embroidery – Daily Fiber

Sunday Reveal: Baby has arrived!

Posted on August 17, 2025August 18, 2025 by Laura Kate

Ten days ago, my sister texted me with wonderful news: My niece’s baby arrived, on her due date. The newest family member is a little girl, named Roseanna Joy. Within days I had assembled the Oregon Natives quilt blocks and added the border.

This quilt is made in strip-piece fashion and finished out at 48 x 58. I’m pretty happy with the result. Using fabrics (mostly from Connecting Threads) that match (or approximate) the color palette provided by the new mom, I organized the quilt around ten applique blocks with images of creatures and plants that live in the baby’s home state. My daughter assisted me in designing and sewing these feature blocks.

Color palette provided

For those readers who may be surprised by the hap-hazard way that individual strips meet each other, let me say this: It’s intentional. An ecologist would call this style “disordered uniformity.” At the detail level, things seem to be chaotic, but when looked at from a respectable distance, patterns emerge. It is the way of nature.

Here is a quick close-up of the mammals, birds, reptile, fish, insects, plant and fungus that will greet little Roseanna.

Steps to completion still await me. I will need to make the label, assemble the quilt sandwich and do the quilting. That part is making me a little nervous, because I haven’t figure out what quilt pattern to use. Any advice from you experts out there will be appreciated.

Linking to Songbird Designs

embellishing, hand embroidery, recycling

Visible Mending

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Laura Kate

Earlier this week, a friend of a friend asked me to help him mend the holes in his favorite jeans. He didn’t bring any patches along, so I just used needle and thread to weave across one of the holes as a demonstration. That got our conversation started about the concept of visible mending.

The artist I was thinking about is Celia Pym.

An article and some images of her work can be found here:

Celia Pym

The conversation reminded me that I had set aside a pair of jeans of my own that were now holey at the knees.

Perhaps the universe is telling me it’s time to start this project. Despite having an abundance of UFFOs littering my studio, I began working on the jeans.

First of all, I wanted to incorporate patches over the weak-at-the-knees areas. Having been told in the past NOT to throw away fabric scraps, I was able to find some interesting scraps already coated with fusible glue.

It took me less than 30 minutes to fussy-cut some flowers that could cover the holes. I added even more patches just to create a colorful floral field on the denim.

I do intend to embroider over the patches. This will serve to strengthen the patches and unify the design a little bit.

**Getting started with embroidery – pearl cotton**

It’ll take me a few evenings to get all the hand stitching done. But first, I wanted to address the torn logo on the back of the jeans.

These are Levis jeans but the leathery label on the waistband is nearly gone. I used a small pair of scissors with a sharp point to cut away the remaining bits and thread.

Next I made a label of my own and stitched it into place.

Yesterday I purchased a variety pack of pearl cotton thread in shades of pink, purple, aqua, blue and yellow. I’m really looking forward to jazzing up these tired old jeans.

hand embroidery, quilting

Finished Object: Sunset Abstract

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Laura Kate

It took only a few days to determine and apply the surface decoration on this piece. And I have stretched the truth a little in calling this one finished. I have sewn on a wide border that still needs machine quilting, and the whole thing needs to be mounted to an artist’s canvas. Since I can’t purchase that item until pandemic restrictions are lifted, I am content to call this object finished.

This is a detail I altered from the original image. In my photograph there was a road in the foreground. I changed it to a stream and depicted it with sunlight glinting off its waters. I achieved this with metallic yarn sewn on with couching.

Here is my trick to get my running stitch straight. By using painter’s tape to mark my fabric, I could hand stitch while watching TV. Also I don’t have to remove marks.

Close up of lower right section showing sun. Clouds and stream are reflecting the sunset. The triangles were stamped onto the fabric using metallic paint.

I feel pretty good about this fiber object. It communicates well the idea of sunset and its color range. I like the balance between the elements and the level of detail. And it allowed me to practice my piecing and embroidery skills.

hand embroidery, painting, quilting

Daily Fiber for One Year

Posted on March 7, 2020March 6, 2020 by Laura Kate

Yes, friends, today marks one year since I started experimenting in the fiber arts and posting the results of my efforts. This mini quilt is my most recent object. It’s quite a fitting testimony to my adventures, because it showcases so many of the techniques that I have learned along the way. I have used fabric paint to tint the daisies, then mixed some of my hand painted fabrics with a few solids and prints to fashion the blocks. The whole thing was ditch stitched. I then hand quilted on top of the blocks with embroidery floss. Lastly, I painted enough fabric to border the whole piece. The completed work is sewn over a 16 inch square of artist canvas.

Let’s take a brief look back on how I got here.

**Painting fabric with Dye-Na-Flow acrylic paint. Sun print using marbles and rice.**

My enthusiasm for hand painting fabric actually started when I took a class on how to do this and then taught a class last spring. It was a big hit with all ages. I continue to experiment and now use this craft as a vital source of uniquely colored fabric.

As a girl, I embroidered my share of humdrum tea towels and pillowcase hems. But today – embroidery artists have moved this craft to new heights. I could never be that good. Or could I? I began to practice some basic stitches and decided that embroidery has a place in my work. For this project, I appliqued, embroidered and wrote with fabric markers to make five prayer flags. Here you see the Earth flag.

**My first log cabin mini quilt, using hand-painted fabric**

Quilting. Whoa. My mother is the most expert quilter that I know. She generously gave me her Bernina sewing machine. It seemed inevitable that I dip my toe into the venerable art of machine quilting. Any fiber artist worthy of the title needs to have some skill in putting together a quilt. And while I never expect to cover any beds with my quilts, I do see it as a robust art well suited for expressing my ideas.

**Improv Mini Quilt with curved piecing.**

So by mid July, I was experimenting with improvisational mini quilts. These small gems are fun to do and can be completed in a day. In this one, I have combined applique, machine quilting and embroidery. If the machine stitching looks a little bunched up, it’s because I had not found my machine’s walking foot yet. It’s now in active use.

That about sums up my thoughts on a year of fiber objects. When I began this blog, I expected to use the site simply as a personal diary. My goal was to record my work and my thoughts about the work. But then nearly 100 readers found my site. I have such gratitude to those who choose to read and to comment on my humble posts. Your interaction with me has enriched me and my craft in many ways. I thank you for your time and caring attention.

knitting, painting, quilting

Catch-Up Friday

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Laura Kate

Since I didn’t finish any of my fiber objects this week, I have decided to write a progress report. You see above about ten inches of the Weaver’s Square pattern, which will become a colorful vest for my daughter. This is the back of the garment. The front I have planned will be much more subdued. While working with seven strands of yarn each row has been a challenge, the satisfaction of the work and the excitement of seeing the color emerge has more than compensated for any difficulty. I have chosen to switch out the vertical colors at a rate of two or three for every band of horizontal color. As a result, the pattern has a more vertical effect.

Another work in progress is picture above. The quilt sandwich is constructed and some stitch in the ditch took place. At that point, I decided to work some embroidery in the flower squares and add hand quilting to the strips.

I also felt that a border was essential to provide balance between the light and the dark sections of the piece. Going further, I plan to hand-paint this border in multiple hues. It will be exciting to see how well that goes, and it will take me more time.

Last week-end I started a tutorial on painting with water color on paper. This class was offered on Bluprint.com. Despite a little trepidation, I am sharing my work today. Keep in mind I am a rank beginner and be kind.