Monday, March 26, 2007

Spring Challenge: Strawberry Seam

Well I was thinking about my slanted buttonhole seam and was also looking out my window to the back garden and saw several ripe strawberries and thought the stitch looked a lot like the stems to the strawberries! So I ran with the idea and make the seam strawberries! I already ate the ones I had seen but this one wasn't ripe enough so I got to take a photo. Isn't it cute? Next time the garden gives me inspiration I'll try to take a photo right away! LOL
I made them by adding small ribbon stitches in 4mm red silk ribbon and adding fly stitch and a straight stitch at the top to make the little greenery and then added yellow seed stitching on top of the ribbon stitches. Then I needed to add leaves so I thought about it for a while and came up with the scallops with the leaves at the ends. I did the stems in stem stitch and then added bead embroidery leaves using tiny size 15 seed beads.
The leaves are in the A-Z of Bead Embroidery book which I highly recommend. The leaves are pretty easy to do; take your needle and come up to the front of your fabric, then add your
beads (lets say 5) then take your needle to the back. Next you bring
it back up to the front close to the last bead and then take the
needle back through the last bead then you add more beads, 2 less than
the number you started with (so since it was 5 you would add 3 more).
Then you take the needle through the first bead snug it all together
and take the needle back through the fabric to the back.
Since the seam was uneven because I just eyeballed the buttonhole stitch I made the leaves in graduating sizes since the spaces seemed to gradually get smaller up the seam it worked out.
My art teacher always used to say "Art is making order out of chaos" and so that's what I did, making the best of the uneven stitching! LOL She would be so proud! LOL
Speaking of old teachers, my 6th grade teacher loved a Strawberry Poem and we at one time had to memorize it...I can't remember it does anyone know of any famous strawberry poems? I tried to Google search for it but couldn't find anything. I wish I could remember something about it...I think it repeated strawberry or strawberries in a lot of the verses. Wow, really wish I could still have it memorized...I'd know it if I saw it though! I sometimes saved old papers from school I wonder if I still have the poetry papers.

Here's a poem that Carolyn Cibik sent me it's soooo cute and very fitting for me since I got curly hair, don't do a lot of cleaning, and I love to sew a nice seam and eat strawberries! HA!

Curly -Locks

Curly-locks,Curly-locks, wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine;
But sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.

2 comments:

Jo in NZ said...

Melissa, you have so many comments on the group...but none here. Your herringbone treatment really does look elegant, and your fargo (sweetheart) roses are perfect! I did a tut, how about you done one for your way. And the strawberries are inspired. Really beautiful. Yumyum.

coral-seas said...

That seams doesn't look angry anymore; those strawberries look good enough to eat. I especially like the herringbone/straight stitch/lazy daisy combo with your SRE roses.

CA