Another Crazy Quilting diamond

This diamond was made for a project initated by the CQfornewbees group.

  It needed to be made with bright happy colors.  

Below is the top of the diamond. Because the blue fabric has butterflies on it, I decided to

try my hand at the Satin stitch and make a pretty butterfly.  

It didn't come out to bad, but I know I still need lots of practice.

The heart below is made using the Basque stitch and filled in with a Lattice stitch 

that is couched down with yellow thread at the intersections.  The yellow stitching

around the heart consists of lazy daisy stitch (3 leaves) and stem stitch (Curly "S').

The curly Ss are tiny and I just love the stem stitch with tiny stitches.  

I like how this RED heart looks on the green background.

I hope you've enjoy these photos!

My Embroidery Sampler
I've decided to finally make an embroidery sampler for myself to keep track of stitches and their uses, particularly ones that please me.  I won't be updating this blog very often as it is a "back burner" project but now that I've made this blog I will feel obligated to work on it periodically.

I started out with a good size piece of muslin that I've backed with Pellon Shape Flex (all purpose Woven fusible interfacing).  It is basically a piece of lightweight 100% cotton fabric with glue on it, allowing it to be attached to another piece of fabric (via ironing).   Just what i was looking for, nice and easy!  I found it at my local Joan's.

My first stitch was the French knot, and since I liked how my tree came out on the CQ diamond that was made for someone else, I decided I needed to have one of those lovely trees for myself. 

One thing I've discovered for myself is that the thickness of the needle affects the size of the knot.  I was using a very thin embroidery needle (size 11) and decided to try a betweens and, lo and behold, I like the look of the knot much better.  It comes out fatter, more pronounced.

I left the third branch empty on purpose because not only do I like the way the branch looks but I also wanted it for my future reference.  The branches almost disappear with all those French knots and it is hard to see what exactly I did to make the branch.

 I fooled around with colors as you will see.

This heart is made using the BASQUE stitch, which is basically a twisted loop stitch. I've made this heart before on a CQ diamond that was donated and I wanted one for myself!   I used 2 strands of DMC floss.  The inside of the heart is decorated with a lattice stitch (2 strands floss) held down (couched) with 1 strand of yellow DMC floss at each intersection.

I am in the process of embroidering some S shapes and such around the heart, using the stem stitch.

  I need to figure out how to make better enlargements!