I taught this project as a class for CyberPointer at the May and July meetings. (The later ended yesterday.) Since I was writing addendum to the instructions, my commentary on the project all ended up there, not here. If I get motivated, I'll mine the instructions for good blog commentary; but honestly, it probably won't happen.

A few of my students have posted progress on their blogs (here and here) and I'm looking forward to seeing more as time goes on. (Like maybe here) NOTE TO STUDENTS: If I missed your blog, please leave a comment so I can check it out!

As a new chapter CyberPointers has just come up with a nametag design and since I'm on the Education Committee I got a chance to try the pattern out early. I have the very bad habit of using my clothes as my pincushion, so I decided to finish my nametag as a mattress pincushion. Although the pattern is designed for canvas, I stitched my nametag on linen and left the background unstitched.

My friend Valorie predicts that other members will want to copy this, so here's how I did it.

I'd never made a mattress pin cushion before, so I checked out a bunch of different web sites for directions. Mainly I followed the diagrams given in http://verom.canalblog.com/archives/2006/11/16/3182816.html (in French and which for some reason my html won't validate when I link to it), and used this tutorial to fill-in when I needed more help.

I stitched a running stitch around the outside of the front piece, and then made an identical sized back. For the side, I stitched a narrow piece with the same number of running stitches as it took to go around the front on each side. I used a feather stitch to decorate the side piece.

From somewhere (and I wish I remembered where so I could give them the credit they deserve), I got the idea of putting a magnet in the pin cushion so that you can use it to sweep for missing pins. I used a magnet I'd salvaged from an old shower curtain. I stitched a medium size safety pin on the back of the nametag, so it can be pinned on, or attached by putting another magnet under your shirt or jacket. Also, I didn't have any interfacing, but I did have WonderUnder, so I made my own interfacing of the batting I used for the filling.

The initial stitched pieces:

2 pieces of batting with magnet stitched between them:

Back view of batting pieces WonderUndered in place:

The back stitched to the sides:

Cyberstitchers, my EGA group, have been discussing making non-counted biscornu using the usual overcast edge seam. I decided to try using a pattern template so I could do a Brazilian Embroidery biscornu.

Between Friday evening and Saturday, I designed and stitched up my first biscornu. It went pretty well, although drawing in all the stitches (even with a template) seemed time consuming. In reality, it probably didn't take any more time than counting would have. You can't see it very well in the pictures, but I added a bead to the end of each drizzle stitch, which really helped visually define the ends and the fact that these are only attached to the fabric on one end.

Side 1 - inspired by Jenny Hart / Sublime Stitching's Free Fireworks Pattern



Side 2 (before adding the drizzles)

Sunshine Makes Me Happy

Exodus Breastplate

Midnight Garden