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...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Five

In the past week, there have been a few "completions"! 

The first, and biggest, is Kimono - Revisited which is now ready for the framers! 

The second was the weekly TAST - the open base needlewoven picot stitch. 

The third was the Hillcroft House "name shield" for my husband's birthday, also ready for the framer. 

And finally, there was my block for the color palette challenge - crazy quilt journal page challenge - bead journal project challenge for November! The grid was a modified version of block 12 for the "I Dropped the Button Box" quilt at Pin Tangle. It was constructed using fabric, lace, ribbon, beads and threads from my stash, ALL of which had been used at least once on previous blocks. And as always, the signature chain stitch and row of bead trim (although this time it was gold instead of crystal) were in this block. And I finally decided that, like all traditional crazy quilts, this block needed it's spider web and spider...

I am avoiding "Birds of a Feather" --- it's that the next speciality stitch is in metallic thread, not my favorite mesium to stitch with... But I will get back to it this weekend. I HAVE to! There no other WIP to procrastinate with!

A completion...

This is a Hillcroft House design --- a name shield based on interpretation of the meaning and origins of a name:

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Five

This week it was the Open-base Needle-woven Picot stitch --- not a whole lot different in execution from the previous week's Closed-base Needle-woven Picot stitch: A wider base is all, I think. Here is mine:

Kimono Revisited is Complete!

The finished piece is 15" X 18" on 24 ct. pale blue Congress cloth (24 ct), using various ThreadWorX, DMC (cotton, rayon *and* metallic) and Carrie's Creations (Black Cherry) threads and several shades of Kreinik #8 and #12 braid. The color scheme is called "Electric Blue" with the purple is my "spin" on the original thread collection. It was a Shining Needle Society on-line class from John Waddell which started last December 1, 2011.

Now to figure out how to finish it...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Four

This week, I caught up on the pale blue fan stitches in the border for "Birds of a Feather":

Completed the latest assignments of Color Trough the Ages and TAST 2012, picked fabrics for the November Color Palette Challenge:

and started on the last 13 sections of "Kimono - Revisited" (got three sections done in three hours!):

I also went shopping for a new project (a class online called "Stupendous Stitching") but failed miserably in my quest for basic supplies (Michaels has filled the store with Christmas "stuff" and nothing crafty can be found!). In addition, I signed up for next year's Crazy Quilt Journal Challenge (although I probably won't make it part of the Bead Journal Project this time), am seriously considering TAST 2013, and am talking with the administrators of the Bead Journal Project about being a "detail angel" next year... I also have a name shield project waiting for me from Stitcher's Village and a whole lot of pieces planned for next year's fair. Needless to say, even though I am caught up, I am digging that hole even deeper in terms of simultaneous projects! Oh my... will I ever get back to cross stitch?

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: