TAST - Crested Chain Stitch

Here's my TAST sample for Crested Chain stitch. This was another stitch that was new to me and once again I enjoyed building up the patterns.

Sharon, who has put together the challenge, has moved her blog to wordpress - I have updated the link here and in my blogroll but have not yet had a chance to change the link in earlier posts.

TAST - Cast on stitch

Here's a very small sample for the TAST challenge of Cast on stitch. This stitch was new to me and I enjoyed doing it but found it difficult to vary the size (though admittedly I only used one type of thread). However once I'd mastered looping the thread over my finger (I can never work out instructions for knots or paper folds), I found it easier than bullion stitch. I love the texture and the way it sits proud of the surface and know I will come back to it again.

TAST - Buttonhole Wheel

Here's my rather cursory sample for TAST's Buttonhole Wheel. I wasn't very inspired and haven't pushed it very far.

I'm having a minor crisis with my computer at the moment. Over the last few months my daughter has been happily downloading from I-Tunes and suddenly my hard disc is full and groaning under what's expected of it. In addition the slot in my printer for the camera's memory card has got damaged so I can't upload pictures that way. To do it direct to the computer involves installing more software on the computer and I fear that may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. So until I can sort out getting a new computer I will be using this one very gingerly! I've already spent the morning backing up files to CD just in case!

TAST - Arrowhead stitch

Here's my TAST sample for Arrowhead stitch. As well as arrows I seem to have ended up with tulips, more snowflakes, inadvertent cross stitches and noughts and crosses!

Chocolat Fabric

I went to a quilt shop last week and although I don't do either patchwork or quilting I couldn't resist buying this small tin full of 5 inch square pieces of fabric in these lovely muted colours in a range called Chocolat by Moda. I like to think I will use the fabric one day but the tin also contained a CD-Rom which had several pages of swatches showing the whole range of fabric. Of course I ended up printing off a few and using them to cover a matchbox, make a couple of ATCs and cover a card holder. And the fabric remains untouched!

This is the matchbox (it contained candle matches so is bigger than average), the picture is of my father as a baby with my grandmother and uncle, taken in 1922 I'd guess. Here's the card holder (originally packaging for sealing wax):

And the ATCs:

TAST - Long & Short stitch

Well, finally long and short stitch for Sharon's TAST - only a few weeks late! I've always been frightened of what I think of as real embroidery. I started out with needlepoint and cross stitch kits and they're easy because you have a hole for the needle and a pattern to follow whereas real embroidery involves deciding where to place your stitches, making them neat and even and is all together much trickier. This isn't the style of embroidery I want to achieve long term but I knew that being frightened of doing it was preventing me having a range of stitches at my disposal to get the look I do want. So when faced with long and short I realised that doing a small sample on aida fabric wasn't going to be enough so I pushed myself to complete a whole motif. I used a clip art image from Dover publications. The main sections are done in long and short and the ribs in the terracotta colour are stem stitch as is the border around the motif. So now I can get on with catching up on the other stitches!

Whilst mentioning Dover publications I don't know if people realise you can sign up for a Dover sampler - a weekly newsletter which provides links to copyright free clip art images which you can download for free. You get a few each week but over the couple of years that I have been collecting them I have built up a sizeable collection of images. They range from this shell to oriental images, art deco patterns, cute Victorian children, travel posters and even photos of film stars such as Cary Grant. I have used the images often in many different projects and find them invaluable.