Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Fifty-One

And the last stitch for 2012 - the Knotted Cable Chain. I THOUGHT I had this one down but it sure doesn't look like the samples. For some reason, the large loop of the cable slipped down into the twisted chain. No clue what I did wrong... but after ripping it out twice, I gave up:

Here is December's page --- 

Basically, a great learning experience but I think what I mainly learned is that I'm not very good at a lot of the stitches we tried and probably won't ever be. Hand embroidery just doesn't seem to be my thing. So I'm still debating whether or not I'll sign up for TAST 2013...

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Nine

Buttonhole Eyelet Flower... NOT something I will come back to willingly. I just don't do stitches where my hands feel like they are ten times too large for the needle and the stitches come out all wonky like this:

Besides, I can't think of a single use I would put it to...

I'm beginning to think that freehand embroidery is NOT my medium.

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Eight

Week 48's stitch is the Arrowhead stitch, something I had done before not knowing it had a name! Anyway, here is is, on the completed November "page" along with the open base woven picot, the checkered chain, and the Portuguese border.

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Seven

The Portuguese Border Stitch. Kind of fun to do, and fast. I have to watch my tension, and play with curves and the like, but I think this one will become one of my preferred seam treatments! I used two kinds of threads in this piece... #5 perle in a variegated blue and Carrie's Creations (Crazy Dreams).

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Six

Week 46's stitch is the Checkered, or Magic, Chain stitch. Here is mine, forming a stem for my open-based needle-woven picot stitch flower. I used GAST "Harvest Basket" and Forest Glade" as my alternating colors...

I did try to be creative and use three colors but I had tension issues, with the threads not wanting to cooperate, resulting in a hot mess on both the front and the back of the fabric,  so I ripped that out and settled for just two...

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Four

This week's stitch was a fixed-base needle-woven picot stitch:

and here is the "page" for October which includes the Beaded Hebedo Edge, Knotted Loop Stitch. Italian Knotted Loop Border,  Buttonhole Wheel Cup and the Fixed-base Needle-woven Picot:

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Week 33 (a week late)

The stitch for week 33 was Pekinese Stitch and I realized that I had used it before but didn't know that was what it was called! Check out those swirls, and the border of the rusty-colored circle bottom right:

Anyway, here is what I stitched out last night using GAST for the backstich and perle cotton for the loops:

Don't forget --- I'm cross-posting at Weebly and Blogspot and will be until I get one or the other site up and running or this site goes down.

2012: A Year of Challenges - week 32

I hate having to do this but I haven't found a new blog yet so until I do, I guess I'll just take my chances. I've been trying to save this blog as well as testing out three possible replacements (Tripod, Weebly and Ipernity are all failures so far... I can't do anything on Tripod due to disk limitation, Weebly will take my photo galleries and I can copy my blog text but I can't copy my blog photos, and Ipernity will only let me insert one photo per blog...)

I didn't get much done this week. between a plumber fixing two leaks, another plumber checking out our HVAC for the regular annual check-up, a notary with papers to sign (we finally sold our "vacation" house - closing is the 14th!), picking up my fair entries on Wednesday (it was supposed to be Tuesday night but I slept through it), and quilt guild on Thursday,  stitchery took a back seat this week.

But I did accomplish a few things...

I assembled the basic block for my Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Challenge for August:


I have only half a border of the fourth color to do on "Birds of a Feather":


And I finished (late, of course, but finished) a small sample of the Take A Stitch Tuesday week 32 (Cast On Stitch):

Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 31

The Algerian Eye! A stitch I've used relatively often in samplers and even in needlepoint, so it wasn't so much a learning curve for this one. What is more, it was almost fun playing with the shapes of the stitch!

Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 30

The oyster stitch, done in a variegated perle because I just KNEW that if I tried it in floss, I'd be screaming and tossing it across the room! I suspect if I had four hands, this would be a lot easier and I'd be less likely to lose my place in the steps.

Yet another wonky circle...

And I just noticed --- check back on the previous couple of posts and note that nearly everything I'm working on is  the same shade of BLUE! AAACK! N WONDER I'm getting sick of Kimono and slow in Birds! It's the color! Gotta be!

Some completions...

Take a Stitch Tuesday - week 29: Basque Stitch:
It was "OK" but not really pleasing to stitch --- I'm not a fan of trying to keep a needle in the fabric while wrapping thread around it. My fingers always end up being too big! But my circle is a little better on this one --- now if only I could keep the "rays" all the same length!

