Wings for Doves, Rush, Rush, Rush - Edited

My daughter and two of her classmates are going to be doves in today's school play. A new play, a new costume challenge. Three, actually, as I volunteered to make all three sets of wings.
So it happened that I had a little less than six hours to figure out the "how to" and make them happen. No time for searching the www for ideas, no time for shopping, just a quick stash raid, a cup of strong coffee to awaken my muse and rush, rush, rush.
Luckily I had plenty of white cotton fabric (the kind used for sheets) and batting scraps, some bigger, some smaller... Well, I thought, that will have to do, let's see what happens.
As all the girls are more or less the same size, I took one of my daughter's sweaters, measured a full arm length (abt. 100cm) and a back length (abt. 60cm), and cut a 100x120cm piece of white cotton.
First I folded it on the length (100x60cm) then on the width (50x60) and with a pencil I made a free hand sketch of a wing and half of a tail directly on the folded fabric:

As I wanted two rows of feather (more actually, but I only had time for two), I also traced two arches:

 Then cut around them, through all four layers of cotton with zigzag scissors:

Here are the open wings (two layers of cotton, folded on top): 

After sewing along the bigger arch, the batting came in handy to make the feathers a little fluffier. I pinned each two layers of feathers, placed them over the pieces of batting, pinning along, adding more pieces of batting, until all the feathers had a complete layer of batting under them and then simply cut the batting around the feathers.

and trimmed along the sewn arch (you can see in the photo below that only for this portion I used four pieces of batting scraps):

The next step was to insert the batting between the two layers of cotton fabric, so I took out the pins, and started tucking, sandwiching and pinning again:

All the feathers being stuffed and pinned, I turned to my sewing machine again and asked her kindly to try and behave this time, and zig-zag stitched along the outline of the feathers, about 0.5-1cm from the edges  (no, I still can't sew straight...)

And the first layer of feathers was done:

At this point I relaxed, because the project did start to look like wings, to me at least...
Time to make a second layer of feathers. Taking the piece of cotton that fell off after cutting the wings (it was still as I folded it in four at the beginning), I placed one of the four layers of fabric over the sewn wing (folded in two on the width) and, guided by the smaller arch and the feathers already made, again, just drew feathers with my pencil, then put that layer back on the other three and cut again through the four layers with zigzag scissors.

So now I had the pieces of a second row of feathers for both wings:

It was time again to make sandwiches: one layer of cotton, one layer of batting scraps and another layer of cotton, and zig-zag them together, just like before. Here's one side sewn and pinned to the wing:

When both sides of the second row of feathers were sewn, they got attached to the wing by - guess what - zig-zag stitching along the arch. This is the moment when the first row of feathers might get caught under and stitched over... Ask me how I know!
Then I sew an eyeballed size double fabric strip to the upper part of the wing, for supporting the elastic bands sewn on for shoulders, above elbows and wrists.

And voilá, the first set of wings was done in exactly two hours! On to the other two I was, and finished them on time, too.

As you can see, there was a lot of not so straight stitching, fabric gathering and such going on, but let's just agree that all of these add extra fluffiness to the wings, ok? :)
The girls are really happy with their wings, I'll take photos of the three little doves during the play and will add to this post.

Edit:

Have a beautiful day, Everyone!

Bouquet of Daisies - Online Class

This is one of the designs I have created for the online class I will be teaching in September through the Online Crazy Quilting Lessons at Maureen's Vintage Acquisitions.

The three weeks' class will also offer a revised version of my previous daisy wreath design and complete, detailed instructions for embroidering both designs.

Ever since Maureen first wrote to me a few weeks ago, asking if I would teach a class through her shop, I need to pinch myself every day, to make sure that this is all for real and not just a dream :)

Have a wonderful weekend, Everyone!

Sweet Little Hands

Remember this photo? It was taken about two years ago... happy little hands, making their first stitches on my Lady of the Mist.

It is one of the photos that my dear friend, Lee Albrecht used for the sewing box she surprised me with for Mothers' Day a year ago.

Little hands are growing soooo fast, they are "big girl's hands" now,

and they made me this beautiful bracelet for Mothers' Day this year:

The most precious piece of jewelry I have ever had! :)

(except I'm not allowed to wear it:
"You might ruin it, and I won't make you one every day, you know"...
How about that?!)

Happy Tuesday, Everyone!

Little garden on a hill - ready to fly off to Japan

Cast on stitch flowers and French knots made with Antique Rose and Golden Green Chameleon perlé no.12, a chirping little fellow who landed on the wisteria branch,

and white pebbles made using French knots and seed stitches with one strand of white DMC stranded cotton, were my last additions to Hideko's garden. 

Sitting on the garden bench or swing, if you wish, enjoying the spring breeze, the scent of the flowers, listening to the bird's song and the sound of a friend's steps on the pebble paths, coming over for tea... Isn't that a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon?

Have a beautiful weekend, Everyone!

Chirrup!

It is cold and windy outside, and it has been raining cats and dogs since yesterday, but this little birdie just doesn't care about the bad weather.

She is happily chirping around and in and out her brand new house on Helga's block :)

Some more beading is still to be done, so I am off to work on that while listening to Birdie's chirrup.

Have a lovely day, Everyone!

Sneak Peek

This is the fifth round of the Tone on Tone Do Your Block Round Robin and I am working on Helga's pretty block.

My favorite seam treatment on this block is this row of pink-green butterflies with detached chain stitch wings, straight stitch with French knot antennae and bullion stitch bodies.

Helga asked us to add our monograms to the blocks. Here are mine, 8mm "high", stitched with one strand of DMC stranded cotton, using whipped stem stitch. Had to wear my glasses for this one...

Have a beautiful day, Everyone!

Wisteria, Quince Tree And Blending Silk Ribbon

The wisteria, worked according to my sketch was finished this morning, but I am not quite happy with how it looks in the big picture. It might need to be extended a bit with another cluster of flowers, I think. I'll leave it as it is for the day and make a decision during the weekend.

After stitching the wisteria, I auditioned about three or four shades of light pink silk ribbon for the quince tree flowers, and none of them seemed to do the trick. I imagined something very close to what you can see in this picture bellow:

I thought that maybe a variegated silk ribbon with very short segments of white and pink would be great, but I have no such thing in my stash, neither have I overcome my dyeing phobia yet... 

Pointing my finger to my temple to think, think, think, while holding one piece of pink and one of white ribbon in my other hand, it suddenly hit me: I could just as well try and thread my needle with two ribbons at the same time. It worked like a charm: as if I had a ribbon that was white on one side and pink on the other.

The French knots made with the two blended silk ribbons gave almost exactly the same result that I had imagined initially, and they also gave a bit more dimension to the flowers.

Here and there I stitched some more French knots with only one "strand" of white or pink ribbon.

Now to add all the cast on flowers to the lavender blue patch on the top, and while working on those, to get ideas for the paths and to decide about the extension of the wisteria...

Have a happy weekend, Everyone!

Planting Flowers

If the weather is nice, and even sometimes when it is not, we go to the park after kindergarten. Yesterday I took a deep breath, packed my Little Garden on a Hill project and took it along. I sat down on a bench, half in the sun, half in the shadow of an old tree, and while the children were playing and the other parents watching me from a distance, I began planting French knot flowers and drizzle stitch leaves. It felt a bit strange at first, but soon I forgot about everyone else being there, and only kept an ear on my daughter's voice.

After a few stitches, children started to come by and ask me what I was doing. I answered all their questions and some of them sat with me for a couple of minutes. Then more of them came and stayed for longer, about a dozen boys and girls, aged from 3 to 9, with their little inquiring minds, wanting to know how and what I was working on, saying that my embroidery was beautiful :) 

Then a little boy said "Can you teach me how to embroider?" I wanted to reply, but his mother interrupted "Why would you want to learn THAT? You are a boy! Only girls can embroider, and what is the point even for them doing THAT?!", she said and stepped away.

But the children stayed. And watched each and every move and stitch I made, fascinated by the way a needle and some thread wrapped around it created a leaf, and then another one, a flower and then another one. They never asked why on earth I was embroidering, or what it was good for, or was it worth the effort... 

Taking my garden along to the park was definitely worth it. For more than just my soul, I hope...

Tending the garden

My little garden is growing and growing. This is what it looks like now, after about 4 more hours of stitching:

Today I started with the wisteria branch. Again, I used tissue paper to transfer my design, although the word "transfer" is not necessarily appropriate, as this time I pinned the tissue paper to my block and stitched right through it with stem stitches, using 2 threads of Nina's hand dyed Dark Chocolate cotton embroidery thread.

After completing the stitching, the tissue paper came off almost by itself (I'm definitely going to use this technique again), then I whipped the stem stitches to get the effect I was looking for.

And it was finally time for the tree. For the trunk and the thicker branches I used chain stitches, while for the thinner ones whipped stem stitches, with the same thread as for the wisteria. It still needs some finishing touches-stitches here and there before it grows leaves and blossoms.

I aslo started to work on the flower beds, some more planting still needs to be done there and I also plan to do something about those paths... Pebbles perhaps... still need to figure out how to stitch them :) Any ideas???

Have a great day, Everyone!