Big push to catch up on TAST - Weeks 17-29

I've decided to really get back down to TAST and get caught up as far as I can.  The last time I posted was for week 16 and this has been week 39, so you can see just how far behind I'd got!  Anyway, as it happened, I'd already stitched some samples for weeks 17, 18 and 19, had some older pieces that would sub for weeks 20 and 24, there was no week 23 and I didn't like or want to try the stitch from week 22, so that left only five samples to do today and two photos to show you.

Here's the first, my trusty piece of 14ct cream Aida that I've been using up for this challenge.  Ignore the twisted and alternating chain stitch samples at the top left as I've posted those before.  Directly under those are three types of wheatear stitch (wk 17), which I liked very much and saw quite some potential for.  I did the band version, the isolated stitch version and then an upside down one called tête de beouf stitch, all of which I can see myself coming back to.  Under that you can see two lines of crossed buttonhole stitch (wk 18) and then one of half chevron stitch (wk 19), neither of which inspired me greatly.

Moving on to the right hand column and we start with butterfly chain stitch (wk 21), which I struggled to get right, as you can see from four of the six sheaves, and then two rows of cable stitch (wk 25).  I liked this one quite a lot and can see how I might use it.  The second row I did with the horizontal stitches the same length as the full frontal ones so as to look like a real chain in terms of scaling.  This would look great in metallic threads, esp gold or silver.

Next down is palestrina stitch (wk 26), which I managed to work out OK and that could have something to do with it being in the Country Bumpkin 'Embroiderer's Handbook'.  I refer to this book if possible - its step-by-step photos and very detailed instructions are marvellous.  Then we have bonnet stitch (wk 27), which I had to refer to my Mary Thomas book for.  I often find that one harder to follow than the CB one (sometimes impossible) and, as you can see, it took a few tries before I sussed it out.  Next is up and down buttonhole (wk 28), which I followed Sharon B's stitch dictionary page for.  It took a while to figure that out too, but now I see it OK.  Lastly, there's basque stitch (wk 29), which I also rather liked and was able to use the MT book without any hiccups for.  I have ideas for this one too....

This second photo is a close-up of one I showcased for week 15, when French knots were the order of the day.  Quite apart from the bullions I've done recently on my Brazilian piece, here are some more in observance of week 20, and you can see three and a half (can you spot the half??) lilac buttonhole wheels as well to cover week 24.

Next Friday I hope to post all the stitches from weeks 30 to 39 (9 in total as week 36 was a break) or at least some of them.  After that, the plan is to keep up each week and, where possible, to try and work a more interesting, pictorial sample featuring that week's stitch with some of those from previous weeks that I feel have some mileage in my style of work.  Many of the band stitches have limited usage for me, although are wonderful for crazy quilters for seam treatments.  I'm interested in that sort of work and hope to get to it soon, but, for now, I'm still thinking general freestyle work with a distinct bias towards pictorial things.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

TAST Week 16 - French Knots

Hello all!  Another familiar stitch this week - French knots, so, again, more from the archives as I get on with the sampler in my actual stitching time (will post on that in a couple more days).

Lots of people have trouble with French knots.  On Sharon's TAST post for this week, she mentions the common pitfall of putting the needle, basically, back in the hole it came up through.  I've done that too, but that wasn't my major problem.  I had the needle facing the wrong way when I wrapped the thread and it was Sir who figured it out from the diagrams in one of my stitch books!!  How many of you ladies have been taught a stitch by your hubby??

This first one is a lovely stylized shoe from the now defunct 'Needlecraft' magazine that I worked as a wedding sampler for a young couple back in 2004.  It was one of my earliest freestyle pieces and contains a fair few knots, both of the French and the bullion variety.  You can see smaller ones on the lower left hand side section and larger knots made with more strands of cotton and more wraps around the top.

Many will remember this piece from the last post when I used the section just underneath to show some stem stitch sections.  The real attraction of this sample though, is the mass of French knots in varying colours and sizes all across the top and down the whole left hand side.  Knots are done in varying numbers of strands and also in coton à broder, not just regular stranded.  They're used for both flowers and leaves too.

Here's a small section of my cross stitch narrowboat from late last year showing how French knots can be used to good effect to create texture on the very flat surface of cross stitch.

Lastly, this one isn't so easy to make out as it looks like just chipping.  Well, I own bright check purl in silver and gold, but not in pink, so the pink lumps you can (just about) see are French knots worked in Coats Reflecta thread.  Yup, this is a close-up of one of the pieces featured in my header photos.

