Two-By-Two

It's The First Of August - and today marks the start of the fourth collaborative stitching project between Kirsten and me. I am so excited about this one! We started out with the Postcard Project, stitching on linen

And then we did the Cross Country Collaboration, working on evenweave Aida, doing cross stitch

And latterly, the CoverStory, adding patches each month to a foundation sheet, to make bookcovers.

In all that time we have learned about new embroidery stitches, Swedish weaving, Spanish work, Sashiko, Dorset Buttons, different types of thread, couching and more. We have also learned the wisdom of having A Good Plan before we begin a project, even if we tweak it along the way. 

CoverStory happened because we wanted to create useful pieces of stitching. And the book covers are great. So let's do a couple more covers, we said. But this time, slightly differently. Postal charges have gone up significantly since we began in 2022. And I have discovered that doing a practice piece each month has resulted in much better work.

This time, we are using the EPP [English Paper Piecing] technique, where each patch is stitched round a paper shape, then they are joined together at the end. But we will each do two very similar squares - and post one, and keep one. We will do 15 [x2] in total, to make a piece just big enough for an A5 book cover. I have already used my diecut machine to produce a lot of paper squares [quick, efficient, uniformly sized] plus a 'frame' so that we can choose where to cut out the fabric patch. 

Here's the frame on my bedroom quilt showing how you can line up the designs to get the best patterns. Below is a practice patch, to give you an idea of how it will work. So every month there will be two patches prepared by us both. That's Two-By-Two. Off we go!