Tast Week 9 Couching

dancing in the Dark

Above is my example of using couching for Tast 2012 week 9 together with my sketch.  I did not realise it would be so hard to photograph glittery threads.  If anyone can tell me how I would love to hear.

I have also put a picture of a previous work using couching on to Stitchingfingers. It is called Night Wave where there are some wonderful examples of stitching and lots of eye candy to look at. Pintangle is where you find all the news of the Tast (Take a Stitch Tuesday).

Originally I had another design, but DIL made a comment it was a bit stiff  for the word 'dancing' so I went back to square 1.  That original design was very abstract and will come in handy for another stitch in the future.  You never know next weeks stitch could be perfect for it.  i just have to think up another name.

The rain has disappeared now, and gone to the south, so have a thought for the poor souls there who are experiencing days and days of rain and flooding.   I am wondering whether Mother Nature is suffering from Dementia and memory loss and has forgotten how to turn off the taps for the rain.

She must be lost as well, because there are parts of the world that could really do with some decent rain.....maybe next year Mother Nature will sort herself out.

At present we here, are experiencing lovely autumn weather, warm, but with nice breezes....well at least they are coming in my back windows....

I wonder what next Tuesday will bring.  Have a nice weekend everyone.

Back to Memory Lane Monday

I know, I know not the damn reef pictures again!  but  since starting Tast again I have been looking at my Reef Embroideries, to see how I used some of the stitches, and realised that I did not have any of them here on this blog.  So thought I would go back to Down Memory Lane Monday and  include them.   Followers of my old  Twisted Threads blog will  recognise them.  There is one new one though ..called my latest.

buttonholes bullions, feather, wrapped bars bullions, knots and found objects.

 First of all I will start with different stitches that I used to create  depictions of the various life on the reef.  There is not a lot of variety in the stitches, just different ways of using them.

feather, buttonhole and cretan pistil stitches couching

feather and buttonhole, detached chain and knots

buttonhole stitches bullions and beads.

buttonhole, wrapped feather stitch, pistil stitch and cretan

sword stitch and wrapped bars silk ribbon knots

Wrapped  feather stitch, fly stitch.

feather stitch, fly stitch, cretan, buttonhole, knots and silk ribbon

Woven bars, couching, feather, fly, knots,  buttonhole

Many of the same stitches are used but in different ways, and with different threads a stitch can look very different.

Right hand end of large reef

Left end of large reef

Full Reef emb which I had as my header at one time.

Now other  Reef Embroideries from which the sample stitches are taken. 

My latest. It has a garden scene on one which is not finished so I did not show it yet.  I have called this Land and Sea

I hope it has been a pleasure to revisit these reef embroideries and stitches with me.

"Splash". Week 7 and 8 Tast and print on fabric

The last two weeks of Tast have been detached chain and running chain stitches.  I have combined these on a fabric page  I have called "Splash".  There have been so many wonderful examples worked once again for this weeks Tast but I think my favourite of all is one stitched by Luiz called Good morning Maharani.  Click on the link and have a look at his wonderful and creative stitching.   Also hop over to Sharons Pintangle and read more about the Tast adventure.

Some time ago I was playing with the Gimp programme and produced what are called nova circles.  Then I discovered these could be printed onto linen, however, I was unable to get the placement on the linen right and ended up with two overlapping pictures on the one piece of fabric, which has languished in a box ever since.

At the time I did print one correctly on the linen and turned it into my piece I called "Carnivale" 

This piece is called "Splash"  I again used a variety of threads and included some gold thread in the needle.   The 'scales' of the fish on the right are all detached chain, and the fish on the left is filled with running chain.

Here is a closer version as well.

The Nova circles look like bubbles to me.  Below  is  a photo below of the original piece of linen that I  printed with two overlapping designs.

For those who have not seen it here is a picture of "Carnivale"  firstly the greyed picture and the completed one.

This has actually photographed darker than it really is.