Janet Perry's "Color Through the Ages", lesson Five - Japan (A Japanese Star):

Based on the dsicussion in the lesson, I opted for a "September" feel of fallen leaves and went with DMC3830 as the accent color (in the sashing) and the color range of 3820, 3821, 3822 and 3823 as the dominant color (the stars and the backgrounds). Perhaps the color choice wasn't different enough to show the centers of the stars off well enough but finding a range of colors for that deep gold "fallen leaf" color isn't that easy to do... at least in my stash!

Now back to "Kimono - Revisited"!

Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 28

This is the Up - and- Down (or Mirror) Buttonhole (or blanket) stitch;

I found the stitch pleasing and easy to do but I still have issues with circles!

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - week 27

The stitch was the bonnet stitch...

I KNOW that stitching with floss is not recomended for this stitch but it's what I have so,,,

It wasn't that hard of a stitch to do if I paid attention but I did have to back up and start a gain a few times as I'd lose my place...

My stitching reminds me of how a little kid, just learning to print, makes letters all wonky. Check out that circle --- and I actually drew a circle on the fabric too!  It can't ALL be the fault of the floss (or the fabric). It has to be me!

Some finishes...

Three more Christmas ornaments for the fair - Candy Cane Hors, based on a pattern from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Orrnament Issue 2009, design by Charlotte Dockens of Charlotte's Collectibles on 14 ct plastic canvas using DMC cotton floss and Kreinik blending filament. Backed with dark green felt. I changed colors for each horse:

Take a Stitch Tuesday - week 26, Palestrina stitch - i tried perle to learn the stitch as it said in the tutorial it worked best but I had issues with tension, so I switched to 6-stranded floss (Needlepaint 2011) for a curled approach and, indeed, I did have trouble with the floss separating. Couldn't seem to get a smooth curve until the very end either, possibly because I worked it in reverse and wasn't at all comfortable with it


Here's June's "page" with the three stitches (wheeled buttonhole, cable chain and Palestrina)we did this month:


A Janet Perry Stash Buster called Sumarta- a 4" x 4" square on 18 ct mono-canvas, floss from my "scrap stash - mostly DMC but also some Stranded by the Sea, WDW, GAST, Carrie's Creations, Wildflowers and SanMan Strands! I surprised myself by how many greens and blues were in that stash - it was a real challenge to get "random" with this one!


Working hard on the latest "Mini-Socks & Mittens" bargello - when they are finished, I will be caught up with everything EXCEPT "Kimono-Revisited".

Fair registration starts Monday... Whew!

2012: A Year of Challenges - week 25

This was a week of "Finishing Frenzy"! Also a week of attempting to catch up, although I wasn't as successful in that.

Let's start with new completions.

1. Take a Stitch Tuesday, week 25 - cable chain stitch. Didn't do really well on my first attempt but the second was better and by the time I finished five more rows, I pretty much had it down. Top two rows are plain chain stitch; next two are "laced" with a contrasting blue thread, through the cable part of the stitch; and the last three rows are "interlaced" through the chain part:


2. Color Through the Ages - Renaissance Reborn. This is a needlepoint adaptation of the "Nelson's Victory" quilt block pattern, stitched using DMC cotton floss (115, 310, 355, 3582, 3586) and DMC metallic gold (5282) on 18ct canvas:


3. Candy Cane Horse (I plan on making this the first of three so I can submit them to the fair in the Christmas ornament category), pattern from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Orrnament Issue 2009, design by Charlotte Dockens of Charlotte's Collectibles on 14 ct plastic canvas using DMC cotton floss (blanc, 310, 321, 436, 725, 738, 746 and 3347) and Kreinik blending thread (002, 003, 015, and 032).


I plan on switching out horse colors in ##2 and 3 (a darker brown in one, a dark grey in another is the plan at present), and maybe even the ribbon colors/pattern.

Now for the finishes!

1. Four pictures back from the framer, all candidates for the fair!

"Catpack" and "Purrfect", to be entered as a set, framed pictures, any count:

"Sewing with Mama", to be entered in framed pictures, fourteen count (my husband says he likes this one best!):


and "Ornaments ala Round", to be entered in the Fair Theme Category, framed picture or wall hanging:


2. And I got those three Christmas tree ornaments finished up as flat folds, using coordinating green fabric from my quilting stash of fat quarters (Kona Cotton) for backing, some silver cord for hangers and some white gimp for covering the raw edges:




I might have gotten quite a bit more done but Monday through Thursday were lost causes, given that we had house guests to "entertain". So now it's time to catch up...

