Roses & Bird Applique

Four Weeks Progress.....


My applique is coming along slowly because I've been getting outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather & garden.   I actually should confess that I've gotten outdoors to do a lot of weeding.   I'm trying to keep positive about weeding in that I'll find inspiration while I'm doing this type of gardening.  So I put on my gardening cap, gloves, & camera in my pocket to capture Mother Nature's gifts from the garden.

This bee enjoys the Spanish Lavender......

Surprisingly, these petunias below grew in between the pansies.  I planted the petunias in this spot last year.  I would not have paired these two plants together but, they like each other & are getting along just great.  

I found the inspiration I needed in a potted plant on my patio.  English Ivy is a great filler plant for containers & as an applique subject.   When I started the applique on my table runner, I only drew a little bit at a time.  I'll reveal the entire drawing as I finish sewing the section I'm working on, in a later post.   

Drawing from my sketchbook......

So, I hand stitched the veins......  Although this two strand embroidery floss shows up well below, it's too much for the entire design & lighting in my dining room.  I tried another color.....scroll down below to see photo.

This lighter color may not look as defined as the darker floss above.  However this color looks better with the entire design, when placed on my dining room table.  Some areas of your applique look best when enhanced with a small amount of embroidery.  Otherwise, your results will just look heavy & overdone.   Veins below done with one strand of embroidery floss in a light yellow green color.  Of course, with your own applique you may choose whatever color is most pleasing to you.

And so the hand stitching continues............on a different day.   It's a gorgeous day again, & I need to continue with the outdoors.

I'll post some progress in a few days.......keep stitching a little at a time.

Enjoy your day!

 

Garden Friends....

One morning I was outdoors looking at my pansy garden to see if they needed any TLC.   

They looked okay & then I stumbled upon this.....disappearing pansy petals.

After staking out my garden throughout several days, I found out who was enjoying my pansies......

Here's a close up of this adorable, cute rabbit.   I'm not stopping him/her from eating my pansies.  I like to think that my pansies taste delicious (unlike my cooking) so this is why this rabbit keeps coming back.

He/She is camera shy so, I'm very lucky to have taken this shot.   

Enjoy your day!

Roses & Bird Applique

Three weeks of applique.

I'm making progress with this applique.  I'm excited that it's taking shape & actually looking like what I imagined it might look like.

A closer look.
 Since my last hand applique quilt, I've come to the realization that some embroidery, here & there, adds a lot of interest to applique.  Below, I've drawn a light white circle around the area where I will embroider part of the bird's eye.  Some people are quite skilled when working with teeny, tiny circles.   I'm going to keep it simple.  Applique-ing tiny shapes is a skill I might tackle some other time.  I usually wait to embroider after the entire applique is done on a block.  However, I'm too anxious to see how this bird will look with embroidery.   This is one way that I work to keep from getting tired of my project.  It's sometimes a challenge to stay with the same project for weeks at a time for me.

                             

I've embroidered the eye with a stem stitch all the way around.  First white floss around the eye then, a beige color around the outside.  Two stab stitches for the eye highlight.  I also thought I would soften the black fabric by making small straight stitches with black floss around the area.   Notice the white/gray fabric for the wing.  This is the same fabric I used for the beak.  I did use some fabric markers to darken the beak with a little gray & black.  I then used a not quite black floss to embroider the beak.  This didn't take too long to do.  

A close up of the small flower.
Straight stitching around the flower with a cluster of french knots in the center.  I also used simple straight stitches around the petals.

This photo below is what I've completed so far.
I'm not yet done with this side.  I still need to embroider veins onto the leaves & a few vines.
I think I'm going to applique a different bird on the opposite side of this table runner.  I don't want to applique the same bird all over again.

Today is the beginning of week four.   I might be able to embroidery a vine or two.  

Stay tuned.....I'll post my progress in two weeks! 

Roses & Bird Applique

Finding The Time.....

Lately, everything else seems to take priority over the applique that I would like to accomplish.  My husband recently thought we should spring clean out our garage.  I couldn't refuse because it had to get done.

When I want to sit & sew but can't I do the next best thing.  That is to open my sketch book & make a note or scribble down an idea that I would like to tackle someday.  Since you never know when inspiration will strike you, it's important to have my camera with me.


During a recent walk with my husband I'm pretty sure I spotted what resembled several Cedar Waxwing birds.  That's my husband in the photo below, waiting patiently for me to take my photo of these very pretty birds.

In person I could see a lot of yellow around the belly of this bird & a little bit of red too.   As soon as I tried to get close enough to take a photo, the birds would fly away.  This one bird was a bit of a ham & stayed on this branch long enough for me to take the photo.

So I took this bit of inspiration & doodled the drawing below for a future quilting design/applique.

From this doodle, I came up with a drawing for the following applique design.  The bird in the drawing below isn't a Cedar Waxwing but, a bird whose colors would work best with the colors in my roses & background fabric.

I started this hand applique & I think this is going to be a table runner.  I've gotten as far as the photo below.    It's a bit of a challenge because the applique shapes are small.  I just have to keep reminding myself to focus on going slowly instead of hurrying to the finish line.  

I'll post the progress I've made in a couple of weeks or so.  

Until next time.......keep going....one stitch at a time.