Tuesday, September 15, 2015

For the love of the water
















The ocean is such a large part of our life.  It surrounds us everywhere we are. We see it from our living room windows, we drive next to it when we go anywhere on this beautiful island of ours. Liam is still scared of the water, but in time I believe he will begin to venture out into it... he will learn to hear the crashing of the waves as something soothing instead of something to fear. We bring a little bit of the ocean back home with us. A rock here. A shell there. To remind us of how beautiful it is - how we enjoy our time there and how much we want to return. I started a little cross stitch from this delightful book of ocean animals on a piece of thrifted linen. This pattern is so nice because the motifs are small, perfect for that small pocket of time during naps.

Aloha everybody. I hope your week is filled with beautiful things, people, and moments.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Karisma, the ocean and surrounds of your island look so beautiful. I love the shot of Liam sleeping on one of your beautiful quilts, surrounded by even more lovely handmade pillows and quilts. I also wanted to say how lovely your patchwork gratitude wrap turned out, so pretty! I didn't get a chance to comment when you posted it the other day. Do you baste with pins or glue or something else first, when you hand stitch a small patchwork panel? Have a lovely week too! Kelly

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    1. Hi Kelly! Thank you so much, you are always so kind and encouraging in your words. I really appreciate it and your words make me want to share. I'm glad you liked the gratitude wrap! It has been put to much use lately. I baste my hand projects with thread. Check out this link:

      http://quarterinchmark.blogspot.com/2013/03/about-hand-quilting.html

      for tips on hand quilting. Chase's work is amazing and I am often inspired by her work.

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    2. Thanks for the link Karisma! That is exactly what I have been searching for! I have some Perle hand quilting thread all ready to try out, but I just wasn't sure of how to start...so I didn't. But now this will help give me the confidence to jump in and just try to hand baste it, and get started... it will be far from perfect I'm sure, but hey this hobby is a learning curve right?! I just want to enjoy it, and not get hung up on wrecking it!

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    3. Hi Kelly! Oooohh... I started off with Pearl 8 cottons for hand quilting. This is a good link too... this is actually what I taught myself on!

      http://chasingcottons.blogspot.com/2011/06/quilt-class-101-week-11-hand-quilting.html

      Check it out!

      Personally, I love the imperfections that are found in hand quilting. I think that it really adds to the charm. That human touch - those imperfections that let you know that it was made with a person with a skill with love. Imperfections are wonderful! But also- you will have this as a marker for where you started. =) And your work will grow as you grow. But for now, embrace where you are. It is a wonderful place to be! Good luck! I hope you post on instagram! =) I'd like to see. =)

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    4. Oh, thank you for another good link Karisma! I started on the basting yesterday, I got about half done, I'm pretty slow at hand stitching!! In the quarterinchmark tutorial and in a few others I have looked up, they don't really show you what type of stitch to do, so I just did a largish running stitch in a dark thread, so it will be easy to see to take out later. It looks like its going ok. I can't wait to start the actual hand quilting with the Perle thread! I will definitely put it on instagram when I'm finished the stitching. Did you see I put a photo of the finished patchwork panel up on IG a little while ago? I'm so excited to finish it, and show you. =) And I also put a few other sewing project photos on it last night too. Why did you change over to using the thinner hand quilting thread, rather than the Perle 8 now? Or do you still use a bit of both depending on the project? Cheers, Kelly

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  2. What a paradise surrounds you. Ocean is on another level when it comes to soul-soothing things. Wonderful cross-stitch.

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