Valerean

In order to get silk fabric but not pay an arm and a leg for it, you can opt for thrifting vintage scarves. I bid on and won a lot of them last year; let's see how I did. There are nine scarves in the lot in all different sizes and styles. The colors and patterns are even prettier than they were in the auction listing. Vera Neumann scarves are quite collectible. This one is a newer design, probably from the 80's. If you see a scarf with Vera and a lady bug next to the signature, grab it. Those are the most valuable. Pure silk scarf by Jones of New York. Another 100% silk. Someone tried to launder this one, judging by the dye migration. I ended up with three pure silk scarves out of the nine in the lot. If you want to wear vintage silk scarves, it's best to have them dry cleaned. For my purposes hand-washing is fine. Also, do be careful of dye migration when laundering vintage scarves. This Bill Blass designer scarf bled purple d...

My reward to myself for finishing the first novel for the day job in 2023 was this beautiful vintage lot of YLI metallic silk embroidery ribbon on 30 yard spools. These aren't made anymore -- the company that originally owned the line sold it off -- so they retail for $10.00 a spool or more when you can find them. I purchased them for about a dollar each. I'm extra over the moon to have these because I just ran out of embroidery ribbon, and they're vintage, so I'm sticking to my intention not to buy any new materials this year. It's really a beautiful thread to work with in embroidery. The blue feather stitching above the violet ribbon on my calendar scroll was made with the new ribbon. Now all I need is a bigger specialty thread box. :)

I purchased this small silk crazy quilt block to use for textile art. As it felt soiled and was a bit smelly I decided to hand wash the piece, although I suspected it contained weighted silk. Weighted silks originated in the 19th century, when the fabric was sold by weight. During processing manufacturers would remove the sericin left by silk worms on the fibers -- known as degumming -- and then use a filler solution of metallic salts to replace the lost weight. The problem was that the weighting process damaged the silk, which would quickly wear out or become brittle and shatter while in storage (which we now see happening with so many of the 19th century-early 20th century crazy quilts.) A soak in cool water made it clear that the piece was not colorfast, another problem with some types of weighted silk. From the shade of the bleed I'll guess some of the patches were treated with tannin and/or iron salts. I'm not sorry I washed the block, even though I made th...

I have a small collection of hand-dyed artisan silks that I've saved from a tumultuous time in my life. I purchased them right before I decided to quit the job I'd worked for seventeen years. Walking away from NY was one of the hardest things I'd ever done, and I knew establishing myself was going to take a while and a lot of work. I put the silks in a bag and promised myself I'd get back to them. These remind me of all the sacrifices I made in order to escape a very bad situation and find happiness as a freelance novelist. It wasn't easy, and at times I thought I would fail. The thing that made the difference was not giving up on myself. In the end I succeeded, far beyond what I expected, too. So maybe it's time to make these beautiful silks into a quilt. :)

It's been eighteen months since I backburnered my crazy silk quilt project, so I got it out to brood over it. It's prettier than I remembered. I hate the pandemic for killing so many people and causing all of us to live in fear. I also resent it for railroading my quilting, especially this project. Part of me want to work on this again. Badly. The rest of me thinks I'll just screw it up. Oh, well. I'm all over the place with my quilting these days anyway. Maybe I'll work on the third block a little tonight and see what happens.

As I write this keep in mind that Blogger (aka the jerks at Google) has forced me to start using their new interface by eliminating the old/legacy option, which means my posts may end up a bit wonky while I learn how to use it. Last night it stormed too much for me to get on the computer, so I worked on my quilt journal and made a small silk art piece for it. Earlier in the day I had printed out a free English paper piecing template for hexagons , and I used the 2.5" size to trace out and cut up about thirty or so from an old file folder. Then I made my very first hexie out of scrap fabric, just to see what it entailed. It wasn't difficult, although I had to go back and reread a tutorial on how to make them , and watch a video on how to take out the cardboard template. So I'm going to make some hexies on the side out of my scraps, and see if this can help make a dent in them. Watch me grow. :)

I had a small scrap of pretty eco-dyed silk that I've been saving forever, and finally used to make a bookmark for my quilting journal: Stitch books are made of cloth, and are used to save samples of decorative machine embroidery from a particular machine. I think they should be used for slow stitch samples and practice pieces, too. I've seen some made of muslin for sale on Etsy, but I'm going to make my own. Here's the cover piece: Thank goodness for slow stitch. I've really needed it over the last week. It is the essence of finding peace in troubled times for a stitcher. :)

We're struggling a bit with losing Cole. It's hard to lose a member of the family and go on like nothing's wrong. But I'm still working on the quilting journal I started as part of my ten things in a month challenge: I think my handwriting is slowly improving with the daily practice: I've also been able to meditate while stitching the little pieces I've been making for the journal, and this piece in particular helped me sort out a difficult problem: I'm still stalling on starting the shibori quilt, but that's okay. I'll get there.

Another little slow stitched silk piece I did tonight, mainly to practice my swan stitch.

A little meditative piece I stitched on a swatch of eco-dyed silk for my quilting journal. I'm also finding a lot of cool Fall-related pics over at Pixabay to use in my Fall journal. Some of them are really beautiful:

Last night's journal entry: I slow stitched the little silk piece to take a break from the table runner, and also so I could do something in fall colors. Autumn will be here in another week, and I'm determined not to sulk over the end of summer.

Last night I finished the pink crazy tote: For the lining I used a floral/vintage French print: Close-ups of the details: Glad to be done, although I'm not thinking oink when I look at it. :)

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I'm finished with the silk on silk project. It buckled in more than one place on the back, but I just had fun with the stitching -- which ended up going in circles mostly. I really like how the stitching looks on the green section. Very dreamy. I might make this into a pillow, or keep it as is. Right now I'm just setting it aside to get on with the next project, which may be a lap quilt if I can make up my mind. Stop in tomorrow to see what I'm waffling over.

It's pretty tough to invent a new embroidery stitch; humans have been embroidering for roughly the last 32,000 years. But the other night I tried a variation on feather stitching that I've never seen done anywhere else: Here's how to do it: run a row of feather stitching in one direction. Then feather stitch on top of that row in the opposite direction: It creates this neat lacy effect that I really like. I'm also sure someone else thought of doing this before I did. But, just in case no one has, I'm naming my variation the swan stitch. :)