The next sections of the crazy quilt block

 I'm late this month due to having the flu the second week of the month. It was rough and I still feel weak from it. My allergies are super bad again, too. I did decide to do more of the embroidery so that instead of putting the 3 sections up for July, August and September, I'm putting them all up now. You can now see the entire piece too. 

Now there is one problem with this embroidery. I worked on it while I was dealing with the flu and have now lost the paper with most of the DMC embroidery floss numbers. It's another reason I'm late putting this up. I've been searching but I decided to give up.

Look at the section with the web. I removed the bright green plant and embroidered some grass and flowers. I used narrow silk ribbon for the long leaves.

The blue water section is made similar to section one. It has the same yo-yos, small white flowers, and fish. Go back to the Feb. post on it.

Along the "water" edge I drew lines to look like various grasses. I used feather and stem stitches. There are french knots in the curves in the feather stitches. The cat tail plant was made with padded straight stitch and outlined with stem stitch.

Next I added the ferns. I do have the color for them. It's DMC 890. I used 3 strands to stem stitch the curved stems and lazy daisy stitches for the leaves. I did two in DMC 842, but wasn't happy with them so only did the 2.

Around the ferns are lots of french knots. I used 3 strands of DMC white, 936, and 937 to make them. I then decided it needed a few small "rocks". I used 4 strands of DMC Flower thread 2642 to make 3 wrap loose french knots. This time I stopped myself from going crazy by covering all of the fabric. It was hard to stop but I'm glad I did. I have a box of DMC and Ginnie Thompson flower threads that I'm trying to use more often. I also have a box of DMC rayon thread. It was sent to me from DMC when I was one of the winners in a national contest they were involved in. I found it breaks easily so I guess that's why they stopped making it.

Between the extreme heat and my allergies I'm not getting as much done as I want but I do have some new patterns to get up at etsy. I'm also thinking about bagging up bits of tatting I have filling a large candy jar to sell. I'll post when anything gets listed. 

Thanks for reading and try to keep healthy!

June's free embroidery- section 5

 

I know I'm really late with this month but I was working on new tatted jewelry patterns and put the embroidery off. The photo above is not the finished design, it's to show some of the branches of the bushes. The next photo shows that I went really crazy with all the french knots. These last 2 sections are more than a bit over filled with embroidery.

Here's how I did this section.

1. I started with the bee skep. Below is a pattern for the size I used. I was all set to couch threads for lines and make an opening near the bottom with black thread but then I got the idea for the simple tatted piece. Tatters will see that it's just the most basic tatted trim done in rows.

2. Next I drew the lines for the bushes and the circles for the hollyhock flowers using a frixon pen. A note about the bushes. They ended up looking more like small trees and I did add more branches as I worked.

3. The hollyhocks are buttonhole wheels using 3 strands of DMC 603 for one and 605 for the other. If I had to do it again I'd start with the lighter pink move up with 2 more shades of the pink, with the darkest for the french knots at the top. The french knots are made with 6 strands. The leaves are DMC 470. I used 6 strands for the lazy daisys and 4 strands for the french knots.

4. Now we come to the bush trees :) I used 3 strands of DMC 780 to stem stitch the branches. I added some straight stitches as I filled in the flowers and leaves. The flowers were done with french knots in 3 colors. I first started with 6 strands of white floss I dyed pale yellow and pink. I bought a Tulip dye kit at Walmart a few years ago to dye my own threads. Yarnplayer at Etsy has MUCH better ones. Because this was boring to me I added some knots using DMC 963 (6 strands) and DMC 3716 (3 strands). This is when I practically covered the fabric. For the leaves I was going thru my old stash of DMC and Ginnie Thompson flower threads and decided to use GT448. I used 2 strands to do the lazy daisy stitches.

5. I didn't like how empty is looked under the skep so I made straight stitches using 1 strand of DMC 3348 to stitch grass. That wasn't enough for me so I added french knots using the same threads as I used in the last section.

6. The bees will get bead bodies when I finally add all the beads to the entire piece. The wings are lazy daisy stitches using Maderia Decora 1401. 

That's it, here's a photo of the sections so far. Notice that I added a border above section 5. It's 2 pieces of crochet cord I made using some pearl cotton I dyed. It's called Romanian cord and the directions are on YouTube.

I'm going to combine the next 3 sections in one post. Two are done and the third has been drawn. Yay! we get a break from the green backgrounds. I wish I had either used all tans and browns for the greens or stayed with the same color of green so that picking out floss would be easier. I'm really disliking that lime green in section 4 so it may have to go. I'm thinking more of those hollyhocks instead.

