TAST - Knotted Buttonhole Band

I think this is a first for me - I have uploaded my TAST sample just in time before Sharon posts the next stitch. It's only taken me 9 months! I haven't done much with this stitch but I did enjoy it and like the crunchy texture. In the second column I didn't do wide enough bars to fit in two ladders but I like the look with one. On the third column I did the first ladder from top to bottom then turned the fabric round and did the second ladder from the bottom up which gave a nice diagonal to the stitch.

TAST - Rice Stitch

I have a new computer with a very flash, very big monitor and a very big hard disc so I shouldn't have to worry about lack of space for some time. The changeover went pretty smoothly though we had to rely on a lady in India to get the broadband connection working, and I don't think I've lost anything crucial in the process. Nevertheless there's still some stuff to sort out and it's taken me a few days to get even partly back on track.

Here's my TAST sample for Rice Stitch and thanks in particular to Elizabeth from Quieter Moments for inspiration when I was running out of ideas of what to do with this stitch. She always pushes a stitch much further than I do and I appreciate the ideas she gives me.

When I logged into Blogger just now to write this post I discovered BloggerPlay which is a slideshow of images being uploaded to Blogger in real time all round the world. I've got it as a minimised window in the corner of my screen and it's quite intriguing seeing the remarkable range of images that people are posting (I haven't seen mine come up but someone is blogging about knitting!). I can see this could become yet another time waster - check it out here http://play.blogger.com/

TAST - Cable Chain Stitch

Here's my sample for Cable chain stitch for TAST.
I liked the safety pins!

This morning my brother is coming to bring me my new computer and set it all up for me and also hopefully my wireless connection so my daughter can access broadband on her new laptop. The whole process has been fraught with problems so far so when I asked my brother if I needed to do anything in advance he said 'cross your fingers and pray'. So he's no more confident than I am! I'm quickly blogging this in case it's the last one I can do for some time. Even if it works I will be trying to get to grips with Vista, wireless and trying to find files, favourites and e-mails ( or will they have been lost forever.....)
So, I have my fingers crossed!

Fabric Postcards

I'm still using up the vilene and aida that I painted red and the gold foil from the Magnum ice cream wrapper, so I've made a fabric postcard. I also sprayed some ricrac red to match (I've still got pink fingers). When I started out I had thought to do more stitching on it but when it comes down to it I'm never very comfortable with the heavily embellished look (though I love it in other people's work), so I've left it with just a bit of arrowhead, sheaf and French knots. I've still got some vilene left so I will make a few charms next to use it up.



This is a postcard I made a while ago, heavily influenced by Beryl Taylor's marvellous book 'Mixed Media Explorations'. The diamond patterned piece in the top right is actually a very pretty decorated paper to which I added some stitching and beading and the tags are also paper. The streaky background is silver foil.

TAST - Shisha

Here are my shisha mirrors for the TAST challenge. The blue one was my first attempt and is a bit raggedy. Both the orange and green ones I had to do twice as the first time the mirror was in danger of falling out. I realised that for me I had to do the foundation stitches close to the centre of the mirror to make the stitches deep enough to anchor the mirror. I love the look of shisha on embroideries so am pleased to be able to do this.

ATC

I painted some vilene the other day so I made some of it into an ATC. I also sprayed some aida fabric to match and the gold foil comes from a Magnum ice cream wrapper (the capuccino variety, some of the others only have boring white on the inside!). I added a few fly and chevron stitches and some adhesive gems to add to the sparkle.

TAST - Scroll stitch and Portuguese Stem stitch

Here are two samples for Sharon's TAST challenge. The first is Scroll stitch and I'm a bit disappointed with this because whereas Sharon's stitches looked nice and big and juicy mine seemed rather pinched and meagre. I'm not sure why as I was using perle thread rather than stranded cotton.

I was similarly not too keen on the results I got with Portuguese stem stitch so I didn't do very much with this one either. Never mind, on to the next stitch!