We arrived home safely from our trip to Virginia and Philadelphia. It was almost warm there. The first day we arrived it was 60 degrees which really felt like spring. I even saw some early daffodils. With at least 3 feet of snow still on top of my daffodils, I don’t think they are blooming any time soon. I visited with Vicki while I was in Virginia and she gave me some of her lovely hand dyed cotton fabrics. I have to say that they are truly scrumptious! Thanks Vicki!

This is the Valentine I made for hubby. The background is angelina that was ironed over a rubber stamp. The heart is made from mixed breed wool and wensleydale locks that I felted and then stitched. I used the drizzle stitch that I learned recently. You can’t see much of the stitching in this photo but there is another sample below.

Here is the felt with drizzle stitch.

And a close up. I used stitch and tear on the back to prevent distortion and it is quite flat.

I worked today on more samples for my homework for my experimental machine stitch class. These are all of samples that we did in class that I wasn’t too happy with the first try. This is using an automatic stitch and varying the width and length of the stitch to get different looks of the stitch. I used cotton muslin with an iron on stabilizer. It didn’t stabilize much. I got lots of distortion of the fabric.

Here’s a close up. I actually liked the way this stitch turned out as it doesn’t look like most of the automatic stitches that are available on my machine. It is much more organic looking.

This is cable stitch using an automatic stitch. This is the same stitch that I used on the green piece above.

Here’s a close up. I am really happy with being able to change my bobbin tension as this is so much better that what I was able to do in class.

Here is cable stitch again only using it free motion. On all the cable stitch samples, I used some of the hand dyed threads that Sharon sent me when I guessed correctly how long her sampler was. It works really great in the bobbin. This is design I am practicing as I have some ideas to take it further. But since this is just supposed to be a cable stitch sampler, I didn’t add any other stitching. I want to try filling in the amoebic like shapes with either granite stitch or mossing.

Here’s a close up. I used a variegated thread in the bobbin and for the top thread. I’ve got three more home work pieces to complete and then I’m going to start experimenting with the stitches I have learned on felt. More to come!