Hope that's provided some inspiration and enjoyment.=)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

TAST Week 15 - Stem Stitch - a Round-Up

Again, I haven't worked new samples for TAST this week, as I know stem stitch so well that I didn't feel the need to and I haven't been feeling tremendously creative this week, so couldn't think of anything innovative to do with it.  So, I've dug into my archives again and here are four samples from previous pieces that show stem stitch worked in various ways and under various circumstances.  Three of the four photos have had to be scaled up (i.e. increased in size to 125% or 150%) and then sharpened a bit, so I hope there hasn't been too great a loss in quality.

This first one shows stem stitch as worked in a design by the well-known embroideress Helen M Stevens.  She uses stitches as long as one can reasonably get away with, given the curve of the line.  Alongside the stitches worked as poppy stems, here you can also see fine black lines worked in stem stitch as 'shadow lines', which help to create the impression of depth in her designs.

This second sample is from a Royal School of Needlework kit I worked back in 2005 and which, sadly, they no longer sell (there were some lovely designs available).  In the instructions, I remember the statement that 'well-worked stem stitch should look like fine rope'.  I can't say I quite cracked it on the oval shape here, but the single line isn't too bad!  It was done in Coats Ophir metallic.  The rest, of course, is couched and is Kreinik #7 Japan thread.

Here's a close-up of a WIP shot from the DMC stumpwork bee kit.  The reason I include this one is to show the problems that can arise from stem stitch worked on pre-printed fabrics - the print lines often show!  It's not an easy one to get around, esp as lines are almost always quite thick and rather dark, (although the RSN kit lines were in a gold colour - they were still too thick for some of the design specified stitches though).  I try to get around this one by using more strands of thread than stated in the instructions, but it's a constant hazard with linear stitches in kits.=(  If I ever do come to making my own kits, there will be no printed design as I find them of almost universally poor quality.  There'll be an outline to trace or something of that sort.  I'm not expecting to sell to beginners, so I reckon buyers will be able to manage to transfer the design themselves as well as I have with that type of kit!

This last sample is from my old City & Guilds pieces and is just a few stem stitch sections worked, I think, in a pearl cotton shade.  Or it could be a Coton à Broder....  Looks slightly twisted though, so I'm guessing at pearl cotton #12!!  I included this piece as it comes from a C&G sample that a lot of kind readers and photo sharing site viewers have enjoyed.=)

I had a great surprise last week when Sharon kindly featured me as one of the samples worth seeing.  I then felt that I hadn't really made enough of the satin stitch things that I have as I only used three samples and could have easily doubled it!!=)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

A Bit of This and a Bit of TAST

I managed to get my lazy self sufficiently motivated to do a few catch up stitch samples for TAST 2012.  The samples I did for weeks 11 and 12 are not very spectacular:

This is a small ribbed wheel, shown here rather larger than life, which I know next time to anchor the foundation stitches of better!  I was forever having to hold onto the first stitch as it had nothing to grip onto on the back.  It worked out passably for a first attempt and I do think this one has some potential, which I must explore more fully later on.  I liked the way Sharon had used part of a wheel to create shells and one of the other TAST participants used a half wheel to make a fan.  I want to try those out some time.

These are the samples for week 12, one each of barred chain stitch and alternating barred chain stitch.  I couldn't find this one in my stitch guide, so it was a new one for me on all fronts!  I used Sharon's instructions and had to keep referring to the photo for the placement of the working thread as the direction you have to have it going is rather counter intuitive!  Anyway, they worked out OK and I'm quite pleased with them.  I think I finally got the hang of it in the end.=)

Week 14 (or is to be called week 13??) is satin stitch.  I know this one very well as it's one of the very first things I learned to do when I learned any embroidery as a child.  Rather than work a few needle strokes on my naff Aida scrap, I thought I'd just share a few samples from past pieces that are worked in satin stitch.

This first one is worked in Pipers Silks and, with the exception of the stem stitch stems (!!), almost the whole piece was done in satin stitch.  As you can see here, the leaves were picked out with some straight stitches and the little wild strawberries with a couple of seed stitches in gold.

This one is from the ladybird and blackberries stumpwork piece (see Stumpwork page for the whole thing).  The leaves are basically directional satin stitch with a few touches of contrasting purple.  I rather like them.=)

Finally, here's some satin stitches worked as part of a hardanger WIP from back in 2005.  You can see the whole finished project here.