Carnivale

Tast Week 6 Chevron Stitch

Blogger also fooled me when I posted about my Chevron Stitch for week 6 of Tast and took me to my old blog for that as well, and somehow I just did not notice. If blogger was nice and would allow cut and past for the moderators, it would make life so easy in this case. Blogger (he, it has to be a male)  won't even let me go from one to the other without signing in and out and back and forth. ...

Anyway here is the picture of my week 6 Chevron stitch just to keep the record of my stitches all on the one blog here.   There are a lot of lovely samples of this stitch on Pintangle 

You can find more wonderful samples of all the stitches so far on Flicker

To me chevron stitch says smocking so that is why I have added a little piece of it here and appliqued it onto the page with some wild stitches.

The ric rac  round the border of the cream linen fabric is a piece I have had for years looking for a place to use it.   It has a white edging of fine needlelace which gives it a special appearance and makes a nice border inside the ric rac.

Stitch number 7 is detached chain, and  I am still working on that.  I am hoping that this weeks stitch will be one that I can add to the page to go with the detached chain.

My Garden

I did not notice that Blogger had taken me to my previous blog, so I have been typing merrily away on that one, and did a whole post about my plants.  However, The old blog can only be accessed by a few people, because I did not know how to add all my followers to the list of those who could.  I tried a copy and paste but blogger would not allow that.  The concept of simplicity does not seem to appeal to him....oops sorry Blogger I do like you I really do!!!!

So here I go again.   I have been missing in action for a bit because life has got in the way of blogging. Also there is a post missing from here that also went onto my old blog. I wanted to show my little garden of pots that have been flourishing after the rain.

The sage is flourishing

so is the thyme

the mint is precious, the best success I have had with it.

see the tiny capsicum

the tomatoes have begun to fruit.

the Day Lily has been flowering and adding colour to the patio.

There is a large gum tree near the fence in the park, and recently during hi winds one of the branches fell, just missing the fence.  I am lucky the wind did not carry it onto my roof or I would have had a lot of water damage to my poor computer.

It sheds a lot of leaves which are a pain to sweep up all the time.

I did contact the council, but evidently the parks and gardens man says the tree is sound, and besides it was here before the development.  With regard to the nuisance of the leaves he just told me I could  move it they were too much for me to sweep up....very good PR just before an election I reckon. It did not seem to bother him that a branch could fall on the bedroom while I was asleep....but then I suppose that is modern society.

At the moment I am working on my detached chain stitch, which I am going to couple with next weeks stitch, so will post about both of them then.

Tast 2012 Week 5 Herringbone

This week Sharon chose herringbone stitch for our challenge.  I have used this stitch many times on various crazy patchwork projects over the years.  It is a very useful and versatile stitch.  I am not that crazy about my efforts though  this week.

The colours were inspired by a piece of velvet in a velvet pack I had re gifted back to me from a friend who I  had given it to some time ago, so I cut out around one of the flowers and appliqued it on with the herringbone stitch in gold thread.

I have used a mix of plain and variegated threads, and stranded and heavier cottons.

I like the fact that this stitch can have other threads woven through it, and over it to create different patterns.

If anyone thinks it strange to have two lime green knots along a line of purple that was because of the variegated thread....it was a purple and lime but the lime part was not long enough or faded into enough to create a better look.

This is a not so good picture of the little velvet pack.  The 3 different colours will come in very handy I am sure.

Winners spoils

I received a wonderful parcel in the mail this week.   These lovely gifts from Penny's giveaway.  Thank you so much Penny   Hop over to Penny's blog and have a look at her wonderful photos

I just adore the little owl.  The doiley looks like it was hand made personally by someone.  i still use doileys I love the look of them, even though they have gone out of vogue a bit.  It is always a thrill to receive samples of the work of friends.

There was also a little hand made brooch, and a lovely hand made card.

I should have had the doiley on a darker background to show it up better.  My camera is not taking very good photos at the moment...have been fiddling too much and still can't get it right.