And This Little Pig said Crazies Day 15 -- Whoo Hoo

Whoo Hoo!!! Happy dance :D Day 15 of the Crazy January Challenge, and 15 starts. Great now I have an extra 15 WIP's :-o)

Today I started my largest project [131x307], it is a freebie available at Needleprint, called Northern Nights designed by Kathy of Gracewood Stitches, a beautiful band sampler. The sampler originally had two shades of gold, and three shades of blue, I've added a couple of shades of green and antique violet.

So today I took some extra time to make up a couple of calico 'bags' for want of a better word, for my scroll rod frames. The problem I have always had when using scroll rods, is no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to keep the back completely clean. Always get rod marks along the back, at the bottom of the linen. Must be the way I hold them :(

I'm not very good with instructions, so this may ramble a bit, and sorry I didn't take photos. First I measured the squares by laying the calico over the scroll rods, make sure you add a little extra for the width of the scroll bars. Sewed up the sides, leaving the top open, like a pillowcase. Stitch a casing tube around the top, like you would for an elastic waist in a pair of pants or a skirt. Measured the elastic around the frame (scroll bars). Making sure it is tight enough to keep calico in place, but have enough stretch in the elastic that I can still get the fabric round the tension knobs. Then inserted elastic into the casing tube, with a safety pin. Sewed the ends of the elastic together, and quickly stitched the hole closed.... There Bob's your uncle.

So I can pull them all the way up and cover the frame completely when I'm not stitching and pull down so I have room to stitch, all the while protecting the linen at the bottom of the frame. Will have to work out something similar for my Q-snap frame.

Here are the three sizes I made, for my bigger Crazies projects.

Oh I forgot to mention if you have problems with the Northern Lights chart off Needleprint, go to Kathy's blog, and she will send it to you personally. She was so very helpful when I got mine.

Well good night, this little pig is off to bed.
LiBBiE in Oz

And This Little Pig said Crazies Day 11 - And What a Day

It has been an absolutely awful day in Australia, I will do my Crazy Challenge posting first.

Well I did do a little bit of stitching tonight, but is was hard to concentrate. So tonight LHN Ornament I was going to do All is Calm, but I realised that I must have looked at the stitch count for the bonus chart Bless Our Home, and I had precut my fabric, and stitching the bigger pattern would have been pushing the boundary.

I can't believe that after tomorrow, I will have started 13 Little House Needlework Ornaments for 2010.

DJ Tickled Pink In Stitches commented last night or was that today :D that she wished she could have watched me hand dye my fabric. So DJ for you a dyed another piece of linen tonight. I don't think I have mentioned that I will be stitching all of my January Crazy Challenge on Zweigart Belfast 32 count linen, over two... that's over 2 DJ! Not one!

Well first I wash my linen. Usually in the kitchen sink. Give it a quick rinse.

Then I get out my favourite dye. Parisian Browning Essence, I have never tried tea or coffee, and the Beautiful Bev at my LNS told be you can't go past Parisian Essence for ease and steadfastness. The linen goes in wet, and the water is warm to hot.

It always looks dark, but you can make the result darker or lighter by adding either Essence or water.

Quick check, usually leave in for around 20 minutes. If it is too dark, just rinse with clean water. Also if you want a blotchy look scrunch up your fabric, while dying, then rinse just lightly. Well that worked for me by mistake :D

I hang on my clothes horse, and allow it to drip dry, remember to put either paper or a towel underneath for the drips.

All ironed (my linen is usually still quite damp when I do this) That is a piece of un-dyed linen along the bottom.

It's been awhile since piggy made and appearance, and he decided to have a look tonight.

Now for the awful day, we all have had natural disasters hit our countries, and it is awful when it does. I mean in two-three weeks in will have been two years since the bush fires in Victoria. Over 170 people lost their lives, and whole towns wiped out.

Tonight it is Queensland's turn, not fire, but water. Flooding after years of drought. Record flooding we have had so much rain that dams (water reservoir) have gone from 5-20% capacity to over full, some holding 160%. I don't know how they work that out.

The death toll, as it stands at the moment is 10 confirmed dead of which 5 are children. Nearly 80 missing of which there are real concerns for 15.
 
Evacuations going on all over the south-eastern corner of the state. Some people being force to leave their homes for a second time in a 10 day period. Whole towns being moved.

The news footage is horrific, people trapped in cars. Cars, trucks, shipping containers, houses being swept away. They are calling the flash flood that hit Toowoomba an inland Tsunami with a 2 metre (8 feet) wall of water. One small town the first they knew this was happening was when a house hit the local pub.

Now all this water is heading towards Brisbane the states capital. I have a brother, sister-in-law and two nephews that live on the outskirts of Brisbane. They are fine, up high, but the roads are now cut. All that matters is that they are safe.

I could go on all night but to give you some idea of how big and widespread this is Queensland is the second largest state in Australia, and 75% has been declared a Natural Disaster. Here is a map I 'borrowed' from the Queensland State Government website.

I would stay goodnight, but it's just not.
LiBBiE in Oz

And This Little Pig said More -How I Did It- Than -Tutorial

This is more of a 'How I Did It' than a Tutorial, as there are plenty of tutorials out there for this sort of thing, I just chose to do my pincushion/pinkeep a little different.

When I was doing my Rabbit/Rabbits, I didn't want to 'hop' on the sewing machine and sew round the edges, turn it back the right way out, stuff and then try and hand stitch a neat little edge which I hoped wasn't 'that' visible.

I know my limitation, when I did a quilting course many moons ago, a couple of us decided to create an AA group... Appliquer's Anonymous.

I digress, first, I don't like to stuff, the feel just isn't right for me, it's always lumpy even when it's not, so I use wadding the flat quilting kind.

Copied a template from the outline of one of the Rabbits, just a little smaller. Folded the wadding so it was four pieces thick, pinned the template, and cut out. Loosely tacked/backstitched the pieces of wadding so they wouldn't move.

Whip stitched round the top of the Rabbit/Rabbits, then inserted the wadding, and continued whip stitching the edges together.

The shape made it difficult to pull the edges together in places, but overall not too bad. I think that if and when I do something like this again, I won't have as many acute angles, make it more square.