Now then, onto something else.  Cynthia asked me to show the pattern for the threads etc that I displayed in my last post.  I've posted it a couple of times, but there are already enough links to others posts etc, so I took  a new photo and, although the colours haven't come out too well (the main, framed piece here is actually lilac, but it looks more grey here.  I'm doing the green one instead), you can see the design OK.  Don't miss Cynthia's blog by the way.  She's recently completed one of those glorious Jane Nicholas stumpwork tile designs and is now back on with a sumptuous pomegranate piece.

And the above is what we woke up to this morning!  I was so surprised that I actually exclaimed out loud!  I'd read something about snow on the BBC website, but thought it would be just northern Scotland.  So, that put paid to my trip out to the Meadowhall shopping centre and retail park (Hobbycraft!) today.  At least I got my TAST stuff done and even finished some mending.  It's melting away now after having come down for much of the day, so I may be able to get out for my shopping trip tomorrow??

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

FanTASTic cheat!

Time to 'fess up, I haven't done the real thing with TAST for the last two weeks.  Truth is, I got into the idea of running a kit making business again and, as happened last summer when I first had the idea seriously, my interest in stitching more or less disappeared at once.  As soon as I decided to drop the idea each time, it returned!  Although I haven't done any again yet...  This trait is a real pain.  As soon as I have to, the 'want to' part goes AWOL - until I no longer have to, then I'm passionate about it again!!!  If you know a cure, please send me details express!

Still TAST weeks 9 and 10 being couching and running stitch respectively, I was able to fish out an old City & Guilds sample that contained some of each.  The contrast on this first photo is not that good - it's an old one.

The main shell itself is regular couching, although you can see that there is some split stitch 'thickening' the lines in some parts.  Better photo of detailed area now:

Here in the shadow line, from the bottom, we have a line of regular running stitch and just above it, two lines of whipped running stitch - one with just light grey, one with both shades.  The idea was that I was trying to create the impression of the lines getting lighter as the colour density faded towards the outer edge of the shadow.  I tried to do this with both density of stitches and darkness of the grey #12 pearl cottons used.

Speaking of #12 pearl cottons.  I put an order from Tandem Cottage and, although I managed to order mostly colours they didn't have in stock at the time and I'm waiting for most of them, one was in and I was disappointed to note that, although the quantity and quality was the same as ever, the packaging has changed. The new Anchor logo is neither here nor there, but I was sorry to see that they've now begun winding the #12 pearl cottons onto the same sized 'tube' as the #8, instead of using the old small ones.  I liked the smaller ones as they're much easier to store.  Sigh!  The price of a better colour range...=(

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

TAST Week 8 samples and the finished bookmark

Again, nothing very exciting about the TAST stitch samples, just 3 short rows, mostly in variegated #8 pearl cotton.  The first is interlaced with a beige #12 pearl cotton.  I liked the look of this in the book I got it from and it isn't bad in real life too.

The second row is just plain chain stitch, but the third I've been wanting to try for a while, (just can't think of much to use it on in the type of work I often do - could do for borders, I suppose), and that's the 'magic' chain stitch.  I couldn't see how it could work, but except where I got the threads too twisted to pass through properly, it did work!  I did this one in strand of plain turquoise #8 pearl and one of mixed turquoise and lime shades.

So, not a great deal to show, but I did like them nonetheless.

I got the bookmark completed and finished up ready to deliver this evening, all being well.  Can you see who it's for?  Well, possibly not as it doesn't show up too well!!  Never mind, I'm sure she'll love it anyway.=)

I now have a new stumpwork in progress, so look out for posts on that starting on Thursday morning....  Dohh!  I thought it was Tuesday all day, but no, I meant Saturday morning!

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

FanTASTic catch up!!

Well, perhaps not so wonderful, but I couldn't resist using TAST like that in a title some time!!

I've been catching up with my stitch samples from the last 3 weeks of TAST and here they are:

This is week 5 with 3 versions of herringbone stitch - only the first one having been worked properly!!  The second row, the double herringbone stitch I should have woven the second colour in, but didn't follow the instructions correctly.  As for the interlaced version.....  I got the base double herringbone row right that time, but the interlacing is a nightmare and working it in a variegated thread was a mistake too.  Well, I can't see myself using that one again!