 

May's Free Embroidery - section 4 of the crazy quilt

I had some trouble deciding on what flowers I wanted to do here. This section had been previously embroidered but I didn't like the colors so removed all of it. I decided to stay with similar soft colors for the entire piece. You may want your garden bright and cheerful with many colors so use the shades you like. There is no set pattern of where to do the embroidery so you can add stitches you like or even rearrange the design.

This photo shows part of the wood frame I'm using instead of a hoop. The holes in the wood are from the thumb tacks I use to hold the fabric in place. This makes doing the embroidery so much better, no crushing or shifting anything. If you are wondering about the whited out area, it's where some embroidery was done when I first started this years ago. It looks like section 6-8 will end up as one post since the embroidery blends into these sections.

I did section 4 with  spider web because my tiny fairy is walking along a strand. I'll do the spider later with a bead body. I wanted the web to shine a bit so I went thru my stash of threads and found an old package of Medira Decora 1402 I bought on sale somewhere. It's a shiny viscose thread that is stranded and I only used 1 strand. I used a Frixon pen to draw out the shape. It has 6 long straight stitch lines. Working from the center I couched along the 6 lines to make the web. I also added the line the fairy is walking along with a few couch stitches.

Next I did the greenery at the right. I may add more of it to go into the next section which I've drawn out but haven't started. Draw the lines for as many stems as you want. A tip is to leave room for the leaves or you'll be stitching over other leaves. I did this in a few areas but wouldn't want all of it squashed together. Another tip is to draw one and embroidery it, then do another, and keep up this way until you get as many as you want. I used 3 strands of DMC 16 to make the stems with stem stitch and lazy daisy leaves. Along the stems there are french knots made using 3 strands of DMC 746. I did 3 wraps.

Th spider web flowers are next. Mostly they are called roses but I'm thinking of them this time as ranunculus flowers. Make them the usual way with 5 spokes of single thread and 3 to weave. I used DMC 3078. A tip is to draw the circles where you want these and the blue flowers to be leaving room for the leaves.

The blue flowers are very easy. I used 3 strands of DMC 775 to make lazy daisy petals. There are 8 for each flower. The centers will be beads added later.

The leaves around the flowers are lazy daisy stitches. I used 3 strands of DMC 895 around the yellow flowers and DMC 471 around the blue. Fill in as much as you want. I notice now that the darker green is not showing up real good so I may have to change it. Using green fabrics has made picking green flosses hard. With the Bali fabrics having many shades in them I'm tending towards much lighter shades than I would normally use.

I decided more needed to be added so I used french knots to fill in along the bottom of the greenery and around the flowers. I think of them as tiny wild violets. There are one of my favorite flowers and I drive my husband crazy when I refuse to mow over where they grow until they are dome blooming. I used strands of DMC 503 and 210 for the knots. I did the purple first then added the green.

That's it, you can see the fabric for the next section. It's the one I cut off the fabric and put a new one on.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there!

The first crazy quilt section - free embroidery

This is a have fun piece. You can have as many yo-yo lily pads and fish as you want. Add beads to look like rocks in the blue water or as a border. I found a fake suede ric-rac trim to use for the border. It's held in place with french knots.

Start with the goldfish. I used 2 shades of orange and one yellow to do the straight stitches over pieces of orange felt to make a padded shape. You can do a series of long straight stitches, then stitch over them so the fish is a little raised instead of using the felt. Follow the arrows on the pattern for the direction the stitches should go in. The fish bodies are about 3/4" long and about 1/4" wide but make them the size you want. You may want to try making one on a scrap of fabric first. The fins are pieces of thin ribbon. I used 5/8" rayon bias ribbon for the fins and tail.The back fin is about 1/4" long and cut at an angle at one end. Gather the opposite edge and sew where the red line is on the back of the fish, spreading out the gathers so it;s about 3/8" long. The side fins are the same except they are gathered tight and sewn where the black x's are. The tail is a 1" piece with both ends cut at angles. Gather it at the center and sew to the back tip of the body. The eyes are 2 small black seed beads but you can do french knots instead.

The lily pads are circles of green bali printed fabric made into yo-yos. Use 1" - 2" circles of fabric gathered into the yo-yos for the various sizes. Notice that I partly covered the fish so it looks like they are swimming under them. Look at the photo for ideas for placements. The 2 lilies are made with white silk ribbon doing Japanese leaf stitch, but white floss can be used to make lazy daisy stitches. Look at the photo and you'll see that one is a circle of petals and the other is made to look like a side view. I used dark green floss to make a straight stitch for the stem, french knots at the bottom of the flower, and 2 stem stitched grass like stems.The center of the full circle flowers has a french knot using yellow floss.

