Tag: Stitch: Tea bag

On the eve of the lunar eclipse

~ Liz A ~ 10 Comments

I woke at five this morning, as I often do, to find moonlight streaming in our west bedroom window. Putting on my glasses, I found the almost-full moon too bright to look at directly.

Tomorrow will be different. As I write this, the sun is chasing the moon westward to Australia, where the earth will step between the two, thereby creating a shadowmoon that will dance its way around the world.
So my thoughts are much with the kindred spirits down under, where the summer sun reigns and the shadowmoon will be at its fullest. 
Mo, who so faithfully records the full moon on her blog
Barry, whose peace gifts 
are such a wonder …

Fiona, one of whose letterpress postcards
has flown here …

to join with other paper treasures from her hand …

And because I didn’t want to mar the postcard with my less-than-satisfactory machine stitching, I opted to slow stitch this time …

to much better effect methinks …

And then there’s India Flint, 
who was a major inspiration in my eco-dye trials, some of which were more …
or less successful …

but which play quite nicely together …

and will join these tea bag squares as I participate her upcoming online bagstories project …

There’s more, but I will keep silent for now except to note this sign just appeared next door …

– On deadline

~ Liz A ~ 12 Comments

Patch #344 For Kindred Spirits

I love reading Deb Sposa’s Artisun blog and was delighted beyond words by this post:
As a result, I tried making my own teabag mini-quilt. And thinking the deadline was December 14, I got it done yesterday. Of course, now I see the deadline is actually December 22, but with the holiday mail rush, it’s probably a good thing I’m getting it out early.
So, for the record (so I can remember it), here’s the completed piece, front …

and back …

It was a true learning sampler, created by finding a trio of scallop shells that would fit inside a used tea bag …

inserting them and then spritzing the bag with water so I could mold it onto the shells with a brush …

Then lightly stroking Inktense pencil over each shell …

and using the resulting design to guide my stitches.
At first I was afraid the tea bag would tear, so I spaced my stitches far apart …

Seen from the back, it looks like I used a running stitch and a detached back stitch …

I soon realized the tea bag was stronger than I expected, so I made the stitches closer on the second shell …

using more tension to get more defined ridges with stacked running stitch …

Then I went all out on the final shell …

successfully piling on tons of split back stitches …

The “batting” was a bit of cotton flannel that I tea-dyed. To create a hanger, I wrapped the end of the flannel over a bit of beachcombed twig from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. If you look closely you can see one of the barbs …

The bottom edge I worried with a pin, succeeding in getting a look like tangled flotsam …

Then I made a memory patch of teabag over flannel stitched in the same variegated floss as the mini-quilt. I know the tea bag will tear and fall away eventually. Indeed, it already has started to let go …

which seems a proper metaphor.

– Run, run, run

~ Liz A ~ 6 Comments

Retrospective (9/30)

Patch #268 5K Flyer

Patch #269 Pride of Wentzville

Original Post
It’s really fun having two grandsons about the same age (4 and almost-4). This weekend J played his first t-ball game …

and G ran his first 5K (with his mom) …

Looks like a yellow memory patch (or two) is in order.
In the meantime, I completed another row of checkered patches …
although I’m woefully behind on September’s patches. No worries, I spent today playing with tea bags for my Deb Sposa assignment. One sea shell version done with Inktense pencils …

and one done on a tea bag that was nested in red onion skins as it dried …

Both were “filled” with a layer of tea-dyed flannel. And I’m still learning what works: how much stitch the tea bags can take (a lot, it turns out, including taking stitches out), and which stitches best accomplish the ridges I’m after on the shells …

Stacked running stitch wins over backstitch …

but you probably knew that.