What is sitting in that pile of projects-to-do? Well, there's a Janet Parry "Mittens & Mini-Socks" piece called "Singular Carnation" (somehow, that title has me humming music form "A Chorus Line"!), a Janet Perry "Stash Buster", two more "Candy Cane Horses" and the inevitable "Kimono - Revisited" (the 13 parts for June haven't been touched, although I have read through the instructions), to say nothing of reading through the latest lessons in Janet Perry's "Stitch Guide" class. And, of course, on Tuesday there will be another TAST!  And with July 1 there will be another 13 parts of "Kimono - Revisited" and another Color Palette Challenge (which means another Crazy Quilt Journal and Bead Journal project piece as well!). Given that fair registration begins July 2, I suspect "Candy Cane Horses" will take precedence...

Two completions yesterday...

The first to be finished yesterday was the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge for week 24 - the buttonhole wheel:


The second was the Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project challenges block for June...
The color choices were based on the COlor Palette Challenge which used a photo of a Stargazer Lily: http://www.patchworktimes.com/2012/06/01/june-color-palette-challenge/ and http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/field_trips_in_fiber/2012/06/june-color-palette-challenge.html
The block grid is here: http://www.patchworktimes.com/2012/06/01/june-color-palette-challenge/  --- block 29 of "I dropped the Button Box" on Pin Tangle.

What is more, I even beaded on "Ornaments ala Round" --- 7 of the 20 ornaments that required beads were completed and an eighth started! Yippee! I WILL get it finished this weekend (blood work and a quilt guild meeting tonight mean there won't be much beading time today) and I MIGHT get it to the framers before our house guests arrive Monday (and my stitching time dissolves completely). Fair registration is July 2 - 16 so it has to be at the framers ASAP!

2012: A Year of Challenges - week 23

Yay --- I DID it! All the cross stitch in "Ornaments ala Round" are DONE!

Now --- metallic is next... Fair registration is between July 2 and July 16. That gives me something like three weeks to get this one done, right? Of course, there are several other projects calling out to be stitched: my Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal block, a stash buster from Janet Perry (yet to be kitted out), the Mini-Sock & Mitten from Janet Perry )also not kitted out), and "Kimono- Revisited", to say nothing of the weekly Take A Stitch Tuesday. So, can I put all these off and work only on "Ornaments"? Not at all sure...

Speaking of Take of Stitch Tuesday, week 23 was a "break" week with a mini-challenge to take any eight stitches from the previous 21 weeks and do some "eye candy". Not sure if this qualifies but it does include 13 stitches (from left to right: couched stitch, chevron, herringbone, Cretan, chain; a bouquet of flowers using detached chain, buttonhole, stem, satin and French Knot stitches;  running stitch, crossed buttonhole, and chained butterfly), all on "Desert Sky" 28-ct Linen::


To be honest, this is my second attempt --- my first was such a failure ( a true meltdown!), I ripped it all out and let it stew a day or two. But I accomplished it finally!

So today --- do I satisfy my conscience and do a little on "Kimono" and a little on my crazy quilt journal? Or do I start the metallics on "Ornaments"?

Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 22

Knotted Cretan Stitch! I figured it out but I was having tension issues with it. SO my knots appear a little wonky... more so than they appear here:


So here is the completed May "page" for TAST 2102:

Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 21

Butterfly Chain stitch --- I think I did it wrong. It LOOKS right, but I don't really see how this is anything like a twisted chain stitch... so I probably did it all wrong!

Shown next to last week's terrible bullion knots...

Can't wait to see what other participants do with their stitch studies --- they are all so much more creative than I with my simplistic bands.

Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 20

AAARGH! Bullion knots. Now I have done these before. And done them well. O so I thought. But these suck! They look sloppy and I struggled to figure out how it was done... COuld it be because I had my fabric in a hoop? Possible --- but... these are embarrassing! Nine measly little tiny knots...

So I disguised them --- added some free chains and stem stitch and a bow and made a bouquet!

I expect I won't be eager to see Bullion Knots in a chart in the near future... but because this little example is so small, I can at least go back and try some more half-chevrons!