this afternoon is this:

As you can see, there will be a little bit of Broiderie Perse applique on this.  I was asked about the pink Shibori ribbon on the purse so I will be writing up a tutorial about working with Shibori ribbon when get to that point on this block.

If you want to see closeups of these photos, just click on them.

I'm going to leave you today with a YouTube video.  This is Marie Osmond singing Nessun Dorma from the opera Madam Butterfly.  My grandmother loved Madam Butterfly so it makes me think of her.  And I don't know about anyone else, but I think Marie Osmond does a beautiful rendition.

Correction Edit:  This piece is from Puccini's opera Turandot.  My grandmother always said it was Madam Butterfly.  Thank you to Catherine for correcting my error.  I'm well versed in Classical music but not opera.  I should have double checked it.  Still, it reminds me of my grandma who loved this piece!

Broiderie Perse Tutorial For Crazy Quilting Part 2

This is Part 2 of the tutorial for Broiderie Perse Applique on Crazy Quilting.  You can find Part 1 of the Broiderie Perse tutorial here.

Once you have your applique ironed onto your crazy quilt block, you're going to want to add some decorative stitches.

Traditionally, the Blanket Stitch is used to hold fabric appliques in place.  Personally, that's fine for shapes, but for Broiderie Perse, I don't care for the way it looks.

There's no right or wrong way so I opted for the chain stitch:

Start by stitching around the outside of the fabric applique.  I used 1 strand of Kreinik #4 Braid in gold but you can use whatever thread you like.  Keep your chain stitches small and try to pierce the edge of your fabric applique to hold the edges in place.

Once you're applique is "outlined", you can stop stitching if you want to.  But who wants to stop stitching!  I continued to outline the petals on my flowers using the chain stitch.

 I also added some straight stitches to the centers of the flowers.

Again, if you want to stop stitching here, you can.  If you want to keep going, you'll need 3 shades of thread that match the coloring in your applique.  I choose 3 shades of rose in DMC Rayon Floss.  I'm not sure they make that thread any more.  I think they make a satin floss which is similar but I have a ton of their Rayon so I used 2 strands of it.  Again, you can use embroidery floss.  I recommend 2 or 3 strands, depending on how much you want your stitches to pop.

Start with the darkest shade first which should be closest to the center of your flowers.  Now much of this will depend on the print that you used.  Begin by making straight stitches out from the center of the flower following the shading on your fabric print:

You probably won't need to use a lot of the darkest color.  Move on to your medium shade following the colors in your applique and making long straight stitches.

And finally, as you can see in the above photo, the lightest shade of your thread color.

If you have leaves in your applique, do those too!  The more stitching, the prettier your applique becomes.  But you don't want to cover all the fabric.  You do want to leave some unstitched areas to show through.

I added a few gold beads to the flower centers.

And this is the block:

This is really a piece of cake.  It's nothing more than a chain stitch and long straight stitches.  Keep in mind, the rayon floss that I used is very shiny!  You can use whatever thread you like.  Even simple cotton embroidery floss will give a painted look to your flowers.

Click on the photos to see them up close.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.  The link to my email address is in the sidebar near the top of my blog.

I hope that you will try this technique.  If you do, please send photos to me and I will include them in the Autumn issue of Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine!

Stitching Fix

Yesterday, I shared a link to Mary Anne's blog.  She posted a fix to a "stitching gone wrong" problem.

I think her solution is absolutely brilliant!

Mary Anne did not care for the cross stitched long stem rose in the first photo.  She felt that it over-powered the other elements on her block.  I agree with her.  It's too much going in the same direction and it's too heavy.  The eye doesn't know what to look at first.

Mary Anne's fix was to cover the area with a pretty eyelet doily.  She added some small cross stitch roses and a pretty light pink rosebud trim along the edge. 

So much softer looking and now, nothing competes with the broiderie perse applique.

Speaking of Broiderie Perse, I will be post Part 2 of my tutorial this afternoon so be sure to stop back for that!

Sharing A Few Links For Today

I've been working away on Part 2 of my tutorial for Broiderie Perse on Crazy Quilting. I expect to have that posted here tomorrow. 

I thought for today, I would send you off to visit a few other blogs.

*First, Mary Anne at Magpie's Mumblings had some "cross stitch gone wrong" on one of her Crazy Quilt blocks.  I thought her "fix" was brilliant!  This process can be applied to anything stitched on a crazy quilt block that just doesn't work out as planned!

*If you have been wanting to learn the elegant art of crazy quilting, do visit Kathy Shaw's blog.  Kathy just posted her 2015 Registration dates for both her Beginner's Class and her Intermediate Class.  Kathy graciously offers her classes with no charge so please hop over and sign up now.

*Mary Corbet of Needle 'N Thread has posted a nice list of Needlework News Snippets for today.  Mary offers all sorts of wonderful and inspirational links in her news brief for today!

*I was over at Lorraine's Colour Compliments blog and in honor of Valentine's Day, she posted some pink stitching!  See her example of an interwoven cross stitch worked in pink!  My signature color!  This example is for needlepoint but it can easily be adapted to crazy quilting!  Especially if you use my waste canvas technique!

*Finally for today, pay a visit to Brenda Sandusky's blog and see her gorgeous Crazy Quilt Valentine Heart!