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.

Princess Block: #5 The Strawberry Block

Here is the last of the Princess Block's that I've worked on! Wendy also worked on this block and I took it and finished it up to help her out. She is working on putting the whole quilt together now for Bekah's birthday party in about 2 weeks!

Here are some of the lovely flowers that Wendy embroidered on the block before I started any work. She also did all the embroidery you see on the seams.

For this princess block since it had a strong strawberry feel to it I went with that theme. I added the orange butterfly sequins floating about the block.

Then the princess in the center needed some pink, red and white additions to make her blend better so where there was aqua bits I covered the hem with white and red lace and appliqued it down then I added a cut out of some vintage pink and red lace that looks like a bow with a red sequin and bead. At the top of her bodice I added a bit of silk ribbon trim that is red and pink. I gave her red bead earrings, and in her hand is a tatted red rose that a tatting friend gave to me!
At the very bottom I attached a silk ribbon flower motif.

At the top I added in some little pink flower bits and a tatted rabbit the same tatting friend gave to me! The pink and green seam treatment you see is all Wendy's work!

To this patch I put Rebekah's nickname "Bekah" in red floss and sprinkled it with pearly white flower buttons attached with pink floss and accented with lazy daisy leaves.

This side patch has Wendy's seam treawtments but I added the strawberry motif!
The strawberries were reclaimed from a toddler's shirt I found at the thrift store for 25 cents. I added stem stitch stems in green perle cotton. I also added a felt flower I had in my stash.

For the strawberry leaflet I filled in the leaf shapes with fly stitches and then went back around the edges with blanket stitching to create the texturedness of stawberry leaves!