Dish towels (and Temari, of course)

I made these towels for a gift, and the occasion for the gift is past, so I can show you now.





I stitched most of these while I was on vacation in April. It was the perfect stitch-in-the-car project.



I can remember once when I was a kid we got a new set of kitchen dish towels, with this type of embroidery. I was all excited, and asked my mom who had made them, and what was involved. The set we got was made by my aunt's mother (my mom's brother's mother-in-law) and I thought it was wonderful that she would stitch dish towels for us! Mom must have noticed my enthusiasm, because for Christmas that year I got a "kit" to stitch a dish towel, with the floss, towel, needle and hoop. I stitched and stitched on that thing forever! I enjoyed the stitching a lot, but didn't make real fast progress. It became a UFO (Un-Finished Object).

About 15 years later I found that towel, with the rusted needle in it, and I finished the embroidery that afternoon. It's worn out now, but before discarding it to the rag pile, I cut out the embroidery. Some day, when I run across it, I will take a picture of it and show you, stained, rusted, used up, and loved.

Here's my slow progress on my latest temari. Even though I'm supposed to be smocking, I can't keep my hands off this. I think the thread is rayon, I got it from Japan. It looks wonderful on the temari, and stitches up very nicely. Can you see how it looks like different shades from the way the light hits it? I'm glad it comes on 50 m cards, because this temari is going to take a lot. I have 5 shades of red, and I'm excited to see how it will turn out. It's about the size of a pearl #5.



The flowers end up interlacing and overlapping; according to my calculations, there should be 122 of them. Then I have to decide if I am going to add french knots for the middles of the flowers. I don't have a good color for that in this type of thread, so we will have to see.

Procrastination

I promised to make a smocked dress for our guild's opportunity drawing in October. So far, so good. The problem is, in order to take publicity photos to sell the tickets, they want the items tonight. Umm, I just pleated the fabric last night. I may get some smocking stitches in before the meeting, but there won't be anything worthy of a picture.



This is such a pretty pattern, and I have the material, I don't know why it is taking me so long to get going on it.

I've been working on this:



This is my next temari, with 122 facets. In this picture I still had to tack down the 3-way intersections, but that is done now, and I started the stitching. This one is going to take a LONG time. I may even have to resort to in progress pictures to have something for people to look at.

(Plus I've been working on the rag rug. I really like how it is turning out.)

I think I need another day off.

And the winner is...

My Mom! Thank you for being a faithful reader and commenter, mom, I'll get this to you, probably when you come down in August. Love you!

Toothbrush Rug revisited

Because of overwhelming demand (okay, okay, my mom asked!) I decided to show how I'm making the toothbrush rug.

This is why it is called a toothbrush rug. These needles were originally made from toothbrushes, but now they are made specifically for this purpose. It fits nicely in the hand and the hole is big enough so it is not too hard to thread.



This picture is not too good, because you cannot see where the needle goes. I was having trouble taking a picture with my right hand while holding everything with my left hand. But this is the first stitch. It is the first half of a half-hitch stitch.



Here you see how you use your thumb to regulate the size of your stitches. When you pull the strip of fabric tight around your thumb, the loops should all be of a similar size. I've been pulling so vigorously that my thumb is sore.



This shows the second half of the half-hitch stitch. C can do this one with no problem, because you just have to follow the thumb.



I do remember being excited about crocheting with strips of fabric some time in the past... until I priced how much the material I would need to make a set of mats for my dining room chairs would cost. Now, however, I think I will have material left over for at least a couple of mats. I've been looking around, and I think I need a huge crochet hook. Oh man! That means a run to JoAnn's!

The Things you can accomplish on a Day Off

I had a day off from work on Friday, and was able to accomplish a lot of things. I prepared mari for the next class I am teaching, plus several more for me. There are 10 made with 1 cup of rice bran, 2 smaller ones, and 3 larger ones. It took about 1 1/2 skeins of yarn.



And I started my toothbrush rag rug. Look how far I got over the weekend!



When I was pulling out the material strips to work on this they made quite a big bundle. C commented "Grandma, I don't think you will be able to get done with that before you die." I told her that was fine, that if I did die before I was done, she should finish it. That worried her a little, because "I don't know how to do it." But I taught her, and now she knows how to put the needle in, and take it out (the 2 steps to the stitches). I did tell her that her thumb was too little to make the stitches the right size (gauge) but that it would be big enough by the time it was her turn. She stopped by my chair several times this weekend to take a couple of stitches. The toothbrush needle is just the right size for her dexterity level.

I realized that my last post, about the "It's My Birthday" temari was on the second anniversary of my first blog post, so I decided to celebrate by giving it away. If you would like it, please comment on this post, and on Friday I will pick a winner.

I was very hesitant to start a blog, because I never thought I would have enough interesting material to talk about. But I used Blog2print to look at my blog so far, and it was very interesting. In fact, it was so interesting I bought the .pdf file and I hope to print it out and bind it for myself. Of course, it is all my favorite things, and all about me. How could it not be interesting? LOL If you are interested, here's a coupon to get 15% off your own printout: B2PCC719.

The "It's My Birthday" Challenge

The challenge was to pick a temari from Debi's site of a temari that was stitched close to your birthday, and recreate it. I picked this one, labeled 080204 (I think).

I really like the way it turned out, but it would have been better if I had used floss or floche. There are so many intersections that there is quite a build-up of thread on the surface of the ball, and things were not staying as even as they might have. I also ran out of the variegated DMC floss I was using, and went I went to get more of 1345, I could not find it. Either it has been discontinued, or JoAnn's is no longer carrying it. (Every time I have used a skein with less than 30 m on it, I have run out, even though I always have a lot left when I use a regular skein. I cannot figure that out.)

Can anyone see where I changed colors? I thought the color I found was quite a good match.



The sides of the ball are not as beautiful, but I am still willing to call this one a success.

It's a Daisy

In case you were wondering. C found the bag of felt, threads, and the samples I had made for the workshop last week, and was immediately intrigued. I was in the middle of something when she asked me to help her (playing a computer game... ) so I told her we would work on it later. She said, "That's okay, grandma, call me when you are ready." (!)

So first we had to pick out the shape, and she was sure she wanted a flower. A daisy seemed the easiest. She picked out the dark red and the orange, with a yellow center and white sewing. There was some concern when we couldn't find yellow thread at first, but I knew there was some in the drawer.



I cut out the paper pattern and the felt, and then started stitching around the petals with the white thread. She stitched one of the petals herself! and then delegated the rest of the stitching to me. She had fun with the stuffing as well. There was some concern about the white lines separating the petals, so I had to add those at the end.



When we were done, she was a little sad that this was a pillow she could hold in her hand. She wanted a pillow big enough to rest on... I guess that is next on the list to do.