Loopy

There was quite a bit accomplished yesterday...grocery shopping, catching up on housework, and quilting the Alley Cats Quilt Guild. That was kind of fun. Being a small quilt, it was easy enough to finish in just a few hours' time. I used a light gold in the bobbin. There was already a partial bobbin wound, and so it was an easy choice.

For my top thread, I chose this variegated thread with golds, tans, and light browns.

Here's the color number. I think these variegated threads came from Threadart.

Then I started in. Down the middle border, I did some loops, and then I worked outward from there, beginning with the "quilt blocks." I outlined around all the appliques and quilted the "blocks" with a meandering vine. This quilt has hearts on the front and back, and so my vine has randomly placed heart-shaped leaves.

Moving to the three inner borders...these were narrow, and so I just continued on with my looping. There wasn't a lot of room to do anything very fancy.

The next border was a little wider, and so I did a loopy paw print there.

Finally, the outer border is done with continuous hearts.

With a break for housework, I spent about three hours on this. Here's where it stands.

Here's how it looks from the back.

And here's a close-up of the back.

Today I'll sew a binding on and ready it for hand-stitching. I don't think I have any binding strips cut yet, and so I'll have to figure out what fabric to use there.

Switching gears, did you know February is National Embroidery Month? No, neither did I until Meg Hawkey announced a stitch-along she's doing on social media. Well, it looks like fun, so count me in! Every day, she'll be stitching a one-inch square on a larger piece. You can download the instructions and free pattern right here. If you click on that link, you'll find the pattern in the upper left corner of the page. The image below is from the Crabapple Hill Studios Facebook page. I'm hoping she won't mind if I borrow it to advertise her event. Here, she's showing the supplies you'll need to participate.

So, I've been in gathering mode. Of course, you can do it any way you want to, but I'm using the supplies she suggests. I've ordered the floss from her website. A couple of days ago, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a set of Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. I've been eyeing these for months.

Just look at all those delectable colors.

She has a good video on her website demonstrating how to color embroidery designs with colored pencil. There's one for crayon there too. I've used crayon to tint my embroidery designs before. You might remember it from the Gingerbread Square quilt.

Crayons dull quickly, making it difficult to get good results with them, and so I've been thinking about trying it with pencils. This small project seems a good time to give it a try. Also, this project requires an embroidery needle and a size 5 milliner's needle, and that can only mean one thing...the dreaded bullion stitch. I'm going to man-up and do it again, or die trying.

Okay, so that doesn't start until February 1st. In the meantime, I'll be tracing out and coloring my design. On today's agenda is to make some blocks. This week's Tiny Tuesday block is waiting for me. The newest one is a three dimensional bow tie block designed by Angie at Quilting on the Crescent. You can find her tutorial right here. Also, did you see the Countdown to Christmas blocks posted on the Moda Bake Shop during the month of December? They were so beautiful, and I saved each one. Now, there's a sew-along happening over at Mama Spark's World. They're going to be making 2-3 blocks per month, and so I think I'll join in there too. As I've mentioned, this is the year of scraps in my sewing room, and so every project will help me make a dent in my ever-accumulating piles.

That will probably keep me busy for one day, but if it isn't enough, then I have something else waiting in the wings. I've been circling the image of my grandcat, Cricket, for some time. I'd like to finish out the month of January making her pawtrait.

Once I get started on them, they go pretty fast. Time to get this pretty girl going.