Here are weeks 6 and 7 together on a new piece of Aida.  The top row is, of course, just a simple chevron stitch done in a great multi-coloured thread that, for the first almost half of the row changed colours just in time for each stitch to show as a new shade on the front! =)  I liked that and was sorry that the dyed sections got longer later on!

Underneath the chevron row are three samples of detached chain stitch, aka lazy daisy stitch and the first TAST samples I have managed to actually work on a Tuesday!!  The first four stitches are just simple lazy daisies, then come four long-stem ones then I couldn't resist trying a little daisy with two circles of stitches, the inner one being another of my beloved Anchor multi-colours (all pearl cotton #8), then two long-stemmed lazy daisy stitches worked in a light green pearl #12.

Speaking of pearl cotton #12, I recently discovered to my joy that Anchor has revamped its colour range for this very useful gauge of thread.  There used to be a very sparse selection of shades with only the blue-est (or most vibrant and unusable) of greens, no yellows or oranges and only one or two beige shades with no real browns.  Now there are lots and I'm trying to decide which colours I'd use most before I give in to the temptation to put an order!  I've seen them for sale at 2 UK on-line stores, but the US ones I know of either don't sell it, or still have the old selection.  The funny thing is, some of the old shades have been discontinued and so I have some 'collectible' balls of pearl 12!=)  Also, a few years ago I ordered a number of shades that couldn't be bought in the UK from an American retailer, so I was interested to see that many of those colours have not been included in the new selection either.  So, some good aspects, some not so good, but on the whole a really good thing I think.  On mature reflection though, I had really better see if and how I would use the gauge in stumpwork etc before I go and place any order as I am trying to use things up (thus the scraps of Aida for my TAST samples etc) and, ideally, plan to reduce my possessions by as much as 50% before we move another time.  So, I'm reading up books, selling things and using stuff up for all I'm worth!  I recommend it to anyone.  Most of us really have FAR too much stuff.

Here's how far on I am with the cross stitch bookmark I mentioned last posting.  It's coming on in slow sections as that cold I was complaining of that time retreated only to gather reinforcements and struck again and I've just been plain too tired to feel like stitching much.  (In case anyone's thinking 'That's a bit much for a cold!', I have a sort of burn-out/exhaustion condition, which means I have very low immunity and am rather a weakling!!! NO sympathy, please - I only mentioned it as an explanation.=) )

I was reading an interesting section of a book on stress and exhaustion the other day and it encouraged one to think what one would do if one had only 48 hours left on the planet before taking up an irresistible opportunity elsewhere in the universe.  It mentioned a lady who had the 'no-one could ever be perfect enough to marry my son' type of mother-in-law and who considered writing this MIL a letter telling her what she thought of her, then realising this would take too long, reduced it to yelling obscenities on her doorstep.  The lady concerned made real strides when she realised that her 48 hours were too precious to waste on someone so unpleasant and actually unimportant to her.

What's the point here?  Apart from that many of us have things in our lives that get TOO much airtime when they are very small and not what we really consider important, I thought of it in connection with stitching and re-vamped the 48 hours to: If someone could give me perfect health in exchange for my complete stash, but would allow me to stitch one more piece, what would it be?  I realised that it wouldn't be anything I felt compelled to do or that I didn't really love doing and that then led me to wondering why I was spending any time making myself stitch stuff I didn't love?  So, I took the Embroidery Journal Project/TAST January piece out of the frame, unpicked the one line of blanket stitches I'd done and put it all away realising that I was forcing myself to do it in order to keep up with a challenge that had seemed like a good idea at the time, but that I didn't really want to do anymore.  Not only that, but the piece sitting there telling me I 'should' do it was stopping me from doing any embroidery!  So, I won't be doing the EJP after all and will do an extended TAST sample only when I'm really taken by something.  The weekly TAST samples will continue though as they're small enough to not be a big deal.

