Take it Further - January

This is my finished piece for Sharon's Take it Further challenge. Sharon challenged us to either use a theme or a colour scheme and I chose the colours. I sprayed a piece of cream fabric and some stitching canvas with Adirondack Colour Wash in Eggplant. It's not colourfast but is fine for a piece like this. I wrapped a couple of chenille pipe cleaners with fancy threads and stitched some Norwich stitches on the canvas. This is one of my favourite canvaswork stitches because it's such a lovely texture and makes a real focal point. The light green stuff that looks a bit like a feather is hand dyed silk carrier waste that I bought from Stef Francis (see previous post). I stitched it down with fly stitch and some beads and then rolled 2 very small pieces up and secured them with a ring of beads. The backing fabric is stapled to a small artist's canvas with the canvas strip stapled over the top. I like doing pieces like this and am pleased with the result.

Sushi brooch

I apologise for the quality of the photo, I have just spent an hour struggling with camera and computer and have not been able to come up with anything clearer than this so it will have to do. I think it's going to be hard for a photo to give you a real idea of what this looks like in any case.

Yesterday I went to a crafts exhibition at Exeter and was lucky enough to be able to attend a workshop by Stef Francis at which we made what she calls a sushi brooch using silk rod carriers. The class only cost £2 and was really good value for money - if only to find out that if you insert your nail down the side of the silk rod you can split it into 3 or 4 layers. We used 3 rods, split them into several pieces and then rolled them up to make flower shapes. We stitched through the centres to hold them together, added a few beads and sequins then threaded all 3 on a piece of ribbon and tied them together. Then we stitched a brooch pin to a small piece of felt and stitched that to the bottom of the flowers to make the piece into a brooch.

Stef had many of her stitched pieces on display on her stand and they were very inspiring and she was bedecked with brooches, necklace and bracelets she has made using the rods and also showed us some lovely little bags she has made with them. Very inspiring! Needless to say I had to buy a couple of packs of rods to play with further

TAST - Spanish Feather Stitch

Here is my final TAST sample for Spanish Feather Stitch. Ok, it's pretty pathetic, I don't know why Sharon had to give us a difficult stitch for the final week. I had trouble working out how to do it, and then trouble getting it to look even, and when I'd finally more or less got the hang of it, I couldn't be bothered to make much of an effort with it. Still, I have finished the TAST challenge. I have done all the stitches and it's only the 6th Jan so I'm less than a week behind in finishing it off. I haven't pushed the stitches particularly and I've tended to use aida fabric and pearl cotton for all of them, but it is still a useful reference to have and to begin to see the possibilities for each stitch. I have tackled many stitches I'd never heard of and really enjoyed a lot of them. I've even got better at French knots! I now have 2 A4 folders filled with plastic wallets containing the printed out instructions and my samples in alphabetical order (once a librarian, always a librarian!) so it is a very handy reference tool.

This is the first challenge I have participated in so I'm very grateful to Sharon for all her input and hard work. Her new challenge is called Take it Further, and although I'm signed up to it, I'm still pondering this. The challenge for January is two-fold: either someone you admire or a colour scheme of green and purple. I have started considering the colour scheme - not my usual choice of colours, but that is all to the good. I've been pulling some wools and other bits together and currently have purple fingers from spraying some canvas and fabric with purple ink!

TAST - Chained Bar stitch

Here is my TAST sample for Chained Bar stitch. Nice and easy and fun! I used the hairy knitting wool again at the top and a contrasting thread colour so the stitches would show up. Just one more to go!

Still Behind

Oh yes, still trying to catch up with everything. Just about managed to finish everything required for Christmas in time. I finished my Mum's scrapbook on Christmas morning as predicted but then I did add in one final pic of my daughter for a Xmas 2007 page so that had to wait till the last minute.


Still trying to catch up with TAST, but here's my Berry stitch sample. The top row used the stitch to couch down some fluffy knitting wool so that's why there are stray threads sticking out. The stitch makes lovely flowers with more texture to them than just plain detached chain. And it was nice and simple so I could cope with it in between everything else going on.

2 more stitches still to go - it's extremely unlikely I will get them done before Sharon's new Take it Further challenge starts on the 1st Jan. Never mind, by now I'm used to being behind.

A couple of weeks ago Sharon posted about slow cloth and slow craft - she was talking about the advantages of stitching and making by hand rather than using the machine all the time or products where much of the work is done for you. I identified with what she was saying for slightly different reasons in that I am just slow! I am constantly amazed at the rate of output of many of my fellow bloggers and wonder where on earth they find the time. Some of them may have more time available than I do, but many don't so my only conclusion is that they get on with it much faster! Faffing about describes me in so many ways! So I've been telling myself that it is not a competition, that it doesn't matter how much or how little I produce, it's the pleasure of the process that counts and not to get despondent. Mmm, still a way to go on that.

Behind, behind

Yes, I'm behind with everything - TAST, Christmas, shopping, cleaning - you name it, I'm behind with it. It wasn't helped by having to lie down with a migraine most of last weekend whilst my to do list got longer and longer. However, I do have 2 more TAST stitches done, only 3 more to go and then it's the end!


So, here's my Knotted Cable chain sample:

Nothing very exciting - although I liked the stitch I am definitely running out of steam now, so just did the bare minimum.

I managed a bit more with Pistil stitch, in spite of its including the dreaded French knot.

So, on to the last 3 stitches, which Sharon has already posted and then TAST will be over - I can't believe it's been a year. In the meantime I also have to complete a Christmas scrapbook which is to be my mother's main Christmas present and which isn't even half done at the moment! I won't be seeing her till Boxing Day so I might have to spend Christmas Day finishing it off. There's nothing like a bit of pressure!

I hope everyone else is more organised than I am!

Christmas .....

I've just finished making my Christmas cards - in the nick of time! Now I've just got to get them all written this weekend - no wonder I'm getting behind again with my TAST samples.