The heron  is made using bullion stitches. I found the directions in an old bullion stitch book so I can't give them but by looking at the photo you may be able to see how to make it. I had a look online but couldn't find anything like it. Sorry!

The clusters of green over the brown edging was made using tatted rings but a similar look can be made doing bullion stitch loops. Another choice would be to do turkey stitch, then cut the loops or not.

Since this was made ages ago I don't have the names/numbers of the colors used. It's the only section that has something (the heron) I can't give the directions for. There is an amazing fish youtube video that I posted about last year you may prefer to make.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwBcSZxTeYo

Next month is all flowers so get your fav colors of floss ready.

Finally my free embroidery for Jan.

 Ok, This will be very different from any others I've posted. I have 3 crazy quilt wall hangings I've been working on and then ignoring for years. I decided to get out the smallest one and work on it with you. Below is the basic pattern on how I laid out the fabrics. I started with no pattern and just sewed them as I worked.The actual size is 14" x 14". Some of the areas are already embroidered so there's no full pic yet because I want you to be surprised each month.

I call this piece "Bali in the Garden" because I used all Bali fabric in tans and greens except for the 2 blue sections. The chart below has where you should put the colors. You can skip the tans and use all greens but do use blue fabric where it's marked. These will be ponds. You need 4 different greens, 1 tan, 1 darker tan or light brown, and the blue. The fabric I used in space 9 is green, tan, and light brown. Use what you like but stay away from bold prints. One of my greens has a palm frond design (4 & 11). The rest look like hand dyed fabrics. 

The 3 pages of patterns were traced from my finished design so they are only approximate. You need to cut the fabric about 1" bigger than the patterns. The areas along the edge of the design may need about 1 1/2" - 2" because you want them to come to the edge of the base fabric. I used a piece of 14" x 14" muslin for this. Each space is numbered to show which piece of fabric is sewn on when. If you don't know how to crazy quilt there are tons of sites and videos to get you started. 

For sections 6 & 7 and 9 & 10, you sew them together then sew them to the main piece. Some sections will need to be hand sewn in place.

Notice that in section 3 there is an option piece. This is because I added a tiny fairy from a piece of fabric after I had sewn all the sections on the base fabric. Maybe you have a tiny scrap of a favorite fabric you'd like to add here.

A BIG tip I have is to baste the edge of the entire piece under after all the pieces are sewn on. Fold under what you plan on for the seam allowance. This is so none of your embroidery gets too close to the edge. I had this problem a few times in section 4 so that's when I did the basting.

The small print will let you know which pieces to sew together before sewing them to the base fabric, what colors to use where, and other tips. This is not a full size pattern.

These patterns below are only approximate as I made this as I went. You may want to combine areas 6&7 and 9&10 into just one fabric, that will be fine. . Remember that when you cut out the fabric to not cut them the size of the patterns. You  need seam allowances!The jpgs are full size so right click them to save them to your hard drive and then print.

Crazy quilting is a fun way to use up leftover pieces of fabric. Just remember that this mini quilt is woodland or garden themed. Next month will be the center section 1. This pond is edged in brown ric-rac and will have goldfish!

If you have no interest in crazy quilting do the embroidery as blocks.

©Billie Jo Heisler 2025

All rights reserved

 Disclaimer:

I drew this design by hand then used a software program to edit it. I have not knowingly copied anyone else's work.

Please consider the drawing and all of the embroidery copyrighted. You have my permission to print copies of the drawing in any size for your own use but not to share or sell. If you want to share the pattern please link to the blog pages.

Yay!!! Inky Wonderlands came!!!

 

Ever since I took Johanna's online classes last year I've been wanting to buy a copy of this book. I found a like new copy on ebay so I bought it! It came last week but with walking dogs and the extreme heat I just haven't had the desire for drawing. The sketch book is from last year. It's not like I really need another hobby but this is something to just enjoy and inspire my embroidery designs.

I'm trying to finish up another large design.  I'm almost done with the quilting but then I have a lot more to do. I'm updating the Fall Stall design I gave for free in 2019, adding a lot more to it to make it worth buying. Now it will be a quilted wall hanging with even more embellishments! I'm doing all the quilting by hand so it's taken longer than I wanted but after sewing one bit by machine I ended up picking it all out and doing it by hand.

 The free August embroidery has be designed and traced just need to find make the time to do it.

Hope you all have got your covid shots, if not take care of your self and those around you.