Something I have done recently is to re-vamp one of the pages - the one formerly called 'The Embroideress'.  It's now called 'About' and the old section is still there.  However, there's now a kind of blogging policy on there too, which I'm re-posting here as I thought it may be of interest to some, esp. new subscribers:
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Sew in Love was started back in June 2005 as a personal record of getting on with and completing a number of half finished things I had hanging around at the time.  It's now in it's 7th year and seems to be increasing in both scope and popularity, both much to my delight!=)

You will find here as regular features:

*WIP photos and reports on the projects I have on hand, sometimes including design notes (where relevant) and where things went right or wrong.
*Finished projects
*My work on any community challenges I've joined in at any given time, i.e. TAST 2012.
*Good quality posting with good spelling and grammar and without great big gaps (too much whitespace) - hopefully!=)

From time to time I post:

*Tutorials on aspects of embroidery that people are most curious about, especially raised work/stumpwork.
*Articles on subjects I know at least a bit about!!
*Links to others' work that I've found especially interesting and/or to retail sites where you can get supplies that are not so easy to track down, (such as wire for stumpwork etc.)
*Something amusing that isn't stitchcraft related, but that is harmless and that may spread a smile.

Things you won't find on blog include:

*Third party advertising of any sort, such as Google Adsense, sponsors (of which I have none!) or businesses.  I do, when relevant, mention if I'm selling things on e-bay etc and, once I get my own stumpwork and creative kits etc going, there will naturally be info on how to buy those.  I also have some group logos in my sidebar, but all are non-commercial and free to join.
*Giveaways of any type, either my own things or from third parties.  I have no objections to these in principle and have tried for several on others' blogs myself, but I don't chose to run them myself, esp. as I feel that there are a good number of folk who only sub to popular blogs for a chance at freebies.  If a reader enjoys my content, I hope they will subscribe to or bookmark my blog without any further incentive.  My aim is to have a site that is so good that no extras are needed.=)
Please note that the above does NOT constitute a criticism of those who run giveaway events, carry advertisements etc, (or an implication that their blogs aren't worth reading otherwise), it just explains that I choose not to do so myself!
*Personal information, news, details and so on.  I deliberately avoid discussing personal issues on blog as they are of limited interest to most readers and, frankly, I think there are many things that bloggers publish which are not suitable for public reading:  Details about their children, verbatim conversations - even on sensitive matters - with friends and relatives, their opinions of their families, colleagues etc, all of which have HUGE trouble potential!  Some have been victims of jealousy campaigns, nasty comments and all manner of things by getting too personal on their blog.  I long since decided to avoid these things by staying 99% on topic.
*Gimmicks - either technical or content
*Poor post editing quality (I hope!)

Posting 'habits':

I have no regular posting schedule as I have no really regular stitching habits these days - those days are long gone!!=)  I post when I have something to share and, yes, that means that sometimes there are some gaps.  This can occur for several reasons, some of those in the past have been travelling, illness (which is a common problem with me), being very busy with other things, intermittent loss of enthusiasm (which always returns - fear not!) and so on.  I would like, in the fullness of time, to return to my old Monday and Thursday update posts, but I think I'll never announce that as a reliable posting schedule as, you can be certain that, as soon as I do, it will go straight to the wall!!!=)LOL

Anyway, the major point here is: If you don't see a post for a couple of weeks, don't un-sub!  I don't promise daily posts, but things will come in time.  There are plenty of other blogs to read on my quiet days!!
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Oh, what would I stitch if it were to be my very last piece?  I think it would be a stumpwork piece with several small elements so that I could enjoy all my favourite things in one go - padded and raised petals on small flowers with goldwork 'chip' (Bright Check Purl) centres, needlelace and beaded berries and some couched goldwork threads for some stems etc.  What would YOU choose if you could only work one more piece?  There's no time limit, the 48 hours doesn't count for this 'exercise'.  I'm sure not I want to know what some folk might do with the last 48 hours on Earth though.....LOL=)

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

TAST Weeks 3 & 4, XS cat finish and forthcoming attractions

So, here I am, having dragged myself to the sofa to make a blog post!  It's been a bit full on over the last fortnight and I could well understand some of the squads of people who signed up to follow recently wondering if it was worth their while, but I've just had a new boiler and water heating system and a very nasty cold that seems to be making people really quite ill.  Anyway, I was amazed and delighted to see my wired needlelace stumpwork elements tutorial featured in five or six different places and as many people signed up to follow through Blogger in one week as had done in the previous 3+ months!  Welcome to all of you and thank you very much for subscribing.  That goes for those reading through Google Reader, Bloglines and other feeds etc as well.  =)

I finally got my little stitch samples done for TAST weeks 3 and 4 - just in time for the release of weeks 5's stitch tonight!!  As you can see, it's only a few samples on Aida for the time being, as had I planned on doing a piece using all five of January's stitches over the next week or two.  I might still do some, it depends how the inspiration comes and goes and what else there is going on in life!!

So, here you can see the feather stitch samples at the top of the 'sheet' with plain feather stitch, closed feather stitch, double and triple feather stitch worked together and finally feathered chain stitch. I also found a Spanish knotted feather stitch, but just couldn't follow the instructions - not enough diagrams and the start up info was weak.

Underneath we can see six variations on cretan stitch.  The first two are just basic cretan stitch, the second being on a wider scale than the first.  The third sample is cretan stitch at an angle and the last on that row is Scottish cretan stitch, where one works three stitches fairly close together, then threads the needle around the back of the stitches and then move onto the next one.  On the bottom row you can see a rather wonky open cretan stitch leaf (the limitations of Aida again) and then some cretan stitch filling, which looks rather odd here as you work the blocks diagonally and I was using up the odds and ends of thread from the other samples.  It's quite hard to work as the vertical threads are only anchored top and bottom, so it's easy to warp the whole thing out of shape.

I also finished the cute little cat in a basket cross stitch UFO.  It just wants mounting into a card now and that's that one done.

And I started a cross stitched bookmark, which I hope to get finished and handed over this week.  Here's the start of it anyway.

I've been giving some thought to what I'd like to accomplish stitch-wise over the months to come and here are a few of things you can look forward (all being well!!) to seeing on Sew in Love in the near future:

Helen M Stevens' lovely Painted Ladies design from her 'Masterclass Butterflies' book.  This will be made into a cushion/pillow cover for friends.  I'll be working it on black, as shown here from the book and making the edging in a gold ribbon.

I plan to take my first steps in Brazilian embroidery with this kit.  I've already transferred the design onto a piece of white fabric which better suits the thread colours.  I plan to put this into one of those pre-made oval frames as a promised gift for a sweet Japanese lady who put up with us put us up whilst we were in Oxford last month.

This is something that's been sitting kitted up since we were still in Taiwan!  I put it together more than 18 months ago, and I plan to get it going soon too.  It's to be the green version and will be for my mum.  I might make it into a cushion cover for her, but I'll decide on that later - when there finally is something to finish up!=)

And yes, there'll be some stumpwork coming up (even if I didn't like it that much, it would be a shame to disappoint all you lovely new subscribers who came here for the stumpwork content!)

I want to work this achingly cute little bunny as a small gift for a couple who've had a lot of stress of late whilst he's been in and out of hospital with health troubles.  They've finally found out what was wrong, it's been treated and he's now in convalescence, but something to make them smile won't come amiss, I'm sure.  Besides, it's just SO cute, I want an excuse to work it!!  FYI, it's from the Country Bumpkin 'A-Z of Stumpwork' and, whilst I'm on the subject of that book, don't miss the Stiches and Whimsies blog as she's in the process of working the 'Nature's Diner' piece from the same book. 

Finally (for now!) the last two of the five DMC stumpwork kits I had.  When these are all done, the four that will be available (one went in a card a few years ago) will be mounted on cardboard squares and put in a display in our dining area where we have a very blank wall.  The butterfly wings will give me a chance to do a tutorial on wired fabric elements for stumpwork (as opposed to needlelace ones), so look out for that.

I've also started thinking about some very large projects for later on, such as a stumpwork knot garden, some sort of embroidered house and also a 'doll' done as ancient Israel's High Priest.  First though, I have plenty to keep me busy with the above, plus making up the needlepainted dogroses into the finished item and also the needlepoint giraffe I finished up a while ago is all set ready to be sewn up into a scatter cushion/pillow for a disabled lady.

Ready?  Set?  GO!

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

TAST Week Two and so on...

If you were one of the many kind readers who enjoyed and commented nicely on the last TAST posting, then I'm afraid that today's may prove rather a disappointment as I've only done the doodle-pad this week.  So, to answer your question, Cynthia, no, I won't be doing a picture every week.  I'll just do them when I feel sufficiently inspired and I have the time and umph.=)  I do plan to do the stitches themselves each week, but will be happy with doing about half in some sort of pictorial form (which I plan to  make a sort of portfolio affair of, or may even mount some into cards etc).  At the moment, I have a number of gifts I want to make and other things to do, so I decided against the blanket stitch based picture.  To be honest, I wasn't really excited enough about it anyway, even though I found a good few variations, as you can see here.

So, here are samples of plain blanket stitch, double blanket stitch, knotted blanket stitch, what would have been a blanket stitch pinwheel had it not been worked on Aida and therefore turned into a blanket stitch diamond (which I liked a fair bit and felt had some potential in counted work), long and short blanket stitch and a raised blanket stitch bar, which was rather rushed off and so didn't really cover the threads it was stitched over very well.  Why blanket and not buttonhole?  Well, in the form buttonhole was introduced on Pintangle, it's exactly the same, but there is a traditional buttonhole stitch which is actually somewhat different, so I chose to be pedantic!!=)

One of the first of the other things I need to do stitch-wise is a 'thank you' card for friends who gave us a most unexpected gift the other day.  So, I fished out this old magazine freebie kit that I'd part-worked to finish off and got on with that a bit yesterday.  I also want to do a cross stitched bookmark for another friend and, after that, a nice cushion cover for the couple the card is for.  I'd planned something like that anyway and now I feel I have good impetus to do it.  I also want to get the dogrose made up into its final form and get that needlepoint giraffe sorted as well.  So, there are many projects clamouring for my attention and that means that it's not likely that TAST will be a major priority as far as really taking it as far as it goes each week goes.

And what do you think of these fellows?

These are for a magazine - 'Crazy Quilt Gatherings' Issue 4 - and the tutorial that was requested will be just for the central, larger red ladybird, but with instructions at the end for the other variations.  You can find out more about the mag and order a copy when I can find where the editor has hidden the info I got from her site before (LOL!!!), but I will be reserving rights to re-publish the tute on my blog, which I plan to do in the summer.  So, that's something coming up later on.

In the meantime, I have stacks of photos to chose and edit ready for that tute, plus one on general wired needlelace elements for stumpwork (yes, using a poppy petal from my recent project), then the assembling of the poppy itself along with the finished piece.  And that's before I even start on....

Yes, I'm feeling busy again!

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

TAST 2012 - Week One - Fly Stitch

When I saw the ideas and examples Sharon had put up for the first stitch of the TAST 2012 re-run, I was immediately inspired with plenty of ideas.  I also got out my two stitch guides and found enough variations to fuel the creative process further and, soon afterwards, came up with a design plan for my first TAST sampler. I know that most of the notes didn't show up well, so I must remember to use pencil in a better contrasting shade if I want everyone to be able to read what I've written!

Like Jules (whose wonderful dandelion seed head worked in fly stitch you absolutely MUST see!), I plan to do a doodle pad type stitch sample, then try to work it up into something pictorial.  I can't promise that I'll always manage the pic, but I can try and at least got off to a good start this week.

Here's the quick test run of the stitches to make sure I'd got them sorted worked with scrap ends of no.5 pearl cottons on a piece of rather stiff 14ct Aida (that there was no chance of my using for anything 'polished').  The first few are just plain fly stitches, then a few with longer tails, then a few twisted fly stitches.  The second row shows a rather open worked fly stitch leaf (which does not work well on Aida) and then two rows of fly stitch filling.  This is done by working a row of regular fly stitches with the tops of the Vs touching, then working the next row upside down with the bottoms of the Vs joining and the securing stitch being made over the pair of touching stitches.  This filling spoke 'fence' to me.

First I painted some habotai silk to give the relevant colours to the background.  I made the mistake of putting the whole thing rather too far to the right of the hoop.  It would have been better to have been more central.  Still, I soon realised both the error and that I couldn't really do anything about it, except to ditch that piece and start again, but although I found I had more habotai than I'd feared, I'm still not up for wastage.  It was good to try silk painting again, even though I found it a fair bit harder than I'd remembered.  Need more practice, I know and having more fabric than I thought means that I can try this kind of background again soon.=)

So, here's the finished fly stitch pictorial piece.  Most of the stitches are some form of fly stitch, except some stem stitch for the foreground roses and, of course, the ribbon work (although you can work fly stitch in narrow ribbon to good effect).  The peach flowers are just straight stitches in ribbons, and the roses are spider's web roses.  Let me know if you want to know how the latter are done as they're easy, quick and effective.  The grass tufts are individual twisted fly stitches and the rose leaves are worked in closed fly stitch.

On the whole I'm happy with the piece.  The bit I'd most like to change (and could have if I'd been up for a lot of un-picking and re-stitching) would be to work the fence in a narrower gauge of thread.  I feel it's far too prominent, although the basic idea etc is OK.  Even with that, I'm pleased with this first week's work as I've been able to use fabric colouring again, I've designed something completely from scratch with little more inspiration than the stitches themselves and I worked it completely freehand - no pattern transferred to the silk.  Oh yes, and I really know fly stitch and a few variations of it quite well now!!

What's that just about the roses?  Well, of course it's a FLY!=)

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

Why I'm Looking Forward to TAST 2012

If you haven't heard that Sharon B from Pin Tangle is re-running Take a Stitch on Tuesday next year, then where have you been??!=)  Umpteen stitching bloggers have posted about it already, but in case you've missed it, then here's the challenge home page and there's also a permanent link to it in my sidebar.

So, there'll be a different stitch posted and demonstrated each Tuesday, giving a whopping great 550 (and increasing) stitchers the chance to learn new skills and find new points of departure for old ones.  For some, almost every stitch will be a new challenge as they're new to surface work.  Others will revisit old friends and make new and yet others will just join in for consolidation and fun.  I fall into the middle group really as I have a passable repertoire, but still have plenty to learn and discover.

What I'm really looking forward to about it is not actually the learning of new stitches - as I have a number of stitch guides and I learn stuff here and there when working new styles/designs etc and that's fine.  I suppose I learn what I need to as and when I need it.  For me, the big thing is a bit beyond that -more into creative design and usage of the stitches covered.  In effect, I'm looking at it as a sort of City & Guilds samples project revisited.  Throughout this posting, you can see some of the small pieces I did whilst working on the City & Guilds level 3 certificate in embroidery, (which I, sadly, wasn't able to finish) and you may have seen already on my C&G page here.

Working through the design module and samples project, we had five design elements and five major themes, broken down into smaller areas each time and a type of work and/or number of stitches learned with which we were to interpret our designs.  To make that clearer, the syllabus requires that you cover line, colour, shape, form and texture.  Our teacher chose big themes for each area, so line was living creatures, colour was gardens and flowers, texture was buildings, shape was Art Nouveau and form was landforms.  Each week we then had a smaller area to produce some artwork and a design from which we would then interpret in textiles and suitable stitches.  Here you see my shell as part of the line module interpreted in linear stitches.  Above are samples from the colour section, one topic being flower borders, which was then worked in knot stitches on painted silk and other was hedgerows being worked with broderie anglaise stitches.

What I'm trying to say here is that I would like to do something like that again.  I think it will take a few weeks of the challenge to see how well it can be achieved as I don't know how much can be done in this way with just one major stitch (although there's no reason why one can't use others to support it, as long as the main TAST stitch of the week is the central thing, no?), and I'll have to chose my own themes and topics, which could lead to less creativity in that I may just settle for the easy option instead of challenging myself like the C&G classes did.  The sample you see here is a section of snakeskin done in loom bead-weaving!  I was rather disappointed when I went to the local C&G micro-centre last summer to see their exhibitions and could see none of the obvious design inspiration that I was used to from my old course.  Everything looked like shapeless masses of stitches instead of resembling something and that just wasn't what I wanted...=(

I also want to use more of the lovely fabric colouring things I bought for the C&G course, such as these silk paints, fabric paints and dyes.  I also have watercolour paints, which Kit Nicol (amongst others) uses in her pieces to colour her backgrounds, and some Derwent Inktense pencils, which can be used in a similar way to silk paints and dyes.

Here's something quite novel that I thought would make an interesting fabric colouring method.  Can you tell what it is?  To the left is the matte palette and on the right are the shimmer shades

Yes, you're right!  It is, indeed, eye-shadow!  And look at all those useful brown and green shades!  I got these two palettes on e-bay and, aside from the feeling that they could have made more of the 88 shades they had (given a better spectrum, and certainly fewer greens!!!), I love them and am keen to put them to other uses than what they were originally designed for - although I like them as make-up as well.=)  Despite being quite cheap, Chinese made products, they're actually quite good and, with a layer of primer, last surprisingly well and have plenty of pigment so give a good colour pay off.  Not that I've been brave enough to use that vibrant emerald green on my eyes...

Speaking of things Chinese, I'll leave you with this wonderful example of Oriental initiative and multi-tasking.  Here's one of our Chinese friends, Yufei, selecting from the menu, whilst balancing her 4 month old son's bottle with her chin.=)  Priceless, isn't it??

And it's snowing.....

Of course, by the time I'd finished the fine-tuning of this posting, the snow had stopped and the sun came out!!!=)  Never let it be said that British weather is monotonous!

© Elizabeth